Paul McMorrow has a must-read column in the Globe today summarizing a new Metropolitan Area Planning Council report on housing projections.
There’s lots of food for thought here (specific projections for Newton are here) , including the desperate need to find housing to attract a young work force and challenging the notion that housing density automatically contributes to school crowding.
Many cities and towns around the state are zoned for a way of living that’s vanishing. They make it easy to build large-lot single-family homes, but throw steep barriers in the way of dense housing. That’s a problem, because changing demographics mean both older and younger residents need newly developed multi-family homes far more than they need new single-family homes.
and here’s most most intriguing conclusion from the report…
The big-picture worry is not about having too many children, but having too few taxpayers to pay for their schooling.
Then why is it that when we do add density in Newton – like the townhouses/attached dwellings in West Newton – we are often creating 3 and 4 bedroom units that are clearly designed for families with kids, not for the younger and older residents mentioned in this study (who would not have a significant impact on the schools)? Maybe because this is what is most profitable for the developer, and we let them?
There are plenty of tax payers and sufficient revenue. What causes financial stress is the ever increasing expectations of everyone. This is understandable but not always easily achieved.
Medical advances allow us to live longer, new technology means few workers are needed. High growth areas need more housing and better transportation. Future life is a great challenge for all and many of the old ways may need to adapt to the new emerging environment.
Greg, thank you for providing these links. They are quite informative. I suspect people will interpret the data in different ways to reach different conclusions.
No doubt…but I hope most folks will take the time to look it over, starting perhaps with the Newton-specific data.
The conclusion “about not having too many children” was based on Greater Boston data showing declining school age populations over the last two decades with the expectation that they will continue to decline.
The Newton numbers are at odds with that. We’ve had steady growth in the school population over the last decade with expectations of continued growth in the future.
True Jerry but that’s also because we continue to build housing that appeals to people with families while we very much need to find ways to attract a young workforce as a way to attract companies to come and grow here.
Population in Suffolk and Middlesex Counties has grown. Massachusetts had the most robust population growth rate of any of the New England states. Here is data from Northeastern’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs – http://www.northeastern.edu/policyschool/albright-bluestone-and-clayton-matthews-explain-trends-in-ma-population-rise/
This report is spot on. As the types of young professionals that Mass is needs to recruit and keep here, we’re finding our housing options laughable. You basically have to strike it rich on stock options to buy a house here–the results of decades of too little housing creation. Did you know that a net of 71 dwellings were created in Newton in 2012. In a city with 30,000 dwellings, that’s ~.05% growth. The # of kids in your schools is dominated by the existing homes and demographic shifts (remember when there were declining enrollments in the 80’s and several schools were scrapped or converted to housing or nonprofit centers?). Stop painting school children as the greatest evil that could befall a New England town; what kind of society do we want to live in?
Now for some pointed responses: there are a few reasons that the new townhouse developments are large units. Chief among them are density restrictions on the number of units permitted on a property. They are very high in Newton, so for example if you have a 16,000 square foot lot, you might be limited to one unit per 4,000 square feet of lot area–so that’s four units. If I’m paying north of $1.25 million for the property, plus substantial fees in the permitting phase, construction costs, and paying myself I’d need to have a final value in the $3-4 million range. Perhaps I could do just as well with eight 1,000 square foot 2 BR units, but that’s prohibited, so I have to build the big units. This density rule is on top of other requirements for two parking spaces per unit and various other antiquated setback and design standards that in practice drive up the cost of new housing and make it hard to build walkable neighborhoods. And walkable neighborhoods is what my generation is looking for, just take a look at how expensive Cambridge has become…
This is somewhat personal, but would it be better for the City’s overall diversity, fiscal health and dynamism for me to remain in this single family home and let the chips fall where they may, or for us to cut bait for warmer and less costly housing down south? We have Newton at Home which is trying to keep seniors in their homes as long as possible and hopefully to keep them there right before the Grim Reaper makes a final appearance. I think it’s good for me to have to go up and down three flights of stairs several times as day, but is this effort really counterproductive to what the City needs to grow and prosper?
