Arlington Housing Prices- Out of Reach

Arlington Housing Prices are Out of Reach

Arlington is an Economically Diverse Place

Housing & Arlington: Community Discussions

Written by Guest Writer December 21, 2020

It’s Town Meeting Time Again

It’s January 2023, and as we do every year, folks in Arlington are taking out nomination papers, gathering signatures, and strategizing on how to campaign for the town election on Saturday April 1st. The town election is where we choose members of Arlington’s governing institutions, including the Select Board (Arlington’s executive branch), the School Committee, and — most relevantly for this post — Town Meeting.

If you’re new to New England, Town Meeting is an institution you may not have heard of, but it’s basically the town’s Legislative Branch. Town Meeting consists of 12 members from each of 21 Precincts, for 252 members total. Members serve three-year terms, with one-third of the seats up for election in any year, so that each precinct elects four representatives per year (perhaps with an extra seat or two, as needed to fill vacancies). For a deeper dive, Envision Arlington’s ABC’s of Arlington Government gives a great overview of Arlington’s government structure.

As our legislative branch, town meeting’s powers and responsibilities include:

Passing the Town’s Operating Budget, which details planned expenses for the next year.
Approving the town’s Capital Budget, which includes vehicle and equipment purchases, playgrounds, and town facilities.
Bylaw changes. Town meeting is the only body that can amend the towns bylaws, including ones that affect housing and commercial development.

Town Meeting is an excellent opportunity to serve your community, and to learn about how Arlington and its municipal government works. Any registered voter is eligible to run. If this sounds like an interesting prospect, I’d encourage you to run as a candidate. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

Have a look at the town’s Information for new and Prospective Town Meeting Members.
Contact the Town Clerk’s office to get a set of nomination papers. You’ll need to do this by 5:00 PM February 8th, 2023 at the latest.
Gather signatures. You’ll need signatures from at least ten registered voters in your precinct to get on the ballot (it’s always good to get a few extra signatures, to be safe).
Return your signed nomination papers to the Clerk’s office by February 10, 2023 at noon.
Campaign! Get a map and voter list for your precinct, knock on doors, and introduce yourself. (Having a flier to distribute is also helpful.)
Vote on Saturday April 1st, and wait for the results.

Town Meeting traditionally meets every Monday and Wednesday, from 8:00 — 11:00 pm, starting on the 4th Monday in April (which is April 24th this year), and lasting until the year’s business is concluded (typically a few weeks).

If you’d like to connect with an experienced Town Meeting Member about the logistics of campaigning, or the reality of serving at Town Meeting, please email info(AT)equitable-arlington.org and I’d be happy to make an introduction.

During the past few years, Town Meeting was our pathway to legalizing accessory dwelling units, reducing minimum parking requirements, and loosening restrictions on mixed-use development in Arlington’s business districts. Aside from being a rewarding experience, it’s a way to make a difference!

Written by Steve Revilak January 25, 2023

Affordable housing in Fullerton, CA. 83 units per acre.

Myths & Facts About Affordable Housing & Density

Written by Barbara Thornton February 10, 2020

The 1988 Fair Housing Report

I recently came across a report from Arlington’s Department of Planning and Community Development, titled “Overview of Affordable Housing Challenges and Opportunities”. The report begins:

Greater Boston’s revitalization is provoking an unexpectedly severe housing challenge in Arlington. Throughout eastern Massachusetts, growth in regional demand has caused housing prices to soar. Additionally, Arlington’s neighborhood stability and recently improved accessibility makes the town particularly attractive. While this is an initial boon for property owners, it harms others.
The surge in demand and resulting tight housing market have restricted residential choice, currently locking many households into existing living situations, even as they enter new lifestages and their needs change. Although all income levels and types of households are affected, these changes tend to hit tenants harder than homeowners especially the elderly, the poor, young singles, along with growing families, minority groups, and those with special housing needs.

This report was commissioned for Arlington’s Fair Housing Committee, and presented to them in February 1988. Despite being written 32 years ago, it’s quite descriptive of the housing challenges facing Metro-Boston — and Arlington — today. These challenges include rising home prices, conversion of rental properties into condominiums, the phenomenon of being “house rich and cash poor”, pressures of speculation, and insufficient new housing production.

Figure F from the report provides a summary of what was required to purchase a median-value home in Arlington. I’ve reproduced the table here, with a few small adaptations.

	1970	1980	1986
median value	$30,000	$62,700	$169,000
20% downpayment	$6,000	$12,540	$33,800
Mortgage	$24,000	$50,160	$135,200
Interest	8.25%	13%	12%
Monthly Principal & Interest	$180.29	$559.95	$1391.21
Monthly Real estate taxes	$75.00	$110.00	$140.00
Total monthly cost	$255.59	$669.95	$1531.21
Annual income required	$10,491	$28,780	$65,623

Here’s the same table, where all values are converted to 2020 dollars [1], and where I’ve added a column for 2020 [2].

