Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller has joined a coalition of 15 greater mayors to set a goal to add 185,000 new homes in Greater Boston by 2030. Details about the Metropolitan Mayors Coalition can be found here and a list of participants and data here.
But there’s also this comment from Fuller in this Boston Globe story.
Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller acknowledged that housing developments in her city have face pushback from residents worried about the effects on traffic, schools, and general quality of life. She agreed Newton needs more housing, but the key, Fuller said, is planning it wisely — such as by building around Newton’s MBTA stops.
“We have to make sure this works for Newton,” she said.
Acknowledging the housing shortage is a good first step. Kudos to Mayor Fuller. Hopefully we’ll see these words turn into action.
The Mayor has it exactly right. Wisely planned, transit oriented development, with a process to build community buy in like Hello Washington Street, is exactly what we need to keep our village centers thriving and make an impact on the housing crisis.
Going to hold her to the, “We have to make sure this works for Newton” statement. The Northland proposal on Needham Street, as currently constituted, will NOT “work”. Too big. Trying to knock 822 homes in an already densely populated area, to the detriment of those who already live in the surrounding neighborhoods does not “work” IMO.
Knock that number in half and we may have a conversation.
Has Fuller made the pledge without public support? If she has
she may never be re elected.
Wisely planned, PUBLIC transit-oriented development, is necessary. Especially if we want to have an inclusive City. Are the proposed Northland development’s shuttles and waiting rooms open to the public? Can people ride these public/private shuttles with a Charlie card – or will they cost $4 per ride like the current p/p shuttles on Needham St.
Newton’s draft Economic Development Strategy was just released. It too supports development around transit hubs – but makes no mention of improving the public mass transit that goes through Newton or its facilities (stations, bus stops, etc.).
We need a transit plan that matches the housing plan, that also coordinates with our CO2 reduction goals!
We also need an education plan that matches the housing plan.
I echo Marti’s comment: what is the plan for the schools with the addition of a significant number of housing units?
I third Marti’s comment. I would like to see new development, but one of my main concerns is that most of the schools can’t handle an influx of students. Many of the schools are filled to the brim already.
Totally agree with the concern, but the likelihood of the developer (or even the City) erecting a school is slim to none.
Cap the units to 2 bd max and that should minimize the impact to schools. Can that be mandated via zoning?
Marti is right on. One of the shortcomings here as it is elsewhere is the tendency to plan for a single need (in this case housing) without adequately considering the effects of even the best and most sensitive plan on other components of city life. There’s also a tendency to make assumptions about the mode of transportation that people moving into a fully developed Riverside or Northland will decide to utilize. Some kind of assume that new residents at Riverside will use the Green line since all they have to do is walk a short distance and hop on the trolley. But that assumes that people will move to Riverside because of the quick availability of the Green Line. But what if most professionals who move into Riverside work in Natick, Framingham, Ashland or any of the other outlying municipalities where a lot of job growth is taking place. What if what really drew them there or anywhere else in Newton was to get their kids into the public schools we have here. Some assume a lot of things will fall into place here, that very well may not.
The planning department did not include educational needs in its report nor is any plan at all included in this pledge.
Councilor Auchincloss makes an excellent point about this in his latest newsletter, although from the development proposals being considered the 100 units a year is on its way up.
Mayor Ruthanne Fuller has not said what percentage of those 185K units belong in Newton.
Based on my own math of the respective populations of the coalition members, Newton has just set a goal of 11.5K new housing units over the next 12 years. More nuanced calculations would likely suggest more, because Newton has greater housing demand than other members.
That would be a 10X increase in Newton’s housing production. Newton usually does not produce more than one hundred new units in a year. Producing a thousand new units each year for more than a decade? Without a plan, that is a disjunction between rhetoric and reality.
Housing development that relies exclusively on private developers ends up, inevitably, serving mostly wealthy people. Even in 40b developments, the rent on those limited number of units comes out to about $2500 a month. How many families of “low and moderate income” can afford that? The other 80-90% of the units are at market value, i.e. astronomical. Unless government gets involved (highly unlikely, to be sure), then the new residents to be served will match those moving into those seven-bedroom McMansions springing up around us (two within a block of my house in the last few months). Is that what we want? Can someone come up with a better way to expand housing stock? I wish that I could!
Our goal should not be “more housing” in Newton. It should be more AFFORDABLE housing for Newton…
In my opinion, our true objective should be for 12.5% of our housing stock to meet the affordable standard established by the State. [As opposed to the 10% required under 40B]. To reach that lofty objective requires large, multi-unit apartment buildings. Properly located, Newton still has the growing room to absorb them. BUT… it is absolutely imperative that the City negotiate good deals with developers that require 30% of the units in any new apartment building to meet the affordable standard. Anything less than 30% affordability is a loss for Newton.
The best way to make housing more affordable is to make more housing of all kinds. The laws of supply and demand will help bring down prices (or, more realistically, slow the rate of price increases) when there is more supply. Focusing exclusively on affordable housing will not solve the problem.
https://streets.mn/2018/07/30/two-perspectives-on-the-housing-crisis-affordable-housing-vs-housing-affordability/
@David– It depends what “problem” you’re trying to solve. I believe Newton has just about the right amount of housing. I don’t believe we have enough affordable housing [as defined by the State]. As someone who has actually built housing in other communities, I strongly disagree with the idea that building more homes in Newton will lower housing prices.