Of course, I’m still looking at the option of great affordable housing in Newton that will enable me to continue sailing and traveling to the 4 corners of the World. Panama, Turkey and Cape Breton last year and we’re still feeling out our options for this year.
@usedtoworkinnewton: Good comment.
@Bob: It’s best for our city to find a way to keep you and our other terrific seniors here because you add so much to the richness of our community. But it would be good if we had non-single family home options for you (with maybe a stair climber in the gym).
But I happen to know that you live near a T station (and so do I) and what would really be BEST for Newton would be high density housing on lots that currently hold single family homes right now. I know why that’s hard and objectionable but that’s truly what we need.
The data shows that people move here to get their kids into the school system. The parents move here when they are about 40 and flood the newton school system with their kids.
McMorrow’s theory doesn’t apply to Newton because not all cities are the same. Newton is desirable for it’s schools. You offer more affordable housing you attract young families and renters whose tax contribution is lower and resource needs are higher.
How’d that complex on Needham Street impact the schools in that area? Negatively.
@KIm: You’re missing the point. Of course people move here because we have really good schools. But there’s many good reasons to live in Newton besides our schools (great restaurants, bars and shopping, village centers, open space, public transportation, etc.) if only we had the housing for that appeals/meets the needs of a someone without school kids.
Of course, Avalon Bay on Needham St. is filled with people who moved there just to get their kids into our schools. What young person would choose to live on Needham Street as it currently looks/is designed if they had the choice to live in Boston, Brookline or Cambridge? Put the right housing in one of our better village centers on T/Commuter rail and then you’re talking about something very different.
Why is it that people want to engineer the social structure of Newton (as well as other places)? Oh, we need so many of each race, so many of each age category, so many of each size family, etc. Newton has what it has and costs what it costs for many reasons. It has always been a ritzy bedroom community for high income people who work in Boston. Attorneys, physicians, investment specialists, consultants, etc.. want an easy commute to the city, can pay high prices, and want big luxurious homes. That’s how it was when the huge Victorians were built, albeit on bigger lots, over a century ago.
If one wants a good buy in housing, go where it happens naturally. Anyone who watches TV shows like “Househunters” knows that you can get what costs a million dollars in Newton for about $300,000 or even much less in many parts of the US.
Worrying about giving BOB BURKE cheap housing so he can travel around the world is really a moronic reason to plan communities.
Life really works better if things happen relatively naturally. Engineering societies has never really worked out well.
@Barry – the question isn’t social engineering vs no social engineering. The housing stock we currently have and are currently building is the result of social engineering called zoning laws. Now if you’re happy with with the social engineering of the current zoning laws. – i.e. foster mostly large single family expensive houses, that’s fine. You are certainly not alone in that. But you seem to think that the status quo is somehow a result of natural pure market forces rather than a different kind of social engineering that you approve of.
Jerry,
Zoning is different, I think. We make an area residential, in general, and say we don’t want commercial establishments or factories or power plants. That I can understand, and it’s done everywhere. But the zoning that decides what residences go somewhere is usually a result of market forces. In the ’50’s and thereabouts, the single lots, many subdivided from bigger lots, were filled with small ranch homes and capes because people coming out of the city and making more money than previously couldn’t really afford the Victorians and there was a lot of open land for development, especially on the south side of Newton. Today, people who want to live here can afford bigger houses and the developers are responding to that. We have areas of Newton with apartment buildings and condominiums and side-by-side townhouses. The developers felt people would buy them. And we have areas like Oak Hill Park which had very small homes for WWII vets, and today most of those homes have been built up to be double or triple there original size, because that’s what people want.
I’m not a fan of complete anarchy, but social engineering involves people with an outlook on life, like the kind of diversity THEY want, imposing that on others. This is what I don’t like.
Barry: It’s more nuanced than just zoning something residential or not. I suggest rereading this comment again.
@Kim – I have many childless young co-workers in the Longwood Medical Area who are interested in living in Newton because of its location on the D line.
