Candidates for City Council who embrace high-density housing universally proclaim that it will make Newton a more diverse city. The motto of one such candidate envisions Newton as “A Community for All.” Embedded in this belief is that Newton needs to broaden its socioeconomic, ethnic, and racial base to include people of more modest means and diverse backgrounds.
Who are Newton’s current residents? We are predominantly of European and Asian descent, with some African-Americans, Hispanics, and other groups in the mix. Religiously, we are largely Christian and Jewish, at least nominally, supplemented by Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and those of other beliefs, not to mention atheists. In this sense, Newton is already diverse. But even if many students at Newton South High School, for example, speak a language other than English at home, they remain fairly homogeneous socioeconomically.
Clearly, the sale of single-family homes will not lead to greater diversity. Real estate prices continue to climb. City government has apparently given up on sustaining Newton’s stock of moderately priced homes. Thanks to the unregulated movement to tear down our Capes and ranch houses and replace them with McMansions, only the affluent can realistically afford to move here.
Hence, some people of good will have placed their hopes for creating diversity in Newton in such high-density projects as Northland, the Korff developments, and Riverside. But if that be the shared goal of citizens and developers, then we should be able to measure each project’s rate of success accordingly.
Since most of the units to be offered at these developments will go at market prices, those renters will largely resemble the more affluent residents already living here. But what about the rest of the renters? Here are the demographics that I assume we would all like the developers to attract:
1- Seniors seeking to remain in Newton by trading their homes for rentals, and other seniors as well.
2- Individuals and families of low and moderate income from urban and rural communities and even less affluent suburbs.
3- City employees facing grueling commutes because their salaries currently preclude their living in the Garden City.
4- Persons who might, theoretically, form a pool of potential employees to help make Newton more attractive for businesses to move here.
5- Young people, perhaps even our own children sometimes, who are presently priced out of the Newton market.
We might, of course, bargain harder with the mega-developers to lower their rents on a larger portion of their units. Otherwise, these high-density projects, rather than increasing Newton’s diversity, might bring us only more traffic on our roads, students in our schools, and pressure on our infrastructure. Furthermore, the city ought to gather statistics on those who move into these developments to learn if the reality in any respect matches the hope.
One final school of thought holds that in the long run Newton’s high-density developments, coupled with similar projects throughout Greater Boston, will eventually lead to more housing and lower rents. Known locally as the Reibman Doctrine, it states, “If you build them, rents will fall.” And if rents fall, a more diverse demographic might move to Newton. If only I could believe it!
Bob,
Perhaps the Doctrine you cite is that “lower rents” and “more diverse demographic” are not actual outcomes but rather “virtue signaling” to justify more high-density development.
Bob,
Simple question: why is housing so expensive in Newton in the first place?
I’ll tell you. Because we’ve artificially constrained supply in the face of ever-increasing demand. Simple economics. If you’re going to make the argument that increasing supply is not going to reverse the artificially high housing costs, you’re going to have to do more than hand-wave at the high rents of recent developments. The developers who set those rents, why did they think they could get them? Because people want to live in Newton. And, if the apartments were not built, what do you think owners of existing properties were going to do? Hold rents low out of virtue? Do you think it only occurred to them that they could get high rents because Austin St. got built and rents set?
Housing is complicated. Everyone who has argued on these pages for increased density has acknowledged that. It may be that adding housing isn’t going to lower rents immediately. Or, in Newton. But, it’s also not clear that adding apartments won’t slow what would have been larger increases. It may be that the new apartments in Newtonville add vitality to Newtonville and that drives the rents up. Gentrification. So, some attention to displacement is in order. Complicated. But, keeping housing limited while demand goes up is a recipe for housing cost increases.
Also, in each new development, we’re getting more affordable units. Not as many as some of us would like, but there are economic realities. Those very clearly add folks from a different socio-economic background. Undeniably.
