I was at a meeting at the library tonight. It was largely about something called CDBG funding. It’s roughly $1.5 million a year that the federal government has been giving to Newton as a block grant. The city can choose to spend it in a wide variety of ways. Historically they have been spending roughly 55% of that on housing issues. Among the housing needs/programs it goes towards – first time mortgages, housing for chronically homeless, general low income home creation, low income home improvement funding ….
When I saw that list and realized that they were talking roughly $850,000 per year in a town where that’s not too much more than the price of an average single family home, I realized something was out of whack.
Later in the meeting, Rev Haywood from the Myrtle Street Baptist Church got up during the comment section. He asked the planning dept what percentage of Newton housing would be in the affordable category if you took out the 40B housing. They said roughly 2%. Rev Haywood said “so the ONLY thing that has had any effect on the supply of affordable housing in Newton is 40B housing, yet every single 40B project that is ever proposed is fought tooth and nail, over and over again by the citizens of Newton. If we fight every 40B project then we should face up to the fact that we really DON’T support affordable housing.”
So my questions to everyone who says “I’m all for affordable housing but not 40B housing”
* What would you do instead of 40B that could significantly increase the stock of lower income housing in Newton?
* Why would you think this would work when up to now nothing other than 40B has “moved the needle” of affordable housing?
* Extra Credit Question – Can you point to somewhere else where this alternative approach had any noticeable effect on the overall amount of affordable housing in a town?
The one thing that might be able to be done without affecting the neighborhoods is allowing (I can’t remember the term, but I think they are called auxiliary apartments). I have heard two sides to auxiliary apartment argument over the years, one is they don’t affect the affordable housing stock at all and the second version I heard was that the way the BOA has proposed auxiliary apartments in the past wouldn’t affect affordable housing, but with some tweaking it can. We can create enough affordable housing opportunity to put us over the 10% mark without adversely affecting our neighborhoods. (but that all depends on whether it can be done…obviously).
Is it really true that *every* 40b project in Newton has been fought “tooth and nail”? Or are we using 40b as a synonym for “high-density apartment complex” (a la Wells Ave and Rowe St)? There have been successful smaller 40b projects, which are still higher density that what may have been there previously. I get that these aren’t as appealing to developers and they don’t create as many units as quickly, but they seem to be a better fit for Newton given the existing density of our neighborhoods and the lack of developable land. Of course, with the housing market rising and developers able to buy up lots with older, smaller single and two-family homes and turn them into higher-density, luxury condos and attached single-families via the special permit process, the opportunities for the smaller mixed income developments are dwindling.
I’ve only been here for 5 years but I don’t know of any 40Bs on that time that haven’t run into big opposition. Though admittedly, it’s not something I’ve paid a great deal of attention to.
Rev Haywood mentioned, I think, a project that his church was involved with that was building 3 additional units,and ran into fierce opposition.
It’s not actually true that the only thing that’s created affordable housing is 40B. The inclusionary zoning provision requires 15% affordable units in projects of over six units, I think is the cutoff. Below six units there’s supposed to be a payment into a fund, although I’d like to see the accounting of what’s been done with that. For example, how much was paid into this fund for the five luxury condos comprising Phase 1 of Elm Gardens (11-19 Elm Street), and what did it buy?
I think the provisions of inclusionary zoning should be much stricter: 50%, applied to all multi-units, i.e. if someone wants to tear down a single family to build two townhouses, one has to be affordable. That might help discourage teardowns of relatively affordable smaller houses in MR districts, and at least if a teardown happened, we’d gain one affordable unit for every two built. I would not require the affordable units to be as ridiculously big as the market units that are now being built.
I still think we need a moratorium on teardowns until we drastically reduce FARs, to remove the incentive to replace our smaller houses with big ones. But if we aren’t willing to do that, let’s figure out how to apply inclusionary zoning to teardowns and additions, by requiring payments into that fund for increases in square footage. It would probably require at least a ‘home rule’ state law, or maybe even a change in the state constitution to permit it, but if that could be done, it would generate some real money.
Is there a listing anywhere of projects developed under 40B in Newton?
