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In the 1930’s the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation of America (HOLC) created actuarial maps of the United states. These maps were color coded — Green, Blue, Yellow, and Red — to reflect the amount of “risk” associated with home loans in those areas. The colors corresponded to “Best” (green), “Still Desirable” (blue), “Definitely Declining” (yellow), and “Hazardous” (red). Being in a green area made you likely to secure a federally-insured home mortgage, something that was effectively unavailable to red areas. Red areas were often associated with black populations, and these maps are where the term “redlining” comes from.
Here’s an HOLC map of Arlington, courtesy of the University of Richmond’s mapping inequality project.
Note that Arlington does not have any “Hazardous” (red) areas; 68% of the town fell into the top two grades, meaning that we were generally a safe bet as far as federal mortgage insurers were concerned. To the extent that the HOLC preferred white communities, Arlington seems to have fit the bill. According to US census data.
- 1930: population 36,094. No breakdown by race.
- 1940: population 40,013. 99.8% white.
- 1950: population 44,353. No breakdown by race.
- 1960: population 49,953. 99.7% white.
- 1970: population 53,524. 99.0% white.
- 1980: population 48,219. 97.3% white.
Today, Arlington is about 84% white. But during the time that mortgage approvals were based on the HOLC maps — the mid 1930’s through the mid 1960’s — we certainly qualified as an overwhelmingly (> 99%) white community.
Arlington had four yellow-lined (“definitely declining”) areas; about 32% of the town. C1 (on the western edge of town) was noted for an “infiltration of Jews”, a “heavy concentration of relief families”, and hilly terrain which was “not conducive to good development”. But it had good schools and a nice area along Appleton St. C2 (along Mass Ave and Mill Brook) was noted for “obsolescence” with “business and housing mixed together” and “railroad tracks through [the] neighborhood”. There was an infiltration of lower-class people, a moderate number of relief families, and “little possibility of conversion of properties to business use”.
C3 (East Arlington, around the present location Thompson School and Menotomy Manor) was noted for “Obsolescence, poor reputations” and “foreign concentration”. There was an “infiltration of foreign [residents]” and a “heavy concentration of relief families”. On the positive side, there were “a few small farms in this section of high grade development of the ground [which] may be anticipated in the early future with modest houses”.
Finally, C4 (around Spy Pond, and near the Alewife T station) was “obsolescent”, with an infiltration of foreign families, and a moderately heavy concentration of relief families. The HOLC noted that “Houses East of Varnum Street [and] south of Herbert Road are built on low ground and many have damp basements which makes them difficult to keep occupied”.
That’s what the HOLC saw as the declining side of Arlington: Jews, foreigners (mostly Italian), relief families, obsolescence, damp basements, and proximity to the Boston-Maine railroad.
Exercise for the reader. Arlington has five public housing projects: Drake Village, Winslow Towers, Chestnut Manor, Cusack Terrace, and Menotomy Manor. What HOLC colors are associated with our public housing?
Buildings last for decades, and effects of the HOLC’s underwriting policies are still with us today — sometimes in unexpected ways. A 2020 paper called “The Effects of Historical Housing Policies on Resident Exposure to Intra-Urban Heat: A Study of 108 US Urban Areas” examined 108 communities, and tried to determine if there was a relationship between redlined areas and urban heat islands. Nationwide, this is what they found:
LST stands for “land surface temperature” and shows how different HOLC risk categories compare to the overall temperature of a region. Green areas tend to be cooler, with less paved surface, more extensive tree canopies, and buildings with reflective exteriors. Red areas are warmer with more paved surfaces, less tree canopy, and building exteriors that absorb and release heat (e.g., brick and cinderblocks). While the degree varies across different parts of the country, the general trend is the same: as one goes from green to red, the surface temperature goes up. Formerly-redlined areas are far more likely to contain heat islands.
Exercise for the reader. Are there heat islands in Arlington? What (HOLC) color are they?
