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.
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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.
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.
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.
The discussions on zoning have been confusing because while zoning covers ALL of Arlington’s land and the zoning bylaws for all Arlington’s zones are referenced, the key issues of greatest interest to Town Meeting are the discussions about increasing density. These discussions pertain ONLY to those properties currently zoned as R4-R7 and the B (Business) districts. These density related changes would affect only about 7% of Arlington’s land area. The map shows the specific zones that would potentially be affected. They lay along major transportation corridors.
