City Councilor Jake Auchincloss shared this on his email newsletter. Reprinted here with his permission.
Residents spend approximately 15% more to live in Newton than in neighboring cities and towns of Middlesex County, and one in five families earn below the living wage of $78K, according to Making Ends Meet in Newton, a report sponsored by the mayor’s Economic Growth for All initiative.
Drawing on Boston College faculty to help apply MIT’s Living Wage calculator locally, the dense 35-page study outlines how Newton-specific inflation raises the cost of living. As with most dense 35-page studies, few people are reading it.
Here’s the summary:
Newton is prosperous, but increasingly bifurcated. The median household income of $118.6K is well above the Middlesex median of $83.5K and the U.S. median of $53.5K. There is also a relatively low percentage of residents – 5.6% – living below the federal poverty line.
However, these standardized metrics capture neither
(a) the high cost of living in Newton, nor
(b) the stark income inequality in the city.
Consider, for example, that
(a) for a two-adult, three-child household, the annual cost of housing is $29.5K in Newton, a 37% increase over the $21.6K for housing in Middlesex at large; and
(b) more than half of Newton’s families earn $150K+ annually, compared to just more than a quarter of families in Watertown, while the proportion of low-income families is about the same in both. In other words, Watertown has a middle class; Newton does not.
Why is Newton pricing out its middle class? Housing.
The median single-family home costs $1.1M; the median condo costs $560K. These prices internalize superb schools, safe streets, tight-knit villages, and a relatively convenient commute to Boston. To that extent, we should take pride in the real estate market’s signal that Newton is a great place to live.
But we must also take action; housing costs have pushed the living wage to $19 an hour – a stressor embodied by the 1,200 residents who visit food pantries each month, and the 1.5K students who receive free-or-reduced-price lunch.
Housing regulations are under the purview of the city council more than the mayor’s office, and (some of) my colleagues and I have been have been pursuing three measures to reduce housing inflation:
- Accessory apartments. This spring, the city council voted to permit interior accessory units by right across the approximately 19,800 single- or two-family properties in Newton. These benefit homeowners, particularly seniors, by allowing them to monetize their greatest asset – their house – through rental payments while still remaining in their home. They benefit renters (even those not renting accessory units) by expanding and diversifying the city’s housing supply.
- Zoning code redesign. Ongoing project to update land use regulations, with the broad goal of discouraging massive houses on small lots and encouraging village-appropriate mix of single-family, multi-family, and mixed-use housing.
- Inclusionary zoning and village-center development. Approve mixed-use projects in village centers that increase housing supply and create affordable units.
Does this study take into account the disproportionate number of senior citizens in Newton?
Most Newton residents are house-rich and cash-poor…
The zoning code redesign point is misguided. With the exception of e.g., Austin Street, property in Newton is privately held. The city should respect both the opinion and investment of a homeowner or landowner who feels the optimal use of their property is to replace a small, drab home with one of a larger size that either meets their needs or the needs of others as determined by the real estate market. The primary required modification of the zoning laws would be to ease the development of properties such as the Orr Block in a manner that encourages the diversity in housing which many in Newton seem to feel is a priority.
Under the leadership of Mayor Warren, economic inequality has gotten significantly worse in Newton.
Municipal taxes have largely increased to the maximum extent of the law with little to no exemptions. Extracurricular fees at our schools have climbed to levels that prohibit those most in need of such services from participating. Parking penalties have increased by 400% for no good reason, which in many cases has had a disparate impact on Newton’s remaining middle class and below. Newton’s longstanding free lead testing program was unilaterally terminated at a time when it is well known that Newton has a serious lead issue. There continue to be zero free summer meal sites for the growing population of Newton kids who go hungry. And despite the rate of those living below the poverty line growing by more than 77% since Setti became Mayor, the City of Newton still hasn’t created a paid youth summer jobs program, specifically designed to provide our most demonstrably poor and disadvantaged with the resources and skills that they must develop over the summer to compete with their competitors. I could go on and on.
Setti Warren is running for Governor on the promise that he will do something positive about economic inequality if elected. That he put together a report titled “Making Ends Meet in Newton” which doesn’t talk about either ways in which his own government has added to economic inequality nor ways in which it could substantively tackle it is a wasted opportunity to actually do something positive.