I’m beginning to doubt the concerns about developer omnipotence. A development-skeptical activist and an at-large councilor walked into a the Mark Development office recently and left with enormous changes to the Riverside development, without conceding anything themselves.
City Councilor Lenny Gentile (at-large, Ward 5 4)and Right* Size Riverside activist Randy Block met with developer Robert Korff and his associates and talked Korff out of 40 hotel rooms, 151 housing units, 39,000 sq. ft. of taxable commercial space, and $4 million in open-space improvements. For you affordable housing advocates, that’s about 25 lost affordable units. For you economic stability buffs, it’s a loss of $1.2 to $2.3 million in net tax revenue per year (after accounting for additional school and other expenses).
And, the Lower Falls Improvement Association and/or Right* Size Riverside are still planning to mount a referendum challenge to the project, if approved.
Those are 151 housing units that the region desperately needs, which could not be built any closer to transit. Those are 25 affordable units that the city desperately needs. They may be partially recovered in further negotiation. But, if you’re going to argue that one of our development-skeptical-but-affordable-housing advocating councilors might still get a higher percentage of the now 524 units, please explain how they wouldn’t be able to get that same higher percentage of 675 units. A reduction of $4 million in open-space improvements is a huge setback to the great open-space and connectivity plans for the area.
That’s the #lennytax: housing, affordable housing, tax revenue, and open-space improvement.
Who is going to be the councilor who tells Korff that they’ll vote against the plan unless the housing and commercial space are restored? Which is the advocacy group that is going to threaten a referendum if the compromise plan goes through?
Who is the councilor who is going to reverse the #lennytax?
*Lenny Gentile represents ward 4
http://www.newtonma.gov/gov/aldermen/members/ward4/gentile.asp
Fixed.
@Sean and Greg – a paper on the supply and demand over simplification of housing.
http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg1914.pdf
“Our point of departure is that housing markets are not like standard markets, so that aggregate increases in supply do not translate in any straightforward way to decreases in price, because the internal plumbing of housing markets – succession, migration, and occupation patterns – are full of frictions, sunk costs, barriers and externalities that make the effects of aggregate supply increases highly uneven, and in many cases involve unintended or contradictory effects.”
I’m not even convinced that there is a “standard market”, where simple supply and demand make a good model.
Nor am I a big fan of economists in general. But food for thought.
Separately, local rents can increase due to gentrification effects. A landlord sees that an investment in their property due to neighborhood investment can yield them a larger rent. So if “luxury” apartments are now on Austin street, someone could decide to upgrade their rental unit – put in granite countertops, fix up the bathroom, and, voila, up their rent to match approach the Austin Street market price.
Rick,
As always, appreciate the economics lesson, but on the narrow question of permanent affordable units, it seems incontrovertible that adding designated affordable units adds to the stock of affordable housing units. If adding affordable housing is a priority, Lenny Gentile has single-handily reduced the number of protected affordable units.
Also, as I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned, there are additional reasons, besides lowering housing costs, that adding housing is good.
Also, taxes and open-space improvements.
This post leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If something illegal happened in this meeting, as implied with the word “shakedown”, Sean Roche needs to provide a more complete explanation. If he just didn’t like the outcome of the meeting for the reasons he stated, that’s another matter. But it seems it’s either one or the other.
Well someone has to be numerate on Village 14. Math education is pretty bad it seems.
It may add some small number of affordable housing, but at what cost?
Better to encourage non profit developers to build.
Rick,
The cost here is very easy to calculate: 125 additional market-rate units. To restore those 25 or so protected affordable units, you’d have to restore 125 units of market-rate housing.
If you say that you want affordable housing and adding an additional 25 or so protected affordable units is not worth an additional 125 market-rate units, there’s reason to question if affordable housing is really your priority.
Non-profit development is not and has never been an option on the Riverside property. So, what is the relevance? Let’s fully encourage non-profit developers on every site possible in the city. And, let’s make more sites possible by loosening zoning restrictions. In the meantime, let’s get every affordable unit possible from large, privately-developed projects.
The power of and.