Greg,
It’s not clear to me that this post responds to my comments, except that it says that multi-family dwellings are prevented from being small. Maybe. But it doesn’t explain why a developer thinks that a small house on a single lot is worth completely tearing down in order to build a bigger house, other than his profit motive. The developer is paying for a house AND a lot, but really buying the lot, and has to pay for the teardown and clearing. That lot on Commonwealth Avenue that took months of banging in order to remove granite is proof of what developers think will make money here.
And this is not a smart comment. “Did you know that a net of 71 dwellings were created in Newton in 2012. In a city with 30,000 dwellings, that’s ~.05% growth.” Newton celebrated its tricentennial years ago. It’s a highly developed city with little open space. I’d like to keep a lot of that public open space and not sell to developers. Newton, unlike Las Vegas, is not poised for growth. Who cares if it hasn’t grown? If it’s a decent place to live and we aren’t sitting with a lot of empty houses because there are no buyers for them, then what’s the problem?
@Barry – BTW, I’m not sure I agree with your history.
When those Victorians were built, Newton definitely had some ritzy neighborhoods but it also had large settlements of modest houses for factory workers in Upper Falls, Lower Falls and Nonantum. It had large swaths of modest farms (Oak Hill, Waban) and even apparently had what sounds like a slum. Even in the 1950’s when the Oak Hill development was built out, it wasn’t a “ritzy bedroom community for high income people”.
We can aspire to whatever type of community we would like to be and our zoning rules will help guide us in one direction or another (e.g. more density vs less density, smaller units vs bigger units, more expensive vs less expensive units, housing aimed at families vs singles or elderly). No matter which direction(s) we head, we should be clear that historically Newton was not a monoculture of high income people.
@usedtoworkinnewton – I think there is a problem with your argument that developers ‘have to’ build large units to make a profit, due to density & parking requirements. The market price they paid for the property would reflect what’s allowed under current regulations. If regulations were liberalized, say the minimum parking requirements were reduced, then that too would be reflected in the price of land, and the price would go up. Conversely, if the FAR was more restrictive, they wouldn’t pay as much for the land. Nobody’s forcing developers to build in Newton if they don’t see a deal they think they can make a profit on.
Jerry,
The modest communities you cite, are still the more modest and least expensive in Newton. They just cost a lot more than a bigger home in Houston. Yup. That’s Newton. But, imagine paying a million dollars for a studio or one-bedroom coop in New York City. Should they zone to prevent that also?
And, I actually meant that Oak Hill Park WAS modest, but that people clearly wanted bigger homes and so most have been expanded, many to rival the McMansions in Newton Centre. Should we have zoned to keep them at 800 sq ft with no basements, in order to “aspire to whatever type of community we would like to be”?
Barry – as others have said, there should be a distinction between homeowners making changes they want vs. developers on spec. If someone wants to expand their home, or even tear it down and replace it with what they want, they should be able to (within reasonable limits such as FAR, respecting plot boundaries, etc.) But why should we let developers building on spec decide what Newton should look like?
The rumor I’ve heard is that the city is planning another tax override to fund the BOB BURKE housing, travel and slush fund.
mgwa,
They are NOT deciding what Newton should look like. They are building within the rules we set in our zoning regulations in order to make money, as all business people want to do. If they didn’t do this, then the cheap ’50’s ranches and others like that that they tore down would still be there, most in poor condition, and the retirees that got good money for these homes would still be sitting in them. If you want to keep Newton like that and not let it improve, then push for zoning to accomplish that. I’m just saying that personally I like the way it’s going, even though I myself couldn’t afford one of those houses. And my points are limited to the tear-down issue of single-family homes. The multi-family home issue is a different issue.
Jerry,
🙂
I’m glad to have read this article and the report. We certainly need more housing options in this city. Not everyone needs or can afford a large single family house. Young people, the ones who are the future of the economy, are much more mobile these days. Most of them have no kids and want to to rent.
Jared,
I don’t know what city you live in. Look around Newton. It’s is not Weston or Carlisle or Dover. The options in various parts of Newton are pretty diverse.
Barry, Barry. I’m sorry you took all of what I said so seriously. I wrote it in a reflective mood three months back on a rainy day in Turkey and I was just reciting some of my retirement dreams–travel, sailing and an affordable nice downsized house or condo in Newton. I was just restating them in these postings. I never implied then or now that I thought I would be able to put all of it together or that I thought anyone or anything should subsidize these fantasies. I’m am, however deeply touched by your preoccupation with my welfare. I would never take any action on my own, but maybe you’d like to spearhead an override campaign to set up a modest slush fund for me or perhaps you could put together a charitable trust fund for the same
purpose. I’d be honored. All the best
BOB,
I think the issues being discussed are serious to most of the people posting. Sticking in some bogus post which generates controversy seems to be irresponsible.
Have fun in New Hampshire with the Occupy Wall Street crowd.
Wrong again, Barry. Lawrence Lessig, the founder of New Hampshire Rebellion, is a former Republican. In fact, he was National President of the Young Republicans at one time. Another leader, former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer was elected as a conservative Republican and remains a conservative Republican on many issues. You may recall that he ran in the Republican Presidential primaries during 2012, but the national Republicans wouldn’t let him into any of the debates because they didn’t want the issue of money in politics to come up.
What Lessig and Roemer have in common with me is deep disdain at how big money and big corporations have corrupted all of our government institutions. We also know that we have to reach across the political spectrum to work with people of all different political beliefs if any of the reforms we seek are to become reality. Then we can debate our differences as Americans who respect each other and I have a hunch we would find we agree on a lot of things we didn’t think we would.
Finally, I quote Irish folk singer Christie Moore. “If we didn’t have humor in most things we do, we’d all go insane and it would be a slow slog to the grave.”
BOB,
I agree that money has corrupted the system, or rather that the system has always been corrupted by money as government has grown dramatically since the 18th century. Your use of corporations and omission of labor unions is obvious, but that’s too be expected. Until we realize that the system is corrupt and not the people with the money, we’ll never solve the problem.
So here’s what I think and you can bring it to New Hampshire with you. Contributions limited as they seem to be on tax returns, and only given to campaign funds for the candidates to be spent for the candidates. NO PAC’s. NO corporate parties at the conventions. NO perks for candidates or elected officials from anyone or any entity. They must campaign on only their campaign funds, which will be limited. A corporation or a union is allowed to advertise only where it has a clear position, and it should be explicit. For example, if the oil industry thinks a particular candidate can help it, it can run ads or disseminate materials which state that it is them who are behind it, why they think it will help the industry, and why the voter should want the industry to be helped. No other money to be spent on politics by any organizations, even the RNC or the DNC. Only the campaign committees.
We are a country OF the people, BY the people, and FOR the people. A corporation is NOT a person, which the Supreme Court doesn’t seem to agree with and a labor union is not a person.
If lack of money means that candidates can not run expensive focus groups or polls in order to determine how to fool the voters by manipulating the message, so much the better. The message should be honest, not tuned to these studies.
Gee, we can go on, but, you see, I’m in agreement with what you say, as long as you fairly restrict ALL influence and not just the corporations that the Occupy movement says it hates. Barack Obama should never have been able to spend a billion dollars on a campaign, and neither the Koch brothers nor George Soros nor others should be able to use their money to influence elections.
And the donor dinners. $100,000 a plate to sit in a room with Obama. How does that square with honest politics? Why do we accept that?
You get my idea. As long as the law allows this corruption, anyone with access to money and interest in the results of an election will manipulate the system. The laws need to be changed and enforced.
Many politicians will decide not to run if they can’t benefit themselves from the money that moves around through various coffers by that’s better. We don’t need the politicians who care only about personal gain and the gain of the people who support them.
@Barry. I agree with just about everything you say on this.
Oh, and BOB, one more thing, but it’s harder to deal with since it can be viewed more as freedom of speech. Fox should not be a mouthpiece for the Republican party and MSNBC should not be a mouthpiece for the Democratic party. They, and other so-called news media pass themselves off as peddling news, but they are peddling biased opinions. My observation is that on any any issue of importance, we, the voters, never get any useful information from the news media. What we get is a lot of opinions from so-called qualified speakers. Even when they allow both sides sides to be heard, as does often happen on Fox with people like Alan Colmes debating conservatives, we still are getting only two biased sides of the issues, and no useful information. Years ago, newspapers delivered news and opinion was limited to the editorial pages. No more.
Anything else you want to know?
Greg Reibman says we very much need to find ways to attract a young workforce as a way to attract companies to come and grow here. Let’s evaluate that statement because Greg Reibman ran the Newton TAB from 2001 to 2011 and now runs Village 14 as well as serves as the President of the Newton-Needham Chamber of Commerce.
In that time, Greg has a record of supporting more burdensome taxes in order to support more wasteful spending programs and projects like Newton North High School.
Yet now, after TripAdvisor moved to Needham and Eagle Investment Systems moved to Wellesley, he’s now pushing for special tax breaks for the business community? Ironic, isn’t it?
http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/newton/2013/12/10/attracting-high-tech-to-newton/#axzz2quD503KJ
Perhaps Newton taxpayers could take Greg Reibman’s rhetoric about addressing the business community’s concerns seriously if he suggested real fiscal management solutions instead of supporting the 2002, 2008 and 2013 overrides.
Maybe he’d be a credible voice if he had opposed the Newton North High School (which has put Newton in its current fiscal straitjacket) but he didn’t (Stop Talking and Start Building, Vote Yes is how he and Gail put it).
Perhaps Newton taxpayers should listen to Greg Reibman if he seized the opportunity to oppose the state’s 40B housing law, but he didn’t. He and Gail supported keeping the 40B housing law.
Furthermore, Greg and Gail supported Setti Warren for mayor after Warren called for selling Newton residents on more 40B housing developments. As a result, we now have a 40B proposal for a 334 apartment unit on Wells Avenue, which was intended to be used for commercial development.
Greg Reibman’s blandishments about the business community’s concerns would have some credibility if he and the NNCoC did something about throttling back Newton’s restrictive regulations regarding commercial building heights, but they didn’t.
Maybe when Newton had a moratorium on the bank branches last year, Greg Reibman and the NNCoC could have shown leadership by pushing for banks to bring their good-paying credit analysis, investment management, finance, technology and other white-collar jobs to Newton, but they didn’t.
When it comes to discussing Newton issues in general and economic issues in particular, we at the Newton Taxpayers Association insist upon real facts based on verifiable data that leads to logical conclusions when debating regarding these issues. We emphasize results, not rhetoric and we hold people accountable when their rhetoric doesn’t match their record of results.
@Josh. You forgot to mention that I spoke about wanting to help the less fortunate during my bar mitzvah speech.
Joshua, I guess Greg is not expected to be part of your new coalition.
Patrick, I merely pointed out that Greg Reibman’s recent rhetoric doesn’t match up with his record of results in Newton civic affairs.
I would rather a small group of reliable and consistent people who I can trust rather than a large group of unreliable people who say one thing and do another.
I remember when Greg claimed that he didn’t endorse Claire Sokoloff in her first run for School Committee in 2005. Last I checked, he was Editor in Chief of the Newton TAB from 2001 to 2009 and the Newton TAB endorsed Claire Sokoloff over Andrew that year. In addition, his protege Gail Spector gave a personal endorsement of Claire Sokoloff as well and he hired her as the Tab’s new Editor one year later.
I took a position in Coach (COH) because its shares were cheap and because management told me that they had their problems under control. I sold out at a profit in October before they released lousy results because it was obvious that Coach was out of control, it lost its vision, its management either lied to me or didn’t know what they were talking about and there didn’t seem to be any adults in the room that could take charge of Coach and manage its destiny on behalf of the shareholders.
I think that world famous value investor and Democrat donor Warren Buffett said it best when he said when he said “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.” I think that holds true for business as well as civic affairs.
Oh and Josh, while you clearly know much more about why I held certain opinions one or two decades ago than I do, the fact of the matter is that The Newton TAB endorsed Andrew Gottlieb in the 2005 preliminary election and then two months later (after a second round of conversations with candidates and people who knew both individuals) reversed itself and endorsed Claire Sokoloff in the finals. I don’t regret that decision. Claire transformed our School Committee in meaningful ways and helped us select a terrific superintendent.
I know it is hard for you to grasp the concept that people sometimes change or modify their opinions over time. But it happens. That’s why your continued infatuation with who endorsed whom or said what back when, say, Jane Swift was governor, is great for generating web traffic into the Wicked Local archives. But really it seems silly to, well, just about everyone else.
Joshua, my mistake. I thought you were building a coalition to win an election, and not a small group of reliable and consistent people who you like and can trust. Small groups do not win elections against the established voting majority; ask Bill how it works.
Patrick, right now, my biggest objective in rebuilding the Newton Taxpayers Association is in rebuilding the organization’s foundation. In the 1960s, it was powerful enough to play kingmaker in the mayors races. Unfortunately, its influence has waned over the years.
As for building a coalition with other people, when we have taken care of our organizational rebuilding efforts, I know which reform-oriented Democrats and Independents that I need to solidify a relationship with in order to build a strong reform coalition. Fortunately, I have goodwill with them based on my activist efforts in 2013. Furthermore, they recognized that I have done a good in bringing the NTA back into its core fiscal based issues and that I have integrated data-driven good governance reform into the NTA’s capabilities.
Greg, any rational thinking person would recognize that the TAB’s endorsement of Claire Sokoloff in the general election supersedes the endorsement of Andy Gottlieb in the primary.
I disagree with you regarding Claire’s legacy on the School Committee. Although its the same group of well-connected cheerleaders for the school system, she did manage to push for quinquennial overrides, increasing annual spending by 39% (From $134.8M in 2006 to $187.7M in 2014) to fund lavish compensation packages for the unions & the administrators) and promoting Andrea Steenstrup against Margaret Albright.
As for the Superintendent, the good news is that at least he isn’t Jeff Young. The bad news is that he isn’t terrific, but merely average. He needs to communicate with people better and he needs to manage a budget better. There are 24 K-12 school districts in Massachusetts that generate comparable or better results than Newton even though they spend less per student than Newton. The Big Four that stick out in my mind are Hingham, Shrewsbury, Winchester and Belmont because of the following reasons:
* Those communities have above-average population density relative to Massachusetts,
* Population bases in excess of 20,000,
* Classified as a suburb
* Median household income that that is comparable or less than Newton’s
* Academic results in excess of Newton and
* Administer their own retirement benefit systems.
As for changing opinions, when the facts change, I change my mind. When the same Political Insider Group that promoted David Cohen, Newton North, the CPA Tax Surcharge, the 2002 override and the 2008 override were promoting Setti Warren and the 2013 override, I know that I don’t see change, and that they are anything but reformers.
But that Mr. Fancy Factman doesn’t change the fact that the TAB endorsed Gottleib first, which was related to your accusation that I stated something that wasn’t true.
Whatever.
Joshua, Greg – Really?? Squabbling over the details of an endorsement for School Committee eight years ago? Let’s give it a rest.
Greg, now you’re just trying to wordsmith here, but thank you for proving my point.
Greg Reibman
It would be appropriate for the whole community if you would please post a link under your blogroll to Joshua Norman’s emerging NTA such that we can see a meeting schedule and membership participants. Tx
Hoss the sockpuppet, I’d like to oblige you on that, however I have to decline. Considering the fact that people keyed my car simply for opposing Setti Warren’s override, people followed me around my neighborhood when I was leafletting for progressive candidates, people tried to take yard signs off the lawns of people from MNF and that a vendor that served a friend of mine who is a candidate for statewide office was strong-armed into ending their relationship with my friend, as NTA President I’m not going to subject my membership to any potential harassment simply because they oppose the political litmus tests of Greg Reibman, Hoss the Sockpuppet and Newton’s Political Insider Group.
So what has that “Terrific Superintendent” Done for the NPS?