As the global temperature warms, Arlington (like many other communities) will have to contend with heat islands. The treatment is likely to be area-specific, following patterns laid out in the HOLC’s maps from the early-20th century.
A new report for Boston Indicators, “Exclusionary by Design”, shows the clear intent of many Greater Boston suburbs to resist racial and class integration in the 1970s. Housing scholar Amy Dain demonstrates how racial prejudice and class exclusion figured into suburbs’ downzoning in the 1970s; and how putatively legitimate concerns like tax revenue, aesthetic continuity, and the environment served the cause of exclusion.
Read the “Exclusionary by Design” report, and see the accompanying 1-hour webinar with Amy Dain, Luc Shuster of Boston Indicators and Ted Landsmark of Northeastern University.
“This research finds widespread evidence that over the past 100 years, zoning has been used by cities and towns across Greater Boston as a tool for excluding certain groups of people, including:
- Racial minorities, especially Black residents
- Lower-income and working-class residents
- Families with school-aged children• Religious minorities
- Immigrants
- And, in some cases, any newcomers/outsiders at all”
Low Diversity is No Accident
In the 1970s, municipalities were ordered by state law to create Growth Policy Statements – but with no mandate that communities actually endorse growth nor inclusion. Exclusionary language in these statements was seemingly anodyne, seeking to preserve the “present characteristics of their communities” or “socio-economic status“. In several cases the fear of integration was quite apparent: Milton’s statement referred to problems in “surrounding communities” (ie Mattapan and Dorchester) and “breakdown of society”; both Milton and Melrose make mention of the pressures caused by people “moving out of Boston”. Belmont’s plan explicitly calls for the town to stay “relatively expensive … [so as to] attract only those families so economically situated.”
The intent of such language was not somehow lost on people in that era. Needham’s Local Growth Policy Statement included, but pointedly disavowed its own “Appendix A” — a dissenting statement by the Congregational Church of Needham, calling out the town’s exclusionary aims and endorsing a vision of inclusive growth.
In addition, in many places where multi-family housing was theoretically allowed, “poison pill” requirements and impediments were added to make such building a practical impossibility. More recently we have seen the ironic use of infeasible “inclusionary zoning” requirements – which ensure that no affordable housing can actually be built.
The same language, un-evolved and unrefined, is still invoked by “neighborhood defenders” today. Our current housing affordability crisis and segregation is the plain result. The report is a sobering, enlightening read – essential for any active citizen or town official in eastern Massachusetts.
In 2018, the planning department released a study of Demolitions and replacement homes. Page 4 contains a bar chart showing the relative sizes of Arlington’s zoning districts:
The folks in Arlington’s Department of Planning and Community Development were kind enough to provide me with a copy of the underlying numeric data. I’ll present that shortly, but for the moment, I’d like to make a proposition about zoning maps: that they are budgets given in acres rather than dollars. A zoning map takes a finite pool of resources (land) and allocates it among specific set of concerns (land uses).
Here’s the size of each district, along with the percentage of land that it accounts for.
| Zone | District Name | Acres | %total |
| B1 | Neighborhood Office | 25.89 | 0.79% |
| B2 | Neighborhood Business | 16.92 | 0.52% |
| B2A | Major Business | 22.48 | 0.68% |
| B3 | Village Business | 28.43 | 0.87% |
| B4 | Vehicular Oriented Business | 29.91 | 0.91% |
| B5 | Central Business | 10.48 | 0.32% |
| I | Industrial | 48.96 | 1.49% |
| MU | Multi-use | 18.26 | 0.56% |
| OS | Open Space | 270.99 | 8.25% |
| PUD | Planned Unit Development | 16.16 | 0.49% |
| R0 | Large Lot Single-Family | 237.85 | 7.24% |
| R1 | Single-family | 1,777.64 | 54.14% |
| R2 | Two-family | 619.66 | 18.87% |
| R3 | Three-family | 8.25 | 0.25% |
| R4 | Townhouse | 19.49 | 0.59% |
| R5 | Low-density Apartment | 63.76 | 1.94% |
| R6 | Medium-density Apartment | 49.10 | 1.50% |
| R7 | High-density apartment | 18.65 | 0.57% |
| T | Transportation | 0.76 | 0.02% |
| TOTAL | 3283.65 | 100.00% |
I’m going to roll these up into four categories
- Residential (the “R” districts)
- Commercial (the “B” and “I” districts)
- Open space (the “OS” district)
- Other (the MU, PUD, and T districts)
| Use | Acres | % total |
| Commercial | 183.08 | 5.58% |
| Residential | 2794.40 | 85.10% |
| Open Space | 270.99 | 8.25% |
| Other | 35.18 | 1.07% |
| Total | 3283.65 | 100.00% |
I’d like to point out several things about this summary.
First, 85% of Arlington’s land is residential and 61% is exclusively set aside for single-family homes. When our zoning laws were re-written in the mid-1970’s two substantial goals were (1) limiting the potential for population growth, and (2) making Arlington a “traditional family town” (which I interpret to mean “a place for families with children”). The preference for single-family homes has arguably made those goals easier to achieve; single-family homes mean fewer homes per lot, and they offer enough floor space and bedrooms for families with children. I think we’ve met those objectives. Arlington’s population dropped from 54,000 in 1970 to around 45,000 today, we have well-respected public schools, and our single-family homes have a lot of utility for growing families. We’re a great town for raising kids. Our residential taxes are can be high, but I’d argue this is a design feature rather than a defect.
Second, 8.25% of our land is “Open Space”, aka “parcels under the jurisdiction of the Park and Recreation Commission, Conservation Commission, Arlington Redevelopment Board, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, or Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)”. It’s public land, and it’s a great asset. For better or worse, our Opens Space districts generate no tax revenue.
Third, 5.6% of the town’s land is zoned for commercial use. This is the set of land and buildings that can make up Arlington’s commercial tax base. When I moved to town in 2007, our commercial tax base was 5.4%; that figure increased for a few years (after the 2008 recession), eventually settling back down to 5.4% in 2019. With 5.6% of land zoned commercially, a 5.4% commercial tax base doesn’t strike me as unreasonable. I suspect the goal was to have enough businesses to provide local amenities, but without turning the town into a commercial center.
Finally, the “Other” category can be divided up three ways:
- The Multi-Use district is the former site of the Symmes hospital. It used to be known as the Hospital District, and is currently home to Arlington 360, a large apartment complex.
- The Planned Unit development district is also know as the Mugar Property. In the early 1980’s, David Mugar tried to develop it as office and retail space. Today, Oaktree Development is petitioning to develop the site as apartments and townhouses.
- Finally, the Transportation district is “bus terminals, open space, and the Minuteman Bikeway”; it’s a very small portion of the town’s land.
So that’s our land budget: 85% residential, 8.25% public open space, 5.6% commercial, and 1% other. This is a preference for how the land is used, and a preference for how the local government is funded (Arlington’s main source of income is property taxes).
A common budgeting exercise is to take an existing breakdown and ask “what if we allocated things differently”? For the sake of discussion, let’s say we wanted 50% of the town to be Open Space (i.e., publicly-owned and publicly-accessible green space). This might be driven by a desire for more trees and wooded areas, better stormwater management, climate resilience, heat island reduction, and so on. The conceptual change is easy: take half the town, pick it up, and set it down on the other half. Done [1].
Stacking half the town on top of the other means we’d have enough room to fit all of the homes and businesses that we currently have. The buildings would be taller, there’d likely be far fewer single-family homes, and there’d be a ton of green space. As with any budget, there’s a tradeoff.
Or suppose we wanted to increase the town’s commercial tax base. This topic surfaces from time to time, particularly when the first set of property tax bills goes out during a fiscal year. Commercial property taxes are assessed in much the same way as residential: the assessments are based on the value of land and buildings; dollars and square feet [2]. One can increase dollars (i.e., when a commercial property is sold above its assessed value), one can increase square feet (by allowing larger buildings, or allowing some non-commercial land to take on commercial uses), or one can try to find a way to reduce the total assessed value of residential properties. If none of those choices are appealing, then you probably won’t get a higher commercial tax base. Again, budget tradeoffs.
In conclusion, my goal has been to get people thinking about Zoning Maps as a form of budget. Arlington’s capital and operating budgets have changed over time, as has our zoning map. I’d like us to think of what we might do differently in the future.
[1] In reality, the implementaton details would probably be hideously complex; but the concept is simple.
[2] There’s also a “Personal” component to commercial taxes, which involves equipment and supplies used in conducting a business. This is mere sliver of Arlington’s total tax revnue.
by Beth Elliott
I’m a member of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board and an attorney with over 15 years of practice in affordable housing law. Views expressed are my own, not those of the Trust.
The Town of Arlington and the Arlington Affordable Housing Trust Fund have created the Acquisition, Creation and Conversion (ACC) Program to provide a flexible source of funding for creating deed-restricted affordable housing in Arlington. Up to $250,000 is available per restricted unit, and the Town has dedicated federal ARPA funds to support the ACC Program.
ACC Program funds can be used to build new deed-restricted affordable units, whether rented or owned. ACC funds can only be used for existing units if the current tenants will not be displaced.
“Deed-Restricted” Is Important
“Deed-restricted” is the key component here. Housing that is “deed-restricted” as affordable housing is protected by a legally binding agreement that is recorded against the property in the registry of deeds. This agreement specifies the levels of affordability that must be maintained and for how long. It’s a public commitment to provide affordable housing that binds the current owner of the property as well as anyone else who buys the property while the restriction is in place. The ACC Program requires affordability for at least 20 years for rental units and in perpetuity for homeownership units. For rental properties, this means that tenants know that their units will remain affordable for the long term, even if their landlord changes.
Personally, I’m most excited about the potential to use the ACC Program to apply these protections to existing naturally occurring affordable housing in Arlington. For example, if an owner of an existing apartment building participates in the ACC Program, some or all of the apartment units will become deed-restricted affordable housing. Because ACC Program funds can only be used if the existing tenants aren’t displaced, this locks in deed-restricted affordability for the existing tenants. This innovative feature of the program is rare in my experience of affordable housing programs, and it has RFP potential to make meaningful change for existing tenants of naturally occurring affordable housing.
Get the Full Rules
In addition, the ACC Program can be combined with other funding sources, so there is great opportunity for owners to propose their own solutions. The Request for Proposals (RFP) issued for the ACC Program, available here, provides the full rules for participating in the program.
from Alexandra P. Levering , Thesis, Urban & Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University, August 2017
By 2017 65 out of 101 municipalities in the greater Boston (MAPC) region allowed Accessory Dwelling Units by right or by special permit. The average number of ADU’s added per year was about 3. But by 2017, Lexington had 75 ADUs, Newton had 73 and Ipswich had 66. It is a slow process for a variety of reasons, but the number of units grows over time.
AARP recommends ADU’s. The help homeonwers cover rising housing costs by providing income trhough rent. They also create a space for a caretaker or a family member to live close by, as the homeowner ages.
Autism Housing Pathways and Advocates for Autism of MA (AFAM) came together to advocate for an ADU bylaw to benefit parents of adult children with disabilities. For more information see her complete thesis (with a very useful set of tables and bibliography) HERE.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) provide multigenerational housing options for aging parents and for adult children. They help families manage changing lifestyle, fiscal and/or caretaking situations.
This type of housing is seen by many as a clear opportunity to offer more affordable residential opportunities. One reason why they are slow to develop is the cost of renovation and construction for homeowners. Some communities offer low or no interest loans to encourage more ADU development.