“Candidates for City Council who embrace high-density housing universally proclaim that it will make Newton a more diverse city.”
Is that true, they all say that?
There is a fundamental issue with hoping that new residential units will naturally be affordable without 1) being part of an affordable set aside or 2) being built by a non-profit entity: the units are new.
New units in larger buildings are up to code. They may be sprinklered in larger units. The are built in expensive land. They have elevators. They have desirable layouts and other amenities that are market driven. If they are part of mixed developments, they have walkable retail and services near them.
The only things about them that aren’t to like are price, possibly density, and possibly size (depending on the person). It shouldn’t come as a surprise that they rise to the top of the market for people who can accept those compromises/personal choices. (A new car, even a small one, is also usually more expensive than a used one.)
These types of units are expanding Newton’s housing diversity because they are offering new housing units of a type that are currently lacking in Newton.
At the prices, size, and location of the units, I suspect you’ll attract young professionals (singles or couples) with disposable income and seniors who may have the windfall of having sold a paid-off house they don’t want to maintain any more.
These people may be comfortable, but I think it is a stretch to say they have to be rich. They fit within Newton’s typical socioeconomic demographic. For the young professional couples with two salaries, they are likely just at the stage of considering or starting a family and otherwise figuring out their future. For that demographic, moving into a “step up” single family home in Newton would be a natural progression should they stay in the area.
If we assume people are choosing Newton because we’ve got something right (location, schools, community, respectful civic dialog, nomadic theater, etc), then within some limits we have limited supply and high demand. Hence high prices. Worse, this demand is slowly eroding our more affordable residential units.
Let’s say these younger people would have initially moved somewhere else in Newton. Where would it have been? Not that many options because of land prices and constrained supply. They’d probably set their sights higher than un-renovated capes and ranches because they are looking for a more modern layout or nicer fit and finish.
That means they could buy a modest house and renovate it (which has huge convenience and economic costs), but a larger or more modern house (greater cost, fewer units available), or buy a teardown (very expensive). None of these choices are great for the prospective buyers or for Newton in general; it forces the kind of changes we see in the neighborhoods today. These changes are irreversible: small homes converted to larger ones aren’t ever coming back.
So, I see a pragmatic approach to the housing problem by targeting supply, existing housing stock, and affordability all at once:
1) We build more residential units, primarily in mixed use developments. This provide housing supply for the part of the market demographic that is expanding rapidly and that would otherwise erode our supply of inexpensive units. By building them as part of mixed development, we make them as efficient as possible, reduce the number of external car trips as far down as we can (because services are on site), and provide new local commercial and retail options for existing residents (convert regional travel to local). We extract developer concessions in order to address long-standing infrastructure needs.
We get a modest number of permanently affordable housing units as a result of what’s an effectively a tax on the market rate units. We also get a bunch of new units that better accommodate seniors and anyone else who needs enhanced accessibility.
In effect, we take Newton’s village philosophy, modernize it and apply it to the scale of an individual development, bringing a commercial and retail center to a surrounding group of residences.
2) Through zoning, we move more aggressively to protect existing smaller homes and currently affordable multi-family units. These units are cheaper and, while less desirable, still represent the best opportunity for true affordability in Newton. We should create programs to stabilize these homes while reducing the cost of home ownership as much as possible (perhaps energy efficiency programs).
Any zoning restrictions may be a tough pill to swallow for existing owners, who might see their potential resale value go down because the possibility of teardown would be limited. We should think about that.
3) We need to find a way to generate more truly affordable housing, not just subsidized housing. That means smaller units, smaller plots of land, lots that are not already priced at market rates, and developers that are focused on lower-profit or non-profit development. The city has a big role to play enabling this process, since they have the most knowledge of land value and status and can broker deals. Other cities and towns alert non-profits to the availability of more affordable land and help them build these kinds of units. Newton should too. We can also look at supporting, for example, models such as housing co-ops that restrict the amount of profit that a member selling their unit can gain.