It seems to me that, at least in recent history, developers use 40B mainly as a way to skirt zoning regs to overbuild luxury housing. Can someone tell me the last time a developer used 40B to build 100% affordable housing in Newton? Probably rarely or never. Austin Street is the most offensive example. I have no problem with the City allowing development on that site, but if we, the City of Newton, are going to provide extremely valuable city-owned land to a developer at a huge discount below market rate, why not require it to be 100% affordable? I think Newtonville would survive intact without more luxury units. Can’t find a developer willing to do it? Probably it’s because they’re not even looking for one. I bet you could find many who would salivate at the prospect of building a creative, visually-appealing, and 100% affordable housing project in Newton.
@Paul – I think maybe you misunderstand the 40B program.
All developers, all the time, are able to build 100% affordable houses, but they don’t. Why would you if you’re a developer? Your job is to make a profit and that’s not where the profit is. The 40B program was created because virtually no one was building new affordable housing without some kind of subsidy from somewhere
The 40B program is in effect a subsidy program. Developers will only build more affordable units if there is an incentive to do so. The incentive in 40B is that if you include affordable units then the state will waive much of the local zoning rules. That’s potentially worth a lot of money to a developer, and that money is what pays for the affordable units.
So when you say
that is correct, that is in fact the aim of the 40B program and what it was expressly intended to do. You may agree with that or you may think it’s a bad idea, but it’s not a perversion of 40B – it’s what it was supposed to do.
If, as you suggest, Austin St should be built as 100% affordable housing, who would pick up the tab for the subsidy of those 100% affordable, below market rate, units?
I was at that meeting then drifted back to the Wells avenue project at City Hall where the developer is clever enough to get the self appointed Auburndale representatives to start negotiating his project for him: “60 sounds better than 130, it’s going to get built anyways.”
Regardless where you stand on 40Bs and large scale housing projects you have to ask: is Newton ready to accept all the new students these projects would generate and the traffic it would create. Is our infrastructure prepared for any of these projects?
Newton’s stated goal is 800 more “affordable” units to hit 10%. Why does that have to be new units versus existing ones? From what I’ve learned, 40B is a horribly ineffective way to provide affordable housing not to mention the twisted social engineering aspects of this arrangement. Why not look at existing housing in Newton under 500K – what hasn’t yet fallen to developers McMansioning – and start preserving, fixing, and renting. There has to be a more creative and effective solution. Give me 6 people and 3 months and I guarantee a better, workable solution.
Here’s some comments from a V14 reader (but not a commenter):
I do have some knowledge of affordable housing. My husband worked for a developer who did a lot of affordable housing construction for many years. The firm he worked for built privately financed housing and used tax credits to build an entire building of affordable units. The units remain affordable over the period of time of the tax credits and then revert to market rate after that time. Here is HUDs description of that program – http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/comm_planning/affordablehousing/training/web/lihtc/basics/work
You will never see 40B used in a community like Randolph or Fitchburg. That is because 40B uses the profits made from the market rate units to subsidize the affordable units. And affordable is community dependent – 80% of median family income to qualify. So affordable is a relative term. Imagine what kinds of rents there would be in Fitchburg at 80% of median income – very low indeed. And of course your market rate is lower as well, so you would be hard-pressed to make any money on a 40B project outside of a community with high property values and high rents.
There are a lot of pressures on the market right now. Vacancy rates are very low and even lower income areas like Mattapan and Revere are getting pricey. That is why homelessness is at an all-time high. I think the more relevant question is, does 40B solve these problems or exacerbate them?
The situation is difficult. Every time a modestly priced property is torn down and replaced by luxury another family is displaced driving up prices in places like Waltham and Watertown, which in turn displaces someone else. I read yesterday that some Chinatown residents have started a land trust to try to preserve naturally affordable buildings from tear down and gentrification.
And my husband owns some 6 and 8 unit apartment buildings in Revere, Malden and Everett. He is constantly getting calls from homeless agencies saying, they can pay more rent per month for his units than the current residents and if he can empty out the building they will rent the whole thing from him for substantially more than he is currently getting. He doesn’t generally do it because, as he says, the working poor in his buildings will now become homeless. Because so much luxury has been built at the expense of affordable, even the housing advocates are just rearranging the deck chairs.