Now, to move to language arts:
@Sean I suppose you saw my post of what Bryan Barash said in his Patch interview:
““The single most pressing issue facing our ward, and our city, is preparing for a sustainable future. We must be proactive rather than reactive, putting detailed plans in place for our transportation network, to add much-needed housing distributed fairly across Newton while preserving the city’s character, and to improve our environmental sustainability. These issues are interrelated, and I want to work with other elected officials and residents to lead Newton into the future on our terms rather than letting the future happen to us.”
I would like to point out that Bryan has said he is interested in “preserving the city’s character.”
I hope, that in the interest of fairness and consistency , you will call out Bryan’s use of the phrase “preserving the city’s character” to the same extent that you seemed to rankle at Councilor Norton’s words, to do less than that would be, well, you make up a word.
Rick,
Almost every time you post, I feel a deep sting of failure. I thought I was pretty clear, but apparently I was not. What’s objectionable is using “neighborhood character” in the context of blocking development. When one uses “neighborhood character” as a justification for blocking access to opportunity, the speaker or writer is — consciously or not — tapping into a long history of racist resistance to desegregation.
But, that’s not what Bryan is doing, is it? He is wholeheartedly and unequivocally embracing Newton’s need to add, his words, “much-needed housing distributed fairly across Newton.” He’s not saying that new development is a threat to “neighborhood character.” He’s not using “neighborhood character” as a reason not to build. He’s using it to consider how we should build.
It would be fabulous if someone wants to stand up at a public hearing say, “I welcome new neighbors. Let’s see how we can add housing and maintain much of what I love about my neighborhood, the neighborhood character, so that we both — my new neighbor and I — can enjoy it.”
Rick, did it take you a long time sorting through economic papers to get to the one that played devil’s advocate to prove your economic point? The Utrecht University Human Geography and Planning journal? There is stretching to find back-up for an argument, but that there is worthy of Plastic Man (or Elastigirl/Mrs. Incredible for you young ones). 😉
I guess if you are going to teach all of us math illiterates about economics, you might as well teach as about counter-arguments. Even the summary states that according to the “dominant view within economics, relaxing zoning and other
planning regulations in the most prosperous cities is crucial to unleash the economic potential of cities and nations and to facilitate within-country migration.” The paper provides an interesting counterargument, but it also seems that the nation’s economists don’t agree with them, or you.
I’m not expert, but in my view your gentrification argument discussed above has applications for emerging rental markets, but not as much for Newton. The overall market in Newton is already high, it is tough to find a single family for less than $700,000 these days, and average sale price is far higher. Teardowns are going for north of that in many neighborhoods.
So that landlord with the old and tired unit? The one that is naturally affordable? In my experience that landlord either: (1) currently has a long term tenant and doesn’t need/want to invest in the property, (2) doesn’t have the capital or time to invest in the property, (3) can sell at a reduced price, for the property to be reinvested in or torn down by the next owner, who is unlikely to be restricted by options 1 or 2, (4) can improve the property, and therefore get higher rents.
When single family sales are so high in price, the rental market usually follows in high end markets. Like Newton. Austin Street and Washington Place aren’t setting the market. They are just along for the ride.
But they do increase overall volume of available units of housing, and also provide 25% or greater of affordable units to at least maintain some level of affordability.
Do I think they solve the affordability crisis? Nope. Very small piece of a very big puzzle. But they do make a difference, while also adding to renewed retail at the ground level.
As for language arts, I think you are stretching quite broadly once again. In order to make your argument, you need to ignore the rest of what Bryan said. Context is key in language arts I’d think, but again, I’m no expert.
I will say this: You keep posting this quote from Bryan like it is something horrible, but I keep reading it and wonder what the big deal is. Seems like a reasonable position to me. Perhaps I’m missing the English language lesson.
As for encouraging non-profit developers, I agree with that completely, but the issue is that folks often SAY they want to encourage this development, but then it gets abandoned due to…neighborhood opposition, high property acquisition costs, low amounts of dedicated funds/grants, difficulty in getting federal/state grants or tax subsidies due to the other items above.
That’s actually why 40B came into being, because the rhetoric on affordable housing so often outstripped the reality of local politics/funding/desire for these types of units.
Go Lenny!!!
