This infographic demonstrates in data and graphs why Arlington needs more housing.
Related articles
According to a Nov. 26, 2019 Boston GLOBE editorial, there are four tasks necessary to ease the housing crisis in the Greater Boston Region:
- Champion housing production and affordability at the state level.
- Urge private-sector investment in housing solutions.
- Drive inclusive growth.
- Get more involved locally.
This editorial by Paul S. Grogan, president and CEO of the Boston Foundation and Arlington resident, Karen E. Kelleher, executive director of LISC Boston, explain these four tasks. They also describe how much other, comparable urban areas around the US are doing to solve similar housing problems. We are not keeping up with solutions. It will take a collective effort. “Next Level Housing Solutions” is a collaboration of concerned organizations and community leaders intended to move the region toward housing solutions.
Join the Conversation. Click here to join the Next Level Housing Solutions conversation. This just means you will receive information and event updates.
What a turnout! Equitable Arlington, joined by Mothers Out Front and other Arlington organizations, showed up strong in support of the MBTA Communities plan. Sign-holders stretched along the street for the full length of Town Hall on Monday, October 23, for an hour before Town Meeting. In some cases people were stacked two deep!
Everyone’s spirits were high throughout the rally. Passers by honked their horns in support.
And State Senator Cindy Friedman even came by to reinforce her support for the measure!
Huge thanks to everyone who showed up for Arlington on Monday night!
Seattle finds new tools to preserve neighborhood character in the Pike / Pine Corridor of the city. Arlington has its own neighborhood districts that are now being re-thought with new planning for the neighborhoods’ future. These include the Broadway Corridor, the Mass Ave. Transit Corridor and Arlington Heights.
The tools here include samples for what Arlington might do, “overlay District”, Transfer of Development Potential (TDP). A TDP provides incentives
for property owners to keep existing “character structures” rather than tear them down. A Conservation Core was also established within the district to further ensure that new development is more compatible with the special scale and character of existing development in this area. They also prepared Design Guidelines, Zoning Ordinance, Environmental Review Checklist, Cultural Overlay District, “Center Village” Plan, Inventory of Historic Resources, etc.
Interview with Aaron Clausen, AICP; City of Beverly, Director, Planning and Community Development
Rather than express generalized worry about the “lack of affordable housing”, Peabody, Salem and Beverly have created an intermunicipal Memorandum of Mnderstanding (MOU) to very specifically define and target the problem and the population they want to address.
According to Aaron Clausen, “There is a fair amount of context that goes along with the MOU, but primarily the communities got together as sort of a coalition to survey and understand what was going on relative to homelessness. What came out of that is a recognition that there is not enough affordable housing generally, and particularly transitional housing, or more specifically permanent supportive housing.
“Salem and Beverly both have shelters, however the shelters were basically serving as permanent housing (and running out of space). That won’t help someone into a stable housing situation. Anyway, this was the agreement (attached MOU) and the good news is that it has resulted in affordable housing projects; one is done in Salem for individuals and Beverly has a 75 unit family housing project permitted and seeking funding that has a set aside for families either homeless or in danger of becoming homeless.
“There is also a redevelopment of a YMCA in downtown Beverly that will increase the number of Single Room Occupancy units. I wouldn’t say that the MOU got it done by itself but it helps demonstrate a regional approach. ”
To see the actual Memorandum of Understanding between these three municipalities to address affordable housing, particularly for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, click HERE.
A large part of the debate about the proposed Zoning issues in Arlington revolves around a perspective of Arlington’s culture and how best to maintain it. Can we freeze in time the small, less expensive homes in our R1 & R2 districts? Can we continue to provide low cost rental housing to people in the R4 to R7 districts, housing that is now quite old and is below market rent because it has not been adequately maintained? Or can we reach a consensus about what we most value in Arlington’s culture and set a path to ensuring its preservation for the future?
In 2015 Arlington Town Meeting voted to approve the Master Plan which contained the following set of housing related values and goals for the future of Arlington:
- Encourage mixed-use development that includes affordable housing, primarily in well-established commercial areas.
- Provide a variety of housing options for a range of incomes, ages, family sizes, and needs.
- Preserve the “streetcar suburb” character of Arlington’s residential neighborhoods.
- Encourage sustainable construction and renovation of new and existing structures
The Zoning Articles proposed for the 2019 town meeting represent four years of study, reflection and community dialogue. They are precisely intended to further the values and goals that the 2015 Town Meeting voted for.
Our Culture
Arlington has long been a community that cherishes its diversity of housing types and its diversity of income ranges. In recent years, with the regional pressure on land values as more people want to live in good school districts, with good transportation, near their jobs, the pressure on Arlington property values has been extreme. According to the Town’s Master Plan, Arlington does have a more diverse housing stock than most neighboring communities. The type, density and population varies by neighborhood (see Master Plan Ch. 5, Housing Excerpt). Most cities and towns around Arlington experienced a significant rise in housing values from 2000 to 2010. A 40 percent increase in the median value was fairly common. However, Arlington experienced more dramatic growth in housing values than any community in the immediate area, except Somerville. In fact, Arlington’s home values almost doubled.
Tools to Maintain Diversity of Housing
Articles 15 & 16 are two very important “tools” to meet the goals of preserving our diversity of housing.
Over 60% of Arlington’s housing units were built before 1950. Many of those units that we think of now as “affordable” will be needing major renovation or tear down and rebuild in the next few years. Private developers can come in now, buy the buildings and rebuild for market rate (think Boston prices) units. Article 16 gives the town control over these rebuilds, encouraging more housing and more “permanent” affordability.