Luxury housing is being overbuilt. All the real estate people who have been in the business for a long time are saying it. The younger guys just see dollar signs and keep building at the high end where there is the most profit.
Christopher – funny you should mention that. I read this just yesterday – http://baystatebanner.com/news/2015/jan/28/chinatown-group-forms-community-land-trust-fight-g/
I was at the Rowe Street community meeting last night.
The developer was sounding out the community on approximately 75 units.
They stated that their original plans were for 150 units, but during in the 40b process they had scaled back to 135 units.
If the city had not asserted reaching the 1.5% threshold the developer would have said it would have been uneconomic to build anything less than 135 units, and would probably have got their way.
So now that the 40B show has changed, it seems the developer can reduce the current proposal by 50 units. and still turn a profit.
Surely this highlights how the city and its neighborhoods have been abused by developers using the 40B process , in the namesake of affordable housing.
@Jerry Reilly, I don’t think I misunderstand the 40B program. Your response complete misses the mark by suggesting that all development should maximize profit to the builder. To suggest, under this rationale, that affordable development can’t happen profitably unless >75% luxury units are also built is a fallacy. It also denies the reality that affordable development is happening all over the Greater Boston area. Finally, it is particularly off-base in the case of Austin Street in which the City is already subsidizing the proposed development with a substantial discount on the price of the land. Take a look at the work of the NON-PROFIT developer Urban Edge in Boston and various FOR-PROFIT architectural firms that have managed to do excellent, cutting-edge 100% affordable development while doing just fine financially. Here’s an example:
http://www.utiledesign.com/projects/hyde-blakemore-condominiums/
This is the type of development that Newton needs, not more tear-downs and luxury condos with the minimum required affordable units thrown in as an afterthought (in the case of 40b jobs).
Isn’t the non-profit housing built in Boston by Urban Edge and others funded through fees on Boston developers? So wouldn’t Newton need to have a lot of development to fund housing that is all affordable? If I’m wrong, correct me, but I don’t see where else other get $s for affordable housing from.
Also, it seems to me, the surest way to bring down rents, is build more housing.
The interesting read on the Chinatown Land Trust is their recognition that they are watching “the gentrification of formerly low-cost neighborhoods.” So they are going to buy up the low-cost properties and allow low to moderate income people to rent or buy there with deed restrictions that keep the LAND under the houses in a trust. This would allow some appreciation to the home buyers, but keep that housing market permanently available to lower income earners. Newton, “unfortunately”, doesn’t have any low cost neighborhoods. The rising tide of real estate appreciation has raised all home and land prices here. The CDBG fund pool is $1.7million/year. Suppose Newton poured all that money for ten years into a Land Trust to buy up properties in, say, Oak Hill Park to preserve the smaller units as the starter homes that were originally built to serve returning soldiers after WWII. But…suppose that money were stretched further than buying the whole kit and caboodle (land and house). Instead, what if Newton used that money to buy the land under the houses of these smaller homes as they come on the market, effectively helping the current residents to sell to other residents instead of developers? It might require a moratorium on knock-downs for a few years, but might give us a chance to permanently keep the smaller housing stock adrift in that rising tide.
The farce of 40B is that the community has to absorb 75%-80% market rate units in order to create 20%-25% affordable units. The developers get rich and the city gets the shaft. 40B is an inefficient way to create affordable housing.
Thanks to Mayor Warren’s bold move to protect Newton from apartment developers who exploit 40B, we have an opportunity to address the affordable housing crisis in innovative ways that better suit the unique nature of a city with 13 distinct villages. Now it’s all about priorities. If affordable housing is truly a priority in the hearts and minds of Newton residents, we should use the majority of our CPA funds to support it.
@Mike Striar – I just took a quick look at a recent CPA report. The total fund for 2012 was $7.3 million. We already spent 65% on housing. By law you can’t spend more than 75%, so even if we maxed out CPA for housing it would only add roughly $700K to housing. That’s roughly the price of a single median priced home in Newton.
