The citizen participation process including presentations, discussions, public hearings, letters and comments has been long and arduous. The issues are complicated and sometimes feelings run high. In such situations, there can be a feeling that citizens have not been heard. This document, “Guide to Zoning Amendments Related to Multifamily Uses and Mixed-Use“, summarizes many of the issues that have been raised and the changes that have been made in the zoning Articles as a result of the citizen participation in the public review process. Citizens have been heard.
Related articles
State Representatives Dave Rogers (Arlington, Belmont and Cambridge) and Sean Garballey (Arlington, Medford) have sent a letter to Town Meeting Members backing the MBTA Communities Plan. They write:
We believe the plan in front of Town Meeting provides a meaningful framework to address the housing shortage in Arlington.
To read the full letter, click here for PDF.
A portion of Envision Arlington’s town day booth was designed to spark a community conversation about housing. Envision set up a display with six poster boards, each representing a housing-related topic. Participants were given three dots and asked to place them on the topics they felt were most important. There were also pens and post-it notes on hand to capture additional comments. This post is a summary of the results. You could think of it as a straw-poll or temperature check on the opinions of town day attendees.
Social Justice Issues
Aiming for a diverse population by income and race; and being vigilant about identifying and neutralizing barriers to this goal.

197 dots, plus a post-it note that reads “Increasing housing while preserving open space” (with three dots).
Lifestyle Options
Providing for different lifestyles: empty nesters, single millenials, young parents, families, walkable neighborhoods.

149 dots and four post-it notes:
- No more new 5-story buildings with no setbacks. Ugly. (3 dots)
- Why must we maintain our high carbon footprint with single family homes and cars?
- I want to live in a wofati (eco building) (Woodland Oehler Freak-Cheap Annualized Thermal Intertia). Not so legal, one day the norm. Thank you Arlington.
- Connect to transit. Less single family housing with dedicated parking.
Housing Affordability
Affordable housing from subsidies, from construction of smaller units, or from building more housing to reduce the bidding price on current Arlington homes.

308 dots, with 10 post-it notes
- We don’t need more housing. People need to be able to afford to stay in their homes.
- Get Arlington out from the clutches of real estate lobby. (1 dot)
- Wrong categories. Includes affordable housing and development which displaces low and moderate income housing
- Restrictions on teardowns of small homes
- Keep older apartment buildings. They are cheap and affordable.
- Rent control and oversight. “I can only afford to stay because I live in a place that is not secure and in disrepair.”
- Rent control. Please reinstate so that rent is affordable.
- “Affordable” subsidized housing invades your privacy. Every year need all bank stubs, 401(k), like a criminal.
- Build more housing. Build more duplexes, triplexes, etc. Upzone neighborhoods. More transit corridors. Renew calls for a red line stop. Build up the downtown to encourage more density and housing in the same buildings as businesses. More housing + transit = a better society.
- Protect neighborhoods
This was clearly the topic that drew the most response. Arlington housing is expensive.
Maximizing Flexibility of Home Space
Providing for aging parents or childcare providers with a place in your home or getting help paying the mortgage by having a rentable space.

81 dots, and three post-it notes:
- Change zoning to allow accessory dwelling apartments (aka ADUs, granny flats, in-law apartments) (1 dot)
- Want nearby widowed mom to live in own house.
- Accessible rentals, not up 3 flights of stairs.
Doing more with Existing Resources
Examining current Arlington Housing Authority, Housing Corporation of Arlington, and aging apartment buildings for addressing new housing needs.

143 dots, and five post-it notes:
- Fix transportation infrastructure. Peope can live farther out and still get to work. (4 dots)
- Extend red line to Arlington center and heights. (7 dots)
- None of the above. Keep taxes low. (1 dot)
- Accessible for aging residents. Age in place.
- Do something about empty store fronts.
Setting a ten-year goal for new housing
Determining what Arlington’s housing goals should be, and setting about following through on the necessary zoning and incentives to get what we want.