(get further reductions if you can — most Newton residents more than support your effort)
Fred Salvucchi spoke out against the immense size of
Riverside at last Monday’s public hearing. He outlined the main
reasons the project is unsuitable for the location.
Salvucchi led Dukakis’ Transportation Dept. In the 1980s. He is an experienced engineer and city planner.
As I listened to him speak I learned the key reasons to oppose
this poorly designed project.
Councilor Gentile and Randall Block must be taken seriously, so
much is at stake for this community.
@fignewtonville
It took me almost no time at all, just typed in a couple of search terms.
I also said
I’m not even convinced that there is a “standard market”, where simple supply and demand make a good model.
Nor am I a big fan of economists in general. But food for thought”
It’s called critical thinking. The more something is promoted ( the ownership society, the 401k, just build more housing, etc) the more i question it. The 401k is one of my favorite ripoffs,
“who benefits?”
Did the mainstream economists predict that derivatives and sub prime mortgages would cause the crash of 2008? Nope. Only a couple of people saw it coming. The big short was right.
The mainstream economists ( if you want to call it that) thought that Uber could IPO and make big money. That WeWork was worth a billion or something. Lots of people thought Theranos was legit.
A bunch of people ( mostly non software engineers) think that driverless cars will be here any day now. As a software engineer with expertise in computer vision, I am here to tell you they will never work. Most of my software engineer friends ( as well as numerous articles in the IEEE magazine) agree with me. I’m still trying to figure out who benefits from this research project. Maybe the military.
Rent control anyone?
https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/how-californias-tenants-won-statewide-rent-control/
In this case it has to do with the pace of creating new housing being impossible. No one here V14) is considering rent control, which I have mentioned ( and benefited from ).
Why not?
As for language arts, the headline of this post says it all to me. Shakedown?
But my point was that what councilor norton said was as innocuous as what Bryan said, and perhaps even more well informed of the realities on the ground vs just promises that may prove that building more housing is in fact a zero sum gain.
Rick,
Yet again, the candidate who was the subject of the post on white flight language did not use the word “character,” though the word was in the question the candidate was answering. What that candidate said were multiple sentences that tracked very closely to historically racist language, language that was used to justify racist policies. If you want to say that the candidate used the language ignorant of its racist history, fine. That’s damning in another dimension. If you want to keep trying to divert attention to economic arguments, great. Free country and all that. But, claiming that racially loaded language is innocuous is just gaslighting and, at a very minimum, displays a lack of historical perspective and sensitivity.
zero sum game. Typos by AI.
I am sure there’s more detail behind whatever discussion was had or agreement was made. Those details would be helpful. Here are some issues I’d like to raise.
Developers are welcome to take any advice from anyone. Hopefully it’s good advice. When non-public meetings with public officials end up with things that at least look like agreements, I think we’re starting to lose transparency of process that most people think is a good idea.
Please, step back from your position on this particular issue and think about good process. I am explicitly not saying anything unethical occurred; in fact, I would strongly assume only ethical and good intentions were involved. I’m just asking if this is the best way to resolve these kinds of issues from a public transparency point of view.
Second, I understand some of the neighborhood concerns about the project, in part from informative presentations made by Randy. The concerns include traffic, height, appearance, schools, and neighborhood amenities. What Sean presents here is some specific reductions: hotel rooms, commercial square feet, housing units, etc.
So what’s the line between the two? For example, how much traffic reduction does 40 fewer hotel spots get you? How about the housing units or commercial space? They aren’t the same at all: if you stay at a hotel, you’re not driving in and out in the same way as might if you lived in an apartment. Look how many “units” there are at the Marriott on Comm Ave. in Auburndale. Is it a big traffic problem? Absolutely not. Never. What if it were 10% bigger or 10% smaller, would it matter from a traffic point of view? No.
This is the “right size” conundrum. Size is squishy and not directly related to things people actually care about. It’s function and impact that matter by far the most. If traffic blocks up Grove Street and people can’t get to an after-school activity with their kids. Everyone gets that. But a smaller trip-intensive development can do that as much as a larger development.
Number of units, square feet, and height are easily measurable but are related to the things people actually care about in complex and sometime unintuitive ways.
So, what specific impact on neighborhood and development function are the reductions to Riverside intended to achieve? How is the connection between size and function being made here? Or is it?
Professional planners think about these things and have tools to evaluate them. Even the most well-meaning citizens may not have that experience or those tools. It would be great if we could bring them together in a way that benefits everyone.
Kudos to Lenny and Randy for not SETTLING for a bad deal!!!
Yes, Newton needs more housing – affordable and overall. But the fact that only apartments are offered does not pass the sniff test!! The primary (only?) long term beneficiary of this the Developers – not Newt0n; not the folks who live here now. There’s a BETTER DEAL to be had…
So what would make Northland’s Needham Street proposal more palatable?
1. 30-50% of units offered as Condos for purchase (same ration of market vs affordable rates)
2. More expansive TDM plan – more frequent shuttles, to Needham Heights and Reservoir in addition to highlands
3. Larger contribution to support Public Schools (before someone repeats the findings of the demographer’s report – visit a classroom; any classroom; any age – the schools ARE over crowded!)
Perhaps Lenny and Randy can help the Ward 5 – as our At Large Councilors are not putting up much resistance (look at Rena Gets Ward 5, Precinct 1 results), and pretty much rubber stamping this in.
Don’t settle, Newton! We deserve more.
Ya Newton as stated by Matt Lai does deserve more.
Riverside is not the”Newton gateway” or a “transit hub”. In front of Riverside are a grove of trees which Alderman Polly Bryson and Dick McGrath had the T plant.
So it is not a blighted lot.
You can’t see the parking lot from scenic historic grove street, except at the entrance.
Most of the proposed development is ONLY on the NORTH side away from where Korff and Mayor Fuller live.
Further many of you that post here do not live in Auburndale or Lower Falls, but other sections of the city.
Any developer going 40B in my opinion is just weak.
Washington Place is one ugly development just like in the inner cities.
Please stop comparing Newton to Cambridge, Boston or Somerville as we are not like them
Newton is the garden city with 13 villages that will soon be destroyed by over zealous developers.
It appears that our Planning and Development department should stop hiring consultants since they are top heavy with 29 staff.
Some of you that post here work for employers that are pro-business. ir. the N2N district, the chamber etc. Do you really care what happens to an over developed city? Probably not.
Sadly, your arguments are flawed. Each housing unit added to the tax base in these developments uses more services than tax revenue brought in, there are NO real low income units in any of the private developments in the city of Newton and Newton does not vitally need any housing units.
@smarty – FYI neither of the two biggest development projects on the table (Northland and Riverside) are on the north side.
@Al – what about the commercial buildings associated with the developments and their tax revenue? Both Needham Street and Riverside have significant commercial space which would add to the tax base.
Mike,
Do you think it’s legit for decision-makers to consider neighborhood complaints about the height of buildings? I mean as a visual concern, not that additional floors might mean more people and more traffic.
The proposed development is across an eight-lane highway from Lower Falls. Should their concerns about what is or isn’t peaking over the trees be a factor?
That feels like an overreach.
Jerry – Riverside and the villages of Auburndale and Lower Falls are most definitely on the north side of Newton. Williams School being redistricted to South doesn’t change that.
Thank you for this post, Sean. I agree, pro-housing councilors should flex some muscle here and push for the restoration of those lost units. But I don’t think ANY council decision arrived at via hard-fought battle for 16 out of 24 votes, whether I agree with it or not, should be repeal-able by (simple-majority) ballot question. This obscure but poisonous charter maneuver only adds more pain and uncertainty to our already dicey land-use process, and makes a mockery of representative democracy.
I have never seen a definitive answer as to what constitutes North vs South
Claire, I have an answer for you!
During the NewCAL discussion, I wanted to find what was the actual middle of all the houses in Newton, so I took all the residential addresses in Newton’s GIS and figured out their average position.
Remarkably, it is 150 feet south of the east entrance of Newton City Hall. What great planning for City Hall and the library!
I also wanted to see what address would be the shortest average drive from all other residential addresses. The answer is for any practical purpose the same, maybe a few hundred feet east of City Hall.
Of course you can come up with different definitions for “north” vs “south”, but I think this is a very practical one for this type of discussion.
Riverside is due west of City Hall. Northland’s development is significantly south. Washington Street is, of course, north.
As the saying goes, “perception is reality”. Over the past couple of years I have commented on various posts regarding density and scale; Northland and overall.
The perception is that I and others who share my views are somehow NIMBY, antiquated or somehow not sensitive to the challenges of modern society. While I DISAGREE, I accept your perception is my reality.
In turn, I urge you all to consider the current perception/reality that this issue has reached a point where we are arguing with emotion – whatever is necessary to see the point we believe is true to win. This not the path to compromise.
So what do we do from here?
For everyone concerned with density and scale, contact the City Council ([email protected]), not with the usual, “it’s too big, the traffic will be unbearable”, but instead, FACT BASED points about why the current proposal by (Northland/Riverside/WashingtonSt) is not the best deal for Newton and a better can be had – there are some great examples above!
How can the deal be better?
Offer suggestions on what measures and tactics that would sway you from concerned to supportive of the currently proposed scale. Ideas for a better Traffic Demand Management plan? How can schools handle the added enrollment?
Please take 15-30 mins to do this. While debating on V14 can be somewhat entertaining, your emails ([email protected]), letters and phone calls will carry more weight!
Supporters of density: you should do the same. 🙂
@Kyle, I’m all for commercial development, but not at the expense of over development of residential units. I also think that since apartments are a commercial investment, they should be taxed at commercial rates, unless of course, they are deeded for 99 years as real low income housing (35% of median income).
Rick, it may surprise you to learn that there is also some recent research indicating that building more housing actually can lower costs by opening up older units; Strong Towns has a good summary: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/4/24/the-connectedness-of-our-housing-ecosystem (though I must also point out that there’s no argument to be made about whether or not Lower Falls is gentrifying)
@Tricia – I keep hearing people make comments on how all development is always jammed in to “the northside”.
I live in Upper Falls, home to the biggest unfolding development project in the city (Northland). I live two blocks from Route 9, and a little bit further from Needham St, that already have some of the most intensely developed commercial properties and the biggest existing apartment complexes in the city.
I find this mythical northside/southside construct nearly meaningless. There are absolutely neighborhoods in the north side of the city that are bearing the brunt of recently proposed new development (Newtonville, West Newton). There is a neighborhood in the west (Lower Falls) dealing with a very big development (Riverside). There is a neighborhood in the south (Upper Falls) looking at the biggest single new development.
To cast these very real neighborhood development concerns as a northside/southside battle is misleading at best.
If someone insists on dividing the city into two warring halves, where is the dividing line? It must be somewhere south of Comm Ave if you’re going to include Riverside in the north. By that measure some of the wealthiest, most connected areas of the city are in that “northside”, which once again undermines the argument that these development issues are “a powerful south side sticking it to a helpless north”.
These are very real issues for all these neighborhoods to deal with … and yes there are always important forces of money and power intertwined with all of these development issues. Trying to discuss those issues based on an imaginary north/south divide does more to obscure than illuminate those issues.
Jerry,
I think that north/south is being used as a proxy for the sections of the city that are predominantly zoned single-family-only v. those that are not.
It’s a fair critique that the enormous pressure to build housing is being felt only on the areas that are underbuilt, like Needham St. and Riverside, or areas that are already mixed.
Fairness dictates that development be spread across the city.
@Sean Roche – I agree that its being used as a proxy – but a really bad one. i.e. huge amount of big single family housing in “northside” and big chunk of multi-family housing already in the “southside”.
History is repeating itself: the developer is being forced to massively cut back on their project in order to satisfy some loosely-defined, poorly understood neighborhood concerns on square footage. Sound familiar?
Is there really a dramatic difference between 1.5 million square feet and 1.2 million square feet when it comes to neighborhood impacts like traffic and schools? No, but there is a huge difference when it comes to benefits for Newton such as more affordable housing, more tax revenue, more open space, etc….
Mr. Gentile and Mr. Block seem determined to either stop this project dead in its tracks or claim some strange political victory for leading the charge to limit it’s benefits. Either one is bad for Newton, IMO.
With all the virtue signaling in this thread, this clip from Bill Maher (caution:language) will likely be enjoyed by many.
https://youtu.be/T0q2ZR4nBuE