Keep in mind many units that qualify as affordable under 40B are not actually affordable. All the units in a rental development are added to the Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI), even the market rate units, whereas only the 25% affordable units in a condo development are added to the SHI.
I think easing the rules on accessory apartments within homes or carriage units is a promising way to create more affordable housing – one is not likely to pay $3K a month for a studio or one bedroom in your basement.
I also think providing incentives for “upzoning” in commercial strips in the village centers should be pursued. If the units are kept small then they will be more affordable just by nature of their size. Boston is promoting “micro-units” of 300 square feet. Maybe we wouldn’t want to go that small but I believe there would be a market for 5-600 square foot units. I think this is the kind of smart growth that keeps a village from feeling too urbanized, but also adds affordability, foot traffic and vibrancy. Ideally it would also generate property tax revenues that could be used for beautification.
Jerry, here is a report by the CPA on how funds have been spent. Almost half the funds were spent on open space and recreation, 31% on community housing (which is affordable to households making up to 100% of the area median income) and 21% on historic preservation.
CDBG funds are intended to benefit low to moderate income individuals and families, and pay for services as well as housing and neighborhood improvements in low to moderate income neighborhoods. Newton gets almost the same amount of CDBG funds as Lowell or Lawrence. The reason those cities and Boston (where Urban Edge creates affodable housing) can afford to create more affordable housing with their federal funds is that property costs are a lot cheaper, which means the total development costs are a lot cheaper. Currently, there are only a handful of two families for sale in Newton with an asking price under $1 million. Over the past 5 years, using CDBG, HOME and CPA funds Newton has produced 7 affordable units of housing–seven. That is why 40B offers the most cost effective way to create more affordable housing in Newton, since the developer is subsidizing the cost instead of the government.
Paul, SEB created 10 units all of which are affordable at Parkview Homes in Auburndale, and CAN DO has created a number of 100% affordable projects using a combination of Chapter 40B and CDBG, HOME and CPA funds. But using 40B alone, it is virtually impossible to create 100% affordable units because–math. Allow me to explain.
Chapter 40B allows developers to make a “reasonable return” i.e., profit, of 15-20% on a homeownership project. According to HUD, to be affordable to a moderate income family of 4, a unit of housing cannot exceed $219,000 or so. In 2012, for the Greater Boston area, the average construction cost per square foot for a 4-7 story apartment building was $200 per square foot (it is higher now). If each apartment is 1000 square feet (which is tight for a family of 4) that is already $200,000. Then, you have to add the property acquisition costs. The average single family home in Newton sells for over $800,000. Newton just bought 3 houses over by Zervas on 3/4 of an acre for $2.5 million, which comes out to about $3.333 million per acre. So, in order to build 100% affordable condo units and just break even, a developer would have to build about 175 units per acre ($219,000 maximum price – $200,000 per unit construction = $19,000; $3,333,333/$19,000 = 175.4). There are probably some cheaper lots in Newton, but the costs to build a a multi-family house that is less than 4-7 stories, of course, are significantly higher per square foot. So, no matter how you slice it, the only way to build 100% affordable units AND make a profit is to build a LOT of units on a very small lot using 40B, OR build fewer units and subsidize the affordable units with market rate units.
Ted: Any thoughts on the Land Trust suggestion?
@Ted, there are still plenty of homes in Newton under 600K. Building more in Newton is not the answer. Making more out of what we have is far more sensible and doesn’t put in motion the negative domino effect. Lastly I have to say that a 1.5M investment for community housing doesn’t seem like a genuine attempt by Newton so what is really going on here?
Christopher: $600,000 is still not “affordable” to a family of 4 earning a low to moderate income. To make it affordable, you would have to subsidize about $380,000 of the purchase price. So, to add affordable units, you either need DEEP public subsidies, or you have to build more housing, or both. Because math.
Sallee, do you know how much St. Philip Neri is going for? If everyone in Waban ponied up their pro rata share you could buy it.