119 dots, and three sticky notes:
- Why is America low-density? Why is this country slave to the auto? More housing near transit!
- Who is “we”?
- There is too much housing density now. Need business area to attract business.
Observations
As noted earlier, the cost of housing seemed to be the main issue of concern. This is understandable: housing prices in Arlington (and the region in general) have been on an escalator ride up since about 2000 or so. That’s led to our current high cost of housing, and also to a form of gradual gentrification. When housing is more expensive than it was last year, a new resident in town has to make more money (or be willing to spend more on housing) than last year’s new resident.
I see at least two broad responses to this: one is to keep the status quo, perhaps returning to the inexpensive housing of decades past. The other is for more multi-family housing, and more transit-oriented development. It will be interesting to see how these dynamics play out in the future.
There’s also recognition of the importance of older “naturally affordable” apartment buildings. Arlington was very pro-growth in the 1950s and 1960s; that’s fortunate, because it allowed these apartments to be built in the first place. On the downside, we haven’t done a good job of allowing new construction into the pipeline during recent decades. Buildings depreciate, so a new building is worth more than one that’s ten years old, which is worth more than one that’s twenty years old, and so on. At some point, the old apartments are likely to be refurbished/upgraded, and they’ll become more expensive as a result.
This is only the beginning of the conversation, but at least we’re getting it going.
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.
by Annie LaCourt
One of the concerns people have about the current MBTA Communities zoning proposal is the effect that the increase in housing will have on the town’s budget. Will the need for new services make demands on our budget we cannot meet without more frequent overrides? Or will the new tax revenues from the new buildings cover the cost of that increase in services?
The simple answers to these questions are
- No: It will not make unmanageable demands on the budget; and
- Yes: the new tax revenue from the multi-family housing anticipated will cover the costs of any new services required.
Adopting the current MBTA Communities zoning proposal may even slow the growth of our structural deficit, as I will show in more detail using as examples some of the more recent multi-family projects that have been built in Arlington.
How Does Our Budget Work and What is the Structural Deficit?
First, some basic facts about finance in Arlington: Like every other community in Massachusetts, Arlington’s property tax increases are limited by Proposition 2.5 to 2.5% of the levy limit each year. What is the levy limit? It’s all of the taxes we are allowed to collect across the whole town, without getting specific approval from the Town’s voters. For FY 23 the levy limit is $135,136,908. $3,271,996 of that is the 2.5% increase we are allowed under the law. But also added to that is $1,202,059 of new growth, which comes from properties whose assessment changed because they were substantially improved–either renovated or by increasing capacity. When we reassess a property that has a new house or building on it, we are allowed to add the new taxes generated by the change in value of the property to the levy limit.
Property taxes make up approximately 75% of the town’s revenue. So – except for new growth – that means that the bulk of our budget can only grow 2.5% a year. Other categories of income like State Aid have a much less reliable growth pattern. If the state has a bad fiscal year, our state aid is likely to remain flat or decrease.
Expenses
On the expense side, our default is a budget to maintain the same level of services year to year. We cap increases in the budgets of town departments by 3.25% and the school budget by 3.5%, save for special education costs which are capped slightly higher.
We also have several major categories of expense that are beyond our control that increase at a greater rate than 2.5%. These include, among other things, funding our pension obligations, health insurance costs and our trash collection contract.
Structural Deficit
This difference between the increase in revenues and the increase in costs is the structural deficit. It’s structural because we can’t cut our way out of it without curtailing services severely and we can’t stop paying for things like pensions and insurance that are contractual obligations.
The question of how MBTA communities zoning will affect this is crucial. So let’s take a deeper dive, first on revenue and then on expenses.
How Will MBTA Communities Affect New Growth?