And for these units we should be focused on total affordability, not just housing affordability. That means practical designs that minimize maintenance and are relatively energy efficient (but not to the point of significantly increasing the house prices or desirability). Find a way to make car ownership optional and you relieve a large financial burden from people. It isn’t possible for everyone, but we should do what we can.
As I said, this plan is pragmatic. We have to accept that government has limited leverage on market forces. Advocates from any side can poke holes in it and say it won’t work or it doesn’t go far enough in one way or another. It doesn’t, it can’t, provide a Newton home for everyone who wants it, or for all the awesome people out there who would make our city a better place. And the better job we do, the more desirable Newton will be, and the more people will want to live here. An enviable problem to have.
However, this basic plan is based on reasonable principles and ideals. It works incrementally from where we are today. It doesn’t vilify people who want to join our community, nor the people who want to maintain the affordability of the modest houses in their neighborhood. It builds on the traditional Newton village model.
Ultimately, I think by approaching this complex and divisive problem non-idealogically and practically, we can come up with principles and plans that a bunch of us can buy into.
Mike,
Much of what you say makes sense. I have some hole-poking, but I’ll hold on that for the moment. I think folks on both sides would agree with you directionally.
Unfortunately, I think you’ve avoided being divisive by avoiding the hard questions. Most people acknowledge, I think, that some multi-use development is inevitable, if not entirely desirable. Where things get sticky is how much, how high, and where. Do you think six-story buildings are appropriate around village centers? If so, which village centers? You seem to tip your hand with your comment on infrastructure concessions. You won’t get infrastructure improvements (beyond what’s strictly necessary for the development) without fairly intense development. Even then, it becomes another tax that leads to higher rents.
You introduce into the conversation the idea of smaller homes on smaller lots. Are you proposing allowing subdivision of large lots? Would you make them zoned single-family-only? Semi-attached okay? All potential controversies.
You’re absolutely right that we need more smaller-unit options. The simplest way to do that would be to allow duplexes and triplexes in more places in the city. Also, small apartment buildings But, allowing small multi-family structures conflicts with your stated desire to protect cheaper existing single-family homes. And, there are a whole bunch of folks who are just not interested in more small multi-family housing.
When you start resolving some of the outstanding questions your proposal raises, I think you’ll find you have to pick a side.
The problem isn’t, as you suggest, that there is some pragmatic solution to a problem we all agree we need to solve, but can’t agree on a solution. We don’t agree on the problem. Some of us think the problem is that we need a whole lot of new housing, for a variety of urgent reasons. Some of us passionately believe that adding significant density will ruin Newton. At the margins, we may agree that housing is too expensive, but we don’t agree on what the impact of more housing will be on that problem.
Because we don’t agree on the problem were trying to solve, there is no pragmatic approach were all just missing. So, you haven’t really articulated an alternative approach. You’ve articulated some ideas that sound great, but are not completely practical. Basically, you’ve articulated a framework for a meet-in-the-middle compromise. Which leaves more open questions. Are both sides equally well represented such that the exact middle is the right place? Are there values on one side or the other that are more compelling?
While not perfect, electoral politics are decent at resolving those kinds of questions, though some of our public process gives more weight to one side. Forums such as these provide an opportunity for vigorous debate that inform the political process.
So, pick a side. Or defend a middle. But, please don’t be mistaken that there is some technical solution that will resolve our differences.
Side note: your proposal implicitly includes retaining — and perhaps strengthening — single-family-only zoning. Single-family-only zoning is a tool of racial segregation. You might want to wrestle with that legacy.
Thanks for the post Bob Jampol. It’s nice to see some varied opinions and posters on this blog.
I think the key issue is density. I don’t think anyone is against all development. But what’s wrong with working with the neighborhood you are a building in to make a project that a large majority of the neighborhood is comfortable with???