Ted: If your numbers are true, then a Land Trust could buy up $380,000 of the cost of each $600,000 house to make it affordable. What is the cost of building new affordable units? I thought it was close to $500,000 today. We’d be saving the development cost and not adding density. The homeowner could get a little appreciation (perhaps 2/5 of the appreciation when sold, based on the $220,000/$380,000 initial investment), and a place to live that he/she owns.
Ted, BTW, I didn’t know SPN was on the block. The Planning Department reports that they haven’t heard about any development plans there. What have you heard? I know it was purchased for many millions, not $600,000, so it’s irrelevant to my suggestion about a Land Trust.
@Jerry– Let’s trust Ted’s numbers, because I’m sure he’s got it right. But I’d also like to make one more point. It’s not necessarily how much you spend on affordable housing, but more important how you spend it. For one example, in the past Newton spent CPA funds as an incentive for a developer to reduce the size of a 40B apartment building. That strategy proved very successful at saving one of our neighborhoods from a large apartment building, but it’s not exactly an efficient use of CPA funds.
Thats the term I was looking for (thanks Emily) I was thinking of accessory apartments, not auxiliary apartments.
Sallee, my aunt and four cousins lived in one of those Oak Hill houses built for WWII veterans back in the 1960s. Most of those houses were built cheaply, on a concrete slab (no basement), with green lumber that was not pressure treated, and were pretty cramped to say the least for a family of five. The washer and dryer were in the kitchen, the kids all shared tiny bedrooms, and my aunt slept on a studio couch in the living room. Like many houses built 55 or 60 years ago, by now the sill is probably rotted, the roof needs replacing, the siding probably does too, the kitchen needs a complete makeover, and who knows what you would find inside the walls if you opened them up to renovate. The cost to acquire, renovate and subsidize the affordability of a single family house is expensive. So it makes no financial sense to buy single family homes to make them affordable without adding density. In fact, it is pretty dumb from a return on investment perspective.
As for SPN, why not make an offer? The current owners only paid $3.95 million in January 2014. I bet you could get it for a little over $4 million, easy. 😉
Mike Striar: It sounds like a lot of incentivizing to me: 40B already gives a developer incentives by removing the time constraints (time is money) and extra costs of the restrictions of zoning regulations. Then, we gave more taxpayer incentivizing by offering CPA to make the development smaller? The real question should be how the calculation is made to determine whether a development of any given size will be profitable to a developer? Where is the public discussion of true financial accountability by the developer after the project is constructed? I haven’t seen that anywhere. Has any developer ever repaid his “overage of profits”? I can’t believe they have all lost money or made less than the allowed amount or they wouldn’t still be coming back to the well.
Just clarifying that the Paul in this thread is different than the typical one.
Ted: I watched the plywood go up on a development on Needham Street when it was erected and have often wondered whether the Newton Fire Department was entirely happy with construction that leaves gaps between floors as paths for flames to follow? Cheap construction is just that. But, if a homeowner moves into an Oak Hill Park home, maybe he can change the sills over time. He can fix what’s broken and, like Grandfather’s Ax, in time it gets replaced in the same footprint, not demolished to host a monster house that oozes from setback to setback.
@Ted, We hear how Oak Hill is comprised of crummy little houses all falling apart, made with sub standard materials and building practices, but people who live there now don’t seem to back this claim. I would also question if some of those practices don’t apply to some of the houses being built around town now, including Fuller st. I would like to see a in depth survey about this before the concept of preserving, renting, subsidizing, in OHP is written off. Maybe you could make that happen?
Christopher, I am relying upon what the building inspectors tell me about many of the houses they see in Oak Hill Park and elsewhere. When I chaired the Zoning Task Force a few years ago, we looked at the old 50% demolition rule. They tell me that in the 1950s and 1960s, a lot of subdivisions were built by developers on land that was cheap (at least by Newton standards), and in many cases the water table was high or the land had poor drainage, and the houses were built cheaply with green lumber instead of pressure treated lumber. One of the things I have heard over and over from ISD is that once you open up the walls in the houses that were built in OHP and other parts of the city, particularly where the water table is high, in many cases a lot more demolition is required to fix the problems. Sometimes even total demolitions.