How MBTA-C zoning will affect new growth depends on what gets built and at what rate. Let’s consider some real world examples:
882 Mass Ave. used to be a single story commercial building. It was assessed at $938,000 and the owner paid approximately $9,887 in taxes annually. It has been rebuilt as a mixed use building with commercial space on the ground level and 22 apartments on 4 floors above. The new assessment is approximately $4,800,000 and the new tax bill is about $54,000.00. That means $45,000 in new growth – new property taxes that will grow at the rate of 2.5% in subsequent years.
Another example is 117 Broadway. The building that used to be at that address was entirely commercial, assessed at $1,050,000 and paid around $11,770 in taxes annually. After being rebuilt as mixed use by the Housing Corporation of Arlington, it is assessed at $3,900,000 and taxed at $43,719. 117 Broadway has commercial on the ground floor and 4 stories of affordable housing above. The new growth for this example is approximately $30,000.
What these examples show, and our assessor believes is a pattern, is that a new mixed use or multi-family building increases the taxes we can collect by as much as 400%, depending on the kinds of housing units.
So we can expect new development under MBTA Communities to increase the levy limit substantially over time, reducing the size and frequency of future tax increases.
How Will This New Housing Affect the Cost of Services?
Of course, with new residents comes a need for additional services. However, town-provided services will be impacted differently. Snow and Ice removal, for example, will not be affected at all – we aren’t adding new roads. Many other services provided by public works are like snow and ice: They would only increase at a faster rate if we added more land area or more town facilities to the base.
Services like public safety and health and human services may see gradual increases in service requests, as more people place more demand on these departments. Right now we have a patrol officer for every 850 or so residents. This means we might need to add a new patrol officer if the population increases by 850 residents. But it’s not clear that a new officer would be needed; it depends on the trends the police department sees in their data. I think of these services as increasing by stair steps: Adding a few, or even a few hundred, residents doesn’t require us to add staff to provide more services. Adding a few thousand might mean we need to add a position but we will have added a great deal to the levy limit before we need to add those positions.
Trash Collection Impact
There is one town service that sees an impact every time we add a new unit of housing – trash collection. The town spends approximately $200 per household on solid waste collection and disposal. As mentioned above, 882 Broadway has 22 new 1 bedroom and studio apartments. When that building was all commercial the businesses paid privately for trash removal. The new trash collection costs will be at least $4,400 annually. It’s possible, however, that the building will need a dumpster and that could cost up to $20,000 annually. Either way the new revenue ($45,000) outstrips the increased costs. The town is working on creative solutions for new buildings to keep this cost as affordable as possible.
What About Schools?
Regardless of new housing construction, our student population ebbs and flows. Families move in with small children who go through the school system. The kids graduate high school but their parents, now in their 50’s or 60’s, don’t move until they are much older and need a different living situation. When they sell their homes, the new owners are likely to be families with children again. We can see a pattern of boom and bust in our school population if we look back. Right now, we are seeing a drop in elementary population as this cycle plays out again. We now have 221 fewer students enrolled in the elementary schools than we did in 2019.
We account for this ebb and flow in the budget. A number of years ago, we set a policy to add a growth factor to the school budget. We increase the budget by 50% of per pupil costs for each new student. Currently that is $8800.00 per student. But the policy works in reverse as well. We reduce the budget by the same amount per child as the student population wanes. We also see increased state aid under chapter 70 when our student population grows and may see reductions if it shrinks.
Will Multifamily Homes Add Students?
The new multi-family housing generated by MBTA communities zoning may add students to our schools – but not as many as you might think. Other large multi-family developments like the Legacy apartments and the new development at the old Brigham site have not added a lot of children to the schools directly. Going back to our two example buildings, 882 Mass Ave is all studio and 1 bedroom units, so we are unlikely to see children living there. Our MBTA communities zoning, however, must by law allow new housing that is appropriate for families. So for planning purposes, it’s best to assume we will see growth in the school population.
So what will the effect of this new housing be on the school population and our budget? Given that the new housing will be built gradually, it’s more likely to stabilize our student population than precipitously increase it. The same will be true for our budget: We will see some increases in the school budget growth factor but also increases in state aid and increases in tax revenue from the new construction.
Conclusions
If we create an MBTA communities zone per the working groups recommendation or something close to that, we will see the effect on our budget over time, not immediately. Even if the zone has a theoretical capacity of 1300 additional units (total capacity minus what is already there) the development of new housing won’t be abrupt. For budget purposes, we project our long range plan five years into the future.
When we get to a year, say FY 2023, the actual state of our budget never looks exactly like the projection created five years earlier. We cannot predict the future very far out. What we can do is look back and see what the effects of previous development have been on our budget, and we can assess the risks of our decisions. Experience tells us that multi-family development doesn’t break the budget or swamp the schools, even when the developments are large. It also tells us that turnover in the population causes ebbs and flows in the school population, regardless of new development. We can say with certainty that multi-family development increases our revenues through new growth, and that past experience has been that that new growth mitigates the need for overrides.
My conclusion is that the new development that will occur if we create a robust zone that allows multi-family development by right, will at worst give us growth in our revenues that keeps pace with any increase in services we need. At best, those new revenues will outstrip the growth in expenses and help mitigate our structural deficit. The risk of allowing this new growth is low, and the rewards are worth it, in the form of new missing middle housing, climate change mitigation, and vibrant business districts fueled by new customers nearby.
As the public hearings on the zoning articles proceeded in late winter and early spring, 2019, it became clear that there was a very strong sentiment that the proposed increase in density in these designated zoning districts should result in an increase in affordable housing in Arlington. This coincided with the approved 2015 Master Plan’s stated goals:
- 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 (see ch. 5, pg 77++ for housing section)
- The Yes on 16 report supports the citizen initiated petition resulting in Article 16 and demonstrates the tremendous impact of rapidly increasing land values on the overall affordability of property in Arlington. Building a stack of homes on one footprint is far more financially affordable than creating a single home on the same footprint of land.
Data in a Mass Housing Partnership report shows how far behind the Boston metropolitan area has fallen in meeting the housing needs of its citizens. There are four primary categories for measuring the inadequacies: 1. Availability, 2. Affordability, 3. L0cation and Mobility and 4. Equitability. See the full report for more data and examples. Two slides are shown below.


During the last few months, Arlington’s Department of Planning and Community Development and Zoning Bylaw Working Group have been conducting a study of the town’s industrial districts. The general idea has been to begin with an assessment of current conditions, and consider whether there are zoning changes that might make these districts more beneficial to the community as a whole.
To date, the major work products of this effort have been:
- A study of existing conditions, market analysis, and fiscal impact. Among other things, this slide deck will show you exactly where Arlington’s industrial districts are located.
- A set of test build scenarios.
- An initial set of zoning recommendations. These are high level ideas; they’d need further refinement to fit into the context of our zoning bylaws.
- A survey, to gather public input on several of the high-level recommendations.
The survey recently closed. I asked the planning department for a copy of they survey data, which they were generous enough to provide. That data is the subject of this blog post.
The survey generally consisted of pairs of questions: a yes/no or multiple choice, coupled with space for free-form comments. I’ll provide the yes/no and multiple choice questions (and answers!) here. Those interested in free-form commentary can find that in the spreadsheet linked at the bottom of this article.
208 people responded to the survey.
Industrial Zoning questions
(1) Which of the following uses would you support in the Industrial Districts? (check all that apply) (208 respondents)
Industrial | 62.02% |
Office | 76.92% |
Breweries, Distilleries, and Wineries | 86.06% |
Mixed Use (Office and Industrial Only) | 67.31% |
Food Production Facilities | 55.77% |
Flexible Office/Industrial Buildings | 68.27% |
Coworking Space | 68.75% |
Maker Space | 63.46% |
Vertical Farming | 65.38% |
Work Only Artist Studio | 63.94% |
Residential | 42.79% |
Other (please specify) | 12.02% |
(2) Would you support a waiver of the current 39-foot height maximum to allow heights up to 52 feet if the Applicant had to meet other site design, parking, or environmental standards? (207 respondents)
Yes | 74.40% |
No | 22.22% |
(3) Would you support a small reduction in the amount of required parking by development as an incentive to provide more bike parking given the districts’ proximity to the Minuteman Bikeway? (208 respondents)
Yes | 68.27% |
No | 30.77% |
(4) Would you support a variable front setback of no less than 6 feet and no more than 10 feet to bring buildings closer to the sidewalk and create a more active pedestrian environment? (207 respondents)
Yes | 66.18% |
No | 28.50% |
(5) Would you support zoning changes that require new buildings in the district to have more windows and greater building transparency, as well as more pedestrian amenities such as lighting, landscaping, art, or seating? (207 respondents)
Yes | 81.64% |
No | 13.53% |
Demographic questions
(7) Do you….(check all that apply) (206 respondents)
live in Arlington | 99.51% |
work in Arlington | 23.79% |
own a business in Arlington | 9.71% |
work at a business in one of Arlington’s industrial districts | 1.46% |
own a business in one of Arlington’s industrial districts | 1.46% |
patron of Arlington retail and restaurants | 76.70% |
elected official in Arlington | 6.80% |
(8) What neighborhood do you live in? (207 respondents)
Arlington Heights | 30.43% |
Little Scotland | 2.42% |
Poet’s Corner | 0.97% |
Robbins Farm | 5.80% |
Turkey Hill/ Mount Gilboa | 11.11% |
Morningside | 4.35% |
Arlington Center | 10.14% |
Jason Heights | 8.21% |
East Arlington | 20.77% |
Kelwyn Manor | 0.00% |
Not Applicable | 0.48% |
(9) How long have you lived in Arlington? (207 respondents)
Under 5 years | 19.32% |
5 to 10 years | 15.46% |
10 to 20 years | 19.81% |
Over 20 years | 45.41% |
According to US Census data [1], 72% of Arlington’s residents moved to Arlington since the beginning of the 2000’s (i.e., 20 years ago or less). The largest group responding to this survey has lived here 20+ years, implying that the results may be more reflective of long-term residents opinions.
(10) Please select your age group (199 respondents)
Under 18 | 0.00% |
18-25 | 1.01% |
26-35 | 13.57% |
36-45 | 22.11% |
46-55 | 25.13% |
56-65 | 20.60% |
66-80 | 16.58% |
80+ | 1.01% |
(11) What is your annual household income? (188 respondents)
$0-$19,999 | 1.06% |
$20,000-$39,999 | 1.60% |
$40,000-$59,999 | 5.32% |
$60,000-$79,999 | 9.04% |
$80,000-$99,999 | 4.79% |
$100,000-$149,999 | 23.94% |
$150,000-$200,000 | 17.55% |
More than $200,000 | 36.70% |
Full Survey Results
As noted earlier, the survey provided ample opportunity for free-form comments, which are included in the spreadsheet below. There were a number of really thoughtful ideas, so these are worth a look.
Arlington Industrial District Survey
Footnotes
[1] https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US2501640-arlington-ma/, retrieved August 10th, 2020
State Senator Cindy F. Friedman has written a letter to Town Meeting Members supporting Warrant Article 12 and a meaningful MBTA Communities Plan. She writes:
We all want Arlington and Massachusetts to remain welcoming, accessible places to live. In addition to our deficit of housing, I recognize the importance of encouraging smaller, more sustainable housing in walkable areas. Arlington’s Warrant Article 12 will provide a meaningful framework for making progress in these areas. The problems we are experiencing now —out of reach housing prices for new construction and existing homes — exacerbate the crisis and are seriously threatening the economic vibrancy of our communities.
To read Friedman’s full letter, click here for the PDF.