Article 15, allows Accessory Dwelling Units (“granny units”) after a public hearing and under specific conditions. This will open the town to many lower priced living spaces for students, seniors, etc. throughout the Town.
Arlington values its culture of diversity in housing styles and incomes. Given the pressure regionally for people to find housing in good communities, and bring larger incomes to pay for that housing, Arlington risks losing its culture if the Town does not act NOW to protect it by approving these zoning articles.
Massachusetts is experiencing a housing affordability crisis and a climate crisis. For these reasons, Mothers Out Front Arlington supports changes in zoning by-laws that allow greater density in housing near public transit. Mothers Out Front is supportive of the passage of a meaningful MBTA Communities Act that encourages the development of more multi-family housing and a greater diversity of home types in Arlington. A revised zoning by-law to allow for more multi-family housing will reduce pressure to build single family homes on undeveloped land elsewhere in Massachusetts. This safeguards undisturbed ecosystems and provides real alternatives to automotive commutes in the region, reducing both congestion and fossil fuel emissions. In addition, passing this by-law will allow Arlington to participate in the Massachusetts pilot for communities to build fossil fuel-free homes, thus ensuring that new construction in Arlington supports our net-zero climate goals.
Mothers Out Front Arlington respects the public engagement activities that inform the Working Group’s MBTA Communities Act proposal. We appreciate that the Working Group is working with the Town to identify opportunities for developer incentives to encourage public open spaces, mitigate heat islands, and increase the tree canopy. Similarly, the Town’s commitment to maintaining current (and incentivizing higher) zoning requirements for affordable housing also is important to our group. For these reasons, Mothers Out Front Arlington strongly urges the Arlington Redevelopment Board to accept the MBTA Communities Act plan as proposed by the Working Group.
Beginning last July, 2020, the Town of Arlington and community groups in the town are sponsoring a number of webinars and zoom conversations addressing the need for affordable housing programs in Arlington. Several factors contribute to the Arlington housing situation: diversity of housing types, prices, diversity of incomes, availability of housing subsidies, rapid growth in property values that greatly exceed the rate of growth of income.
But racism, both historic and current, continues to stand out as a significant force contributing to the difficult housing situation.
One of the first public discussion in the Town on this subject was organized by Arlington Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on July 8, 2020. View it here:
Article 16 is a proposal to encourage the production of affordable housing in the town of Arlington. I brought this article to town meeting for several reasons, namely, our increasing cost of housing and our increasing cost of land. Arlington is part of the Metropolitan Boston area; we share borders with Cambridge, Somerville, and Medford, and are a mere 5.5 miles from Boston itself. Years ago, people moved out of cities and into the suburbs. That trend has reversed during the last decade, and people are moving back to urban areas, including Metro-Boston. Metro-Boston is a good source of jobs; people come here to work and want to live nearby. That obviously puts pressure on housing prices, and Arlington is not immune from that pressure.
Another reason for proposing Article 16 was my desire to start a conversation about the role our zoning laws play in the cost of housing, and how they might be used to relieve some of that burden. During the 20th century people discovered that one cannot draw a line on a map and say “upper-class households on this side, lower-class households on that side”, but one can draw a line on a map and say “single-family homes on this side, and apartments on that side”. For all practical purposes, the latter achieves the same result as the former. When zoning places a threshold on the cost of housing, it determines who can and cannot afford to live in a given area.
Today 70% of Arlington’s land is exclusively zoned for single family homes, the predominant form of housing in town. In 2013, the median cost of a single-family home was $472,850; this rose to $618,800 in 2018 — an increase of 31%. We can break this down further. The median building cost for a single-family building rose from $226,300 in 2013 to $248,100 in 2018 (an increase of 9.6%), and the median cost for a single-family lot rose from $243,700 to $360,900 (an increase of 48%). Land is a large component of our housing costs, and it continues to rise. Certain neighborhoods (e.g., Kelwyn Manor) saw substantial increases in land assessments in 2019, enough that the Assessor’s office issued a statement to explain the property tax increases. To that end, multifamily housing is a straightforward way to reduce the land costs associated with housing. Putting two units on a lot instead of one decreases the land cost by 50% for each unit.
Article 16 tries to encourage the production of affordable housing (restricted to 60% of the area median income for rentable units and 70% for owner-occupied units). It works as follows:
- Projects of six or more units must make 15% of those units affordable. This is part of our existing bylaws.
- Projects of twenty or more units must make 20% of those units affordable. This is a new provision in Article 16.
- Projects of six or more units that produce more than the required number of affordable units will be eligible for density bonuses, according to the proposed section 8.2.4(C). Essentially, this allows a developer to build a larger building, in exchange for creating more affordable housing.
- Projects of six or more units that produce only the required number of affordable units are not eligible for the density bonuses contained in 8.2.4(C).
- Projects of 4-5 units will be eligible for the density bonuses in section 8.2.4(C), as long as they are of a use, and in a zone contained in those tables. This provision is intended to permit smaller apartments and townhouses, filling a need for residents who don’t necessarily want (or may not be able to afford) a single-family home. This provision can help reduce land costs by allowing a four-unit townhouse in place of a duplex, for example.
Historically, Arlington has had mixed results with affordable housing production, mainly due to the limited opportunity to build projects of six units or more. It is my hope that the density bonuses allow more of these projects to be built.
In conclusion, the problem of housing affordability in Arlington comes from a variety of pressures, is several years in the making, and will likely take years to address. I see Article 16 as the first step down a long road, and I ask for your support during the 2019 Town Meeting. I’d also ask for your support on articles 6, 7, and 8 which contain minor changes to make Article 16 work properly.