I think another issue is the rush to build so many large and dense developments at the same time. How can we judge whether a particular development will satisfy our goals, if we’re just building and building without seeing how the first projects have worked?
We can’t get rid of dense developments if it turns out the project brings negative consequences so it pays to proceed slowly and deliberately.
@Sean – Lunch-counters and buses were also tools of racial segregation.
I guess I don’t have a lot of time or interest in choosing sides, or even defining them. I’m more interested in listening to people, figuring things out, solving problems and making Newton better. I guess that’s my side. Anyone’s welcome.
As for holes in the plan, well, it isn’t really an “implement it tomorrow” kind of plan. That would be incredibly presumptuous of me, given how many people have thought about this issue and how many people would like to weigh in. This is a sketch, pointing out a different way of approaching issues.
What I’m proposing is flipping the conversation from being primarily about tools (dense development, mixed use development, zoning, height limits, bike lanes, etc) to about outcomes (affordability, viable businesses, green space and receation, reduced congestion, safety).
Then, though, we need to ground those discussions and make very explicit and honest connections between the outcomes and multiple tools in the toolbox. The discussion about dense, mixed use development and its connection with affordability is my example. To make a compelling argument about affordability, you can’t stop at subsidized housing units in dense mixed developments. You have to make the connection to relaxing demand and the jeopardy that today’s tight housing market places our existing housing stock.
A comprehensive solution, then, means you have use other mechanisms to help preserve existing (relatively) affordable housing stock and enable newer affordable (not just subsidized) residential units.
If you don’t make these connections, you fail to persuade and you likely fail to execute.
I think the public craves thoughtful, holistic, effective, and practical solutions to problems they see every day, even if they are incremental or imperfect, as long as they understand that.
Here’s another anecdote that represents a piece in the affordable housing puzzle. In my West Newton neighborhood, family after family are adding on to their homes as their family has grown. Many of these home started out as modest and affordable. Some have now seen multiple additions. People are choosing this option not just because they love their home and location, but because they couldn’t afford to move to larger one in Newton. The market is just too crazy.
So they choose the logical and sensible alternative of building an addition. It’s a huge hassle. They move out or move to their basements. The put up with contractor delays and cancellations. They commit a huge amount of time and money to the activity.
That’s the impact of a tight housing market. And we as a city face another tradeoff. On one hand, houses are being upgraded. On the other hand, we’re losing (relatively) affordable homes.
There’s no perfect solution to this problem. But is there anything we can do to help everybody? These are the kinds of in-the-trenches challenges and opportunities that we need to understand if we want to solve big things.
Mike,
The conversation here and elsewhere indicates that there are conflicting values that animate each sides and demonstrates that the two sides don’t agree on the problem we’re trying to solve. One side believes that significant new density is required to combat climate change and the regional housing crisis. Like 11,000 new units on top of the 33,000 we have now. Another side believes that the priority of the city is to preserve the preferences of the residents and let outsiders buy in or buy elsewhere. Another part of that side doesn’t agree that climate change is an issue or that density is going to solve it or that the downsides (traffic) are worth the impact or that it’s not worth doing anything about because the Chinese are still burning coal and Newton’s efforts won’t amount to anything.
When you go to sit down at the table, what problem are you going to propose we solve first? How do you imagine helping everyone?
At some point, you’ve got to declare your values. Do you want to do what you can to leave a healthy planet for your kids? Or, do you want to make sure they live on a block that looks more or less like it does now until the planet warms another 2 degrees and it won’t matter whether your block is full of single-family homes or apartment buildings? Less dramatically, are you okay with people driving 90 minutes each way to work each day so that you don’t have to live down the block from an apartment building or do you think that we have an obligation to address the housing needs created by the same vibrant Boston that makes Newton a desirable place to live?
Others put it another way: what kind of Newton do you want?
Also, what you’ve listed as tools are, to some, outcomes to be achieved or avoided. Density. Height.