@Sallee– Your “time and money” argument is right on target. That’s why for years I have advocated a more confrontational approach to developers who exploit 40B in Newton. I have had some epic battles on that topic here on V-14. But it’s been my experience as a developer who has used 40B, that municipalities have the ability to successfuly fight back. Fortunately, it appears that Mayor Warren has finally come to that conclusion as well.
Emily, Christopher et. al. I”m approaching the twilight zone, but would like to stay in my house until the end, if at all possible. But if it is not, renting an accessory apartment sure looks like something I’d prefer over a lonely unit in a modern, high rise apartment.
Greg wants a place near biking, hiking and other recreational opportunities, Bob would prefer an accessory apartment, and I’d like something located in a village center. Why not try to provide a variety of options for seniors to age in place?
184 Spiers Road, an original Oak Hill Park house, just got a 2014 Preservation Award from Historic Newton. http://www.newtonma.gov/gov/historic/quicklinks/programs.asp
There has been a slow but steady increase in the number of permitted accessory apartments since a zoning amendment allowing some by right was passed more than a decade ago.
An aggressive outreach program to legalize many more failed completely for two reasons.
Owners didn’t want the legal restrictions on ownership and use that came with the program.
Many apartments didn’t have the second means of access that the fire safety code now rightly requires, and have no feasible means of adding them Accessory apartments are a part of the solution to the affordable housing problem but they are far from a panacea.
I have lived in OHP for over 20 years and thank those here and elsewhere that see the value in the initial development of this ‘hidden urban oasis’ (Campbell, Boston Globe), a neighborhood that is historic, a living memorial to fallen WWII veterans and was unique and consistent in its’ size and scale, even with additions that were added to original homes in the first 45-50 years of the park. In the last 5 years I’ve personally heard enough of OHP bashing from city hall (staff and governance) but have never heard it from one resident past or present. We think of it as a jewel; a unique place where houses are ‘semi-affordable’ for people who would like to live and or stay in Newton or live ‘small’ rather than oversized.
Sadly, many would like to see every home here bulldozed to make way for monoliths that are priced at 1 to 1.5 miliion dollars. Contrary to ISD assertions, the houses are not junk and rotting. This is a convenient excuse to applaud demolitions. The Newton Historic Commission, though well intentioned and hard working on many fronts has not helped the cause for saving naturally affordable homes in any village either because they do not have the power to do so or have not seen the merit in this mid century very unique development. We have done three renovations and in all that time found a small area of rot in a wet wall. Every contractor has marveled at how well the homes are constructed.
Compare that to the pressed wood oversized poorly constructed replacement homes. Lovely and high end on the inside, but garbage at the bones with sump pumps running 24/7 in every rainstorm. Not everyone NEEDS a basement and there is a reason why none were put in initially. An underground stream traverses the neighborhood and feeds the Charles River. Every person that is new to OHP says, ‘this is amazing’ and they are not talking about the McMansions.
OHP was the first public private partnership in the US dedicated to create affordable homes to returning GI’s from WWII. It was built in 1948-1950 (not the 60’s THM) . Each pathway was named for a fallen Newton serviceperson. What an incredible purpose and memorial. Why can’t our city officials and staff come up with creative ways to either save, renovate or re-purpose the remaining single level homes? I recently offered several ideas to entire BOA and not a single person responded with an acknowledgement that they’d received it! There are so many possibilities; non-profit partnerships, housing for downsizing older Newtonians, first time homebuyer programs, preservation incentives, re-patriating the park with veterans from other conflicts with the help of organizations that renovate and help to make the homes affordable. BUT, it’s so much easier to call these homes junk, rationalize the demolitions and then reap the benefits of the greater tax revenue generated by the more expensive homes. It is not just in OHP. It’s all over Newton. I know a Large House Review is being re-visited as well as a more narrowly defined moratorium and Zoning Reform, but WHEN???? By the time any of these get implemented OHP as it was intended and still exists in over half the park will cease to exist. We will be Somerville. And that is no disrespect to Somerville. It’s just not what fits here.