	1970	1980	1986	2020
median value	$204,739	$207,902	$397,784	$771,900
20% downpayment	$40,948	$41,580	$79,557	$154,380
Mortgage	$163,791	$166,322	$318,227	$617,520
Interest	8.25%	13%	12%	3.25%
Monthly Principal & Interest	$1,230	$1,857	$3,275	$2,687
Monthly Real estate taxes	$511	$365	$330	$711
Total monthly cost	$1,741	$2,222	$3,605	$3,398
Annual income required	$71,597	$95,429	$154,460	$135,920

This is an interesting comparison. Buying a house in Arlington today is actually less expensive than it was in 1986 (i.e., the annual income requirement is 12% less), but this is predominantly due to today’s lower interest rates. That said, the income threshold is significantly higher than it was in 1980 or 1970. (The report’s introduction refers to 1970’s home prices as belonging to a “bygone era”.)

What solutions were proposed in 1988? The ideas put forward included transfer taxes, accessory apartments (aka accessory dwelling units or ADUs), and encouraging models for cooperative ownership. While I’m unsure of what may have been done to encourage cooperative ownership, I’m pretty certain that the transfer tax and ADU options were never implemented. At the very least, they’re not a part of today’s bylaws.

Between 1975 and 1991, Arlington’s Town Meeting voted in favor of a series of downzonings, and I believe the general sentiment during this period was one of anti-growth/anti-development. Apparently we studied the town’s changing demographics and increasing cost of housing, recognized there was was a problem, but never acted on the recommendations.

Two of the ideas for mitigating housing cost have come back in recent years. Accessory dwelling units were proposed in the 2019 town meeting (Article 15), but defeated by a vote of 137–82 (zoning articles require a 2/3’s supermajority to pass; although the majority voted in favor, that wasn’t enough). The 2020 town meeting may have the opportunity to consider a new ADU article (Article 37), along with the establishment of a real estate transfer fee (Article 20).

Here is a copy of the 1988 report to the Fair Housing Commission.

Footnotes

[1] Inflation adjustments derived from https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

[2] The 2020 median value is the median value of Arlington single-family homes, based on 2020 property assessments. The 2020 tax rate is $11.06/mil.

Fair Housing

Written by Steve Revilak September 20, 2020

Real Estate Transfer Tax Funds for Affordable Housing

Written by Guest Writer September 9, 2019

The Gentrification of Arlington

(Comments presented to the Arlington Redevelopment Board and Select Board during a public hearing on Jan 13, 2020)

Steve Revilak, 111 Sunnyside Ave. In the interest of disclosure, I live in market rate housing that was built by a developer. Among Arlington residents, I’m not unusual in that regard.

At the end of December, a friend sent me an article that appeared on Redfin’s blog, which ranked the most competitive real estate markets in 2019. Out of 20 listings, three were neighborhoods in Arlington: East Arlington at #3, the Brattle Street Area at #5, and Arlington Center at #12. This is only one data point, but Redfin is a national realtor and works in markets all across the country. Arlington is a desirable place to live.

Housing costs have steadily increased over the last 20 years, modulo a brief reset during the economic recession of 2008. For example, the prior owner of my house purchased it for $151,000 is 1999. I purchased it for $359,000 in 2007 (when it was assessed at $287k). Today, it’s assessed at $501k, which is consistent with similar home sales from 2018.

The net effect: each year a new family moves to town, they have to have a more money (or be willing to spend more on housing) than a family who moved in the year before. With that in mind, I’d like to cite a few figures from the 2019 Town Survey:

Question 37: Indicate the number of years lived in Arlington. 59% of respondents indicated 15 years or less. Nearly 30% indicated five years or less. Despite the prices, people still move here.
Question 40: What was your annual household income in 2018. The most common response was “more than $200,000”, with over 28% answering that way. Nearly 71% of respondents indicated earning $100,000/year or more. Arlington’s median income is likely higher than HUD’s AMI for the Metro Boston area.
Question 41: What is the highest level of educated completed by a member of your household. Over 73% indicated having a masters degree or higher.

I don’t mean to knock people who’ve lived here 15 or fewer years, have advanced degrees, or have household earnings of $200,000 or more per year. I check every single one of those boxes myself. But I do want to point out that we are a highly educated and affluent community. Put another way, we have a population that matches the cost of our housing.

Twenty years of gentrification haven’t killed us: we’ve expanded town staff and services, we’re renovating public buildings, and we’re getting a new high school. Those are all good things, made possible because residents have the money to pay for them, and have been willing to do so.

We can absolutely keep the status quo we’ve had, but I want to recognize that the combination of the housing market and Arlington’s policies have created an economic barrier to living here. I see two issues: one is affordability, and the other is an imbalance between supply and demand.

There are a variety of things we could do, and I think we should consider all of them. I don’t see a viable way to relieve housing pressure that doesn’t involve more housing. And that’s what I hope we can do over the coming years: find ways to build more housing.

gentrification housing affordability

Written by Steve Revilak January 28, 2020

What Can Arlington Learn from Lexington’s MBTA Communities Zoning?

by Andy Greenspon

Image credit: Henry Hudson Kitson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In 2023, Lexington was one of the first towns to comply with the State “MBTA Communities” law (MBTA-C) by adding 227 acres to several multifamily overlay zones. When discussing this proposal, it was estimated to possibly generate 400-800 units in 4-10 years. However, after receiving building permit applications for about 1,100 units in the first year (including 160 inclusionary affordable units), Lexington passed Article 2 at a Special Town Meeting recently, which decreased the amount of land in these zones to approximately 90 acres. What can Arlington learn from Lexington’s experience?

Overall, Lexington’s experience shows us that developers are willing and able to build multifamily housing on large lots that aren’t very built up, and that MBTA-C can be successful in adding new housing in some circumstances. However, Arlington has few if any large, sparsely-built parcels zoned to allow multifamily housing under MBTA-C. As such, Arlington is unlikely to add significant amounts of new housing or affordable housing as a result of the MBTA-C overlay passed at Town Meeting in fall of 2023.

Parcel Size and Existing Buildings

Many of the parcels in Lexington’s MBTA-C zone are multiple acres each, are underutilized, and contain older office space. In contrast, Arlington’s MBTA-C parcels are much smaller and mostly covered with existing buildings, typically residential.

The largest development approved under MBTA-C so far in Lexington is at 3-5 Militia Drive. This land is three very large parcels containing a couple older office buildings, a previous religious institution, and giant surface parking lots. Therefore, such a property was already primed for redevelopment and the large lots allowed for 292 units to be approved. These parcels are also within walking distance of Lexington Town Center and the Minuteman Bike path, so multi-family housing on this location is a great use.

In contrast, there are no similar parcels in Arlington in the MBTA-C zone with large surface parking lots and aged office space that could be redeveloped in such a manner. One of the few parcels in Arlington that is somewhat similar to the planned parcels for redevelopment in Lexington would be the Walgreens at 324 Massachusetts Ave, 1.5 acres with a surface parking lot. However, this parcel was specifically excluded from the MBTA-C overlay along with all other business parcels to avoid displacing any existing business space. And the parcel is unlikely to be redeveloped one way or another unless Walgreens chooses to close their business and sell the parcel to a developer.

In short, compared to Lexington, Arlington is “built out” insofar as almost every parcel is utilized in some manner with high lot coverage. The original Lexington MBTA-C zone contained many parcels with low lot coverage, large surface parking lots, and underutilized office space, all attributes that make such parcels more likely to be sold to a developer to construct housing if permitted by zoning.

Last, while 1,100 units have been permitted so far, this does not mean all these units will be constructed given current financial uncertainty in the economy and high interest rates. It will also take several years for these properties to be completed and prepared for occupancy. As such, the original estimate of 400-800 units in 4-10 years (an estimate that actually widely ranges from 40 units all the way to 200 units per year) may in fact not be that far off from the final numbers once buildings are completed. The parcels most primed for redevelopment were acquired and permitted first. Finally, it is not entirely clear how many more parcels would have been redeveloped in the next 5-10 years had the Lexington MBTA-C zoning not been reduced in size.

Development Potential in Arlington

Most privately owned lots in Arlington are less than ⅓ of an acre with many much smaller, significantly limiting the amount of new housing development on any single parcel. Almost all of these lots are covered by existing buildings, and some of those buildings are condominiums. Therefore, in order for a large new construction project to occur on such parcels in Arlington’s MBTA-C multifamily zone, all of the following would have to take place:

a single owner would have to take control of multiple lots and/or condominiums, meaning that
multiple existing property owners would have to want to sell at the same time, or else the new owner would have to take the time and risk to assemble the property slowly, and
the new proposed development would have to be large and profitable enough to make up for the combined purchase prices of all the properties acquired.

Meanwhile, properties in Arlington generally turn over at a fairly slow and steady pace. This is in contrast to underused large commercial properties, whose owners are more eager to sell.

With simulation modeling performed on potential rate of redevelopment, the Arlington Redevelopment Board’s 2023 Report to Town Meeting on the MBTA-C proposal projected that 15–45 parcels could be redeveloped over the next ten years, for a net increase of 50–200 new units or 5–20 per year, far fewer than even the initial Lexington housing unit construction estimates at the time of passage of their initial MBTA-C zoning.

In fact, Arlington has seen even less than the low end estimate of 5 units per year so far since our MBTA-C zoning became effective. Only a single project has been permitted so far, which would turn an existing 2-unit building into 4 units, a potential net gain of 2 housing units.

Lessons

There is strong regional demand for housing including for multifamily units.
Developers are currently willing and able to build when lots are available, are zoned multifamily, and aren’t already full of other buildings.
Arlington can’t expect anywhere near as many new units with our current zoning as Lexington saw, because our MBTA-C multifamily zones are almost exclusively made up of smaller and built-up lots.
As a result, Arlington’s current zoning won’t add much housing or affordable housing to our community, and won’t noticeably increase our tax base either.

MBTA Communities

Written by Guest Writer March 25, 2025