I get that sfr zoning was used as a tool for racial segregation in some places. But when my subdivision was built in 1948 on a 7400 sf lot, was the zoning in place really to keep out black people (Asians and Latinos weren’t in the mix back then), or was it a recognition that the land was 1 mile plus from the T and not suitable for multi-family? I’m sure someone can answer this.
For reference, here’s a kind of remarkable Newton zoning map from 1921:
http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/39228
A few things:
* the pattern is quite interesting,
* there’s a lot of (1) single family zoned land,
* there’s a concentrated but expansive amount of land that is yellow (2) general residence, which allowed multi-family, apartments and boarding houses.
It would be interesting to see how zoning changed between this map and today’s.
@Mike Halle – .. and most of the “general” zoning is clustered around the industrial. Also interesting that a substantial amount of “industrial” from 1921 is now retail – (e.g. all of Needham St, The Street)
@Mike Halle – I think your broad scope vision of looking at outcomes rather than tools is much more effective for backing into the best process of how to craft a long range plan for our city.
I do think you are missing a critical “outcome” in your list, though: long term financial health for Newton. We are facing an almost $1 billion OPEB liability (“other post-employment benefits” that we have granted to retirees), but this is a topic that is rarely addressed when contemplating the benefits of development. A reminder that the commercial tax base is 2x that of residential (therefore a significant driver for revenue to the city).
Choices that we make now will affect the long term financial tax model for the city. Each of these very large development projects sets a stake in the ground for what is possible and REMOVES the possibility for change.
My take: our development priorities should focus on expanding Newton’s commercial tax base in order to set our city’s finances in good stead to be able to pay for significant expenses that will hit in relatively short order. Once that priority is achieved, we have full capacity to prioritize additional initiatives.
$1 billion in OPEB is scary.
ANP, very good point. I think it is more natural to approach costs and financial obligations when we are focused on outcomes rather than tools.
How much is affordability worth given we have only this collection of methods and limited capital?
If we agree we want safer streets, and can’t pay for roadway changes, we focus developer mitigation on that. If affordable housing is a priority, we have some principles to balance it against the tax advantages of commercial development. Commercial development also produces bursty rush-hour traffic patterns, so we can be explicit about that tradeoff and balance it with other mitigations (open space, transit options, etc). If we are worried about traffic impacts of mixed use development, we design retail to maximize internal self-dependence while offering new services to neighbors.
Finally, if people start to see the direct connections between what we want to do and how we’re doing it, we can start to rebuild trust in our decision-making process. That’s trust is essential if we ever need to ask for an override to achieve one of our goals, even an unglamorous but important one like long-term fiscal stability.
This isn’t rocket science. In truth, it’s happening all over Newton in small ways. We just have to make this kind of respectful, informed, collaborative discussion the default as we approach these really complex challenges.
And yes, that’s idealist, possibly naively so. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying.
I do not want high density housing. I want bigger lots with smaller homes. Allowing McMansions in small lots is a disgrace to the garden city.
Here’s the doomsday scenario and one that sadly is becoming more of a reality with each passing day….
Most (including Sean and most of our elected officials) have their heels so dug into the “crisis du jour” – and have painted themselves into a branding corner as a result – that they are fixated that their point of view is the correct one, the only one, to ever be convinced otherwise.
It’s like a couple, after arguing for hours, that the only possible outcome is to win, regardless of what the original argument was about.
In short, the process is broken. Community input is a gesture at best, a falsehood more realistically.
This kind of sums it up….
https://youtu.be/hW3fihrwbJo
https://abolishthebpda.com/
Matt, the irony of the video you posted is that it criticizes special permits. One of the points of Newton’s proposed rezoning is to reduce the dependence on special permits. Current zoning is so far off current practice, lots of stuff needs special permits. That means more Council control on every project and less consistency from project to project.