@Mike: The problem as I see it is that housing in Newton is too expensive for too many.
Macroeconomic theory suggests that, all else being equal, increasing supply will lower prices.
Here’s another source backed up with data:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2017/03/20/houston-dallas-new-york-city-americas-great-3-way-housing-supply-race/#4525db3eaf10
It starts:
“The conversation on America’s affordable housing crisis is often fueled by anecdotes. Journalists and activists tell tales of gentrification, eviction and displacement from within their increasingly expensive cities. Then, when new housing is built that is even more expensive, the housing itself is presented as the cause, and more construction is discouraged. But a look at the numbers shows that, on the contrary, housing construction (or lack thereof) seems to be the driving factor behind whether or not large U.S. metros remain affordable.”
The pledge that the Mayor signed recognizes that Newton can’t solve the region’s housing crisis alone. But we have to be part of the solution.
Just read the parallel post and comments on V14 about the school committee’s recent inaction on delayed start times and am appalled. @ Mike called what we are doing to teens regarding sleep deprivation “systemic child abuse”. I couldn’t agree more! Well said, Sir.
Extrapolated from Dr. Fleishman’s letter is that beyond fiscal challenges, the logistics of kids, parents and busses all bottlenecking at Brown, Oak Hill and NSHS poses a traffic and congestion impact that reverberates across the south side of Newton and it’s not like the schools can be picked up and moved.
You know what else is within stone’s throw of Parker Street? Needham Street!!
Yet another of example of why adding 822 units from the Northland project is a horrendous idea. Let’s not forget this point regarding our kids at the next Northland public meeting!!
@David– I agree that housing is too expensive in general. And I agree that is a widespread problem. But that doesn’t mean more housing will bring prices down in Newton where there are unique market dynamics at play. I believe that Newton should up the ante for all Massachusetts municipalities with an affordable housing target of 12.5%.
@David Hruska says “Macroeconomic theory suggests that, all else being equal, increasing supply will lower prices.”
Problem: not all else will be equal.
It never ceases to amaze me that the same people who realize, and will tell you, that widening a road or highway will not relieve traffic congestion in the long term (because people who’d been avoiding that route will start using it, rather than alternatives), don’t recognize that the same is true of housing.
However much you increase Newton’s housing inventory, we are still going to be 12 miles from Boston, on the T (declining quality of service notwithstanding) and near major highways, and with a reputation for good schools compared to other towns. (People may find school conditions something other than what they expect, once they’re here.) Increase supply, and more people will move to Newton rather than their second choice.
The same could be said on a regional basis. Increase the regional housing supply and metro Boston becomes more attractive to mega-employers like Amazon or Google who want to see housing available for all the employees they expect to attract. You might think attracting a company like that is a good thing, but it’s an example of how growth feeds more growth, negating whatever temporary surplus of housing is created.
We are a very large country, and for all kinds of reasons including livability, congestion, rising sea levels and transit systems centered around coastal cities, I don’t think we should be encouraging/enabling further concentration of population within 50 miles of our coasts.
I’m all for Northland and other developers who want to build here contributing their fair share to mitigating the schools and infrastructure. I’m just not sure how much we can expect one or two developers, regardless of how deep their pockets are, to account for all of our traffic and other woes. Doing so would make whatever ultimately gets built to be even more expensive and out of reach than already exists. It will take much more money, resources and coordination by multiple parties than our leaders realize, not to mention better public transit. Don’t get me wrong, they do deserve credit at least realizing it is a problem.
The only way to make traffic to disappear and reduce the burden on our schools/infrastructure would be for the economy to nose dive once the intelligentsia that made the Boston area the disneyfied Potemkin village it has become start to curtail investment and relocating jobs and capital to lower cost and lower expense places once they realize they can make more money that way (and don’t think it can’t happen). I’m sure we don’t want that. Well, some would, but most probably don’t. As long as people want to live in this area, there will be demand for housing and strain on our schools, roads, and so on.
The problems we face now are decades in the making and will not be solved by soaking one or two companies. They won’t be solved by thinking that stopping all development or wishing it would happen somewhere else will somehow make things better. And they won’t be solved by pretending that there are no problems to begin with.
Or….put in less the 822 residential units.
The City lacks a good negotiator to deal with developers. Setti was not good at it, and Fuller is more interested in giving things away. We should have a knowledgable point-person responsible for extracting as many benefits as possible out of every large project proposed for the city…
40B was bad for Newton, because developers were always in the driver’s seat. They could avoid most local zoning regulations by simply designating 20% of housing units “affordable.” That’s why winning the legal battle over 40B was [is] so critical for the city. It would allow us to require far more of developers…
If the city had handled the negotiations at Wells Ave properly, we could have added 100 affordable apartment to our housing stock, and significantly improved traffic through that area. The city did a decent job negotiating the Austin Street deal, but only because Amy Sangiolo got the developer to agree to 6 extra affordable housing units at the last minute…
It is important to get every possible affordable unit out of developers. But for some projects like Northland, it’s even more important the developer be required to mitigate the effects of their project on local schools. Based on the publicly available materials regarding the proposed Northland project, I believe it’s possible to achieve substantial mitigation on-site…
The Northland proposal includes a great deal of office space. They should be required to lease back some of that space to Newton Public Schools at a favorable rate. I believe the city should use that opportunity to establish a STEM magnet school that draws from all school districts.