Alderman Ted has an opportunity to change his BOA legacy with regards to zoning. Will he do so, his track record suggests not? If the BOA had half the balls Sangiolo does then we would have zoning reforms that would preserve neighborhoods instead of the allowing the devastation that is being wreaked upon them with outsized homes built with total disregard to architectural context, esthetics, greenspace, alignment, and plain old common sense. As for the historic commission, what kind of preservation is a one year demolition delay? Newton seems more like Easter Island with the leadership leading the tree cutting.
@LisaK– As a homeowner, I’m glad my rights are not subject to your opinions about architectural style or esthetics. Let me assure you that your version of “common sense” is not universally shared. As for your concern about Ted’s legacy, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that. Ted is one of the most knowledgable and effective aldermen I’ve seen in my many years as a Newton resident.
Lisa, I read every word of your impassioned plea for recognition of OHP’s legacy and hope others did too. It’s good to hear another voice with another viewpoint. Nothing is right for everyone.
Viva, Oak Hill Park! And Viva, Lisa! That is the most creative, non self-serving thinking I’ve heard in months. Let’s open our minds to fresh thought like yours instead of tying our actions to legislation that has passed its prime in our very built-out community. We might even be able to reach the professed and desired goal of providing and preserving affordable housing without demolishing the character of our Villages if we give up acting like ideologues!
Sallee echoed what I wanted to say. Great to hear Lisa’s story. I was almost certain the stories about rotting wood and crumbling foundations in the original Oak Hill houses were completely or almost totally fabricated to expedite demolitions in the area.
@Mike, so let’s examine Ald Ted’s record. Items he authored or co authored that passed for zoning reform in the last 7 years? .
By all means correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the answer is 0.
How many zoning reform items has he voted against or pulled a tactic against in the last year? I know of two but I think there might be more.
So Ald. Ted, still saying you are serving the people? Better look if there’s any water in the bucket you are carrying Mike.
As for demo porn, if you can’t recognize it when you see it, then this “universally held” thing you profess to be aligned with is most likely in that same bucket.
Ted,
with all due respect,..So a house with a rotting sill should be torn down?
Pressure treated lumber never has or will be used in house framing! Green lumber?,.. After 50 years, in fact if it ever was used ,.. Will be pretty dry by now. And I can guarantee you that the lumber used in those days is by far, of a much better quality than that available and used today. Stick to the law,.. Architecture, Construction and Aesthetics is getting you pretty far afield.
Lisa,
Very nice comment. I live right near OHP, I live off of Brookline st and I have to say I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think that OHP is a wonderful piece of history and no one should be ashamed (I know you’re not) of living there. I had many friends growing up there.
That being said, I hope you stay engaged.
Thanks everyone for the positive feedback about Oak Hill Park. But OHP’s issues are not unique. It’s Hartman Road, it’s West Newton and Auburndale where farms once were, it’s upper and lower falls that originally were ‘worker’ villages and more. I really believe there are ways to keep Newton a place where diversity can thrive and that doesn’t just mean 1, 2, and 3 bedroom apartments and townhomes in 40B engineered developments. Some people want multi-unit buildings as housing options, but they should not be the only means by which our city employees and others can afford to live and stay here. It’s not the Garden City for nothing!
I am not sure what to make of Alderman T H-M: he seems knowledgeable but on close scrutiny, his pronouncements reflect exceptions rather than rules or are blatantly inaccurate. Latest example: I was at the Newton Historical Commission meeting a week ago Thursday night; at one point, people were discussing the demolition of a house whose basement keeps flooding because the garage slants from the street towards the house and the street water comes in. Ted Hess-Mahan who was there said that was a bad situation, similar to “Quinobequin road where all the houses flood because the garages are slanted downward from the street”. Turns out, there are five houses (OK one garage was hard to see, so maybe 6) that have a garage that slopes towards the house. Turns out also, that there are 51 houses listed on the Newton Assessors database on Quinobequin Rd. So, five or six houses out of 51 do not make it ALL THE HOUSES!!!
Sorry, should have said ‘the driveway slants”