That said, Boston’s BPDA (used to be the Boston Redevelopment Authority or BRA) has no analog in Newton. How the BPDA works impacts Newton, but there’s very little we can do about that that isn’t purely reactionary.
I would mostly disagree with you on the rigid stance of elected officials. I don’t think they are in general heels-in and crisis driven. I think they are more aware than most of the intricacies and more importantly the constraints of practical decision making. What may seem like them “giving in” is, I suspect, often a level of pragmatism that passionate advocates have the luxury of avoiding. That isn’t to say they don’t have their preferences, predispositions, and gaps in their knowledge.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the Councilors or city staff are uniformly effective at explaining complex issues or tradeoffs to constituents. It’s hard work, it takes a long time, and you still get yelled at.
We still need to come up with a more constructive process.
Conflating tools and outcomes leads to poor, or at least non-optimal, outcomes. I’m going to focus on dense mixed use development as an example here because that’s the current focus of density increase in Newton.
Dense mixed use development alone without a broader housing plan has a mixed record of producing affordability and supporting a more economically diverse community. Dense mixed use development without the appropriate attention to co-location of retail and services means car trips are still necessary. Dense mixed use development without a transportation plan is silent with respect to safer streets. Dense mixed use development without green space, recreation and open space plans means that important neighborhood amenities may not get built, which means more trips off site and fewer benefits for the existing neighborhood. Dense mixed use development without a fiscal plan means that residents and policymakers are left unsure about the long-term health of their community.
These are strawmen to some extent in Newton, because documents like the Washington Street Vision and the planning process done by the Principle Group and the Planning Department actually look at most or all these elements. But that’s because the visions tend to be outcome oriented. And that’s because most regular people are outcome oriented. We need to double down on examining these outcomes and put them front and center when we talk about plans.
I will state clearly that I believe well-executed dense mixed use development is both essential and beneficial to Newton and the region. I believe the impacts of dense mixed use development that seem to get the greatest public attention (traffic and height) are overstated at the scale of development we are discussing.
But if we start with development and let all the other threads fall where they may, we don’t optimize our benefits and we don’t minimize our negative impacts.
We also don’t bring along the people who value affordability, diversity, traffic safety, environment, recreation, fiscal stability, etc. Those people can be natural allies of comprehensive, thoughtful, well-explained projects that include increased density as an element. Bring a good mix of them together and the project gets built. Tell them “trust me”, though, and many of them stay skeptics. Projects get compromised in ways that are counter-productive to good outcomes, or don’t get built at all.
Your examples:, “apartment buildings on my street -> … -> planet not on fire” and “apartment buildings on my street -> … -> reasonable commute”
have a huge amount of “trust me” in the ellipses that everyone, including you, cares about. Fill in those ellipses wrong, and you may end up with other less desirable outcomes entirely. And right now across our civic sphere, “trust me” is in short supply.
Will there still be those unconvinced, or still adamantly opposed? Sure. Quite a few, I suspect. There are, however, a whole lot of thoughtful people out there who will listen if you treat them as such. They can be your friends and allies.
This topic raises fair housing issues as well. The state and federal fair housing laws guarantee protection of various categories of people in housing, but also impose on municipalities an obligation to affirmatively further fair housing, which means promoting diversity. The primary tool Newton has at its disposal is through lotteries for affordable housing, which are intended to extend opportunities to protected minorities both inside and outside the city, and become as diverse as the rest of Greater Metropolitan Boston. To that end, the Newton Fair Housing Committee is looking at various outcomes from affordable housing lotteries to determine whether they are, in fact, promoting diversity, and, if not, what obstacles or challenges exist.
Disturbingly, no one on this thread has mentioned people with disabilities. Accessibility is frequently an obstacle to finding in housing in Newton–affordable as well as market rate–because most of the housing stock is not fully accessible to or adaptable for people with disabilities, particularly individuals with mobility impairments. Single and two family homes simply do not afford enough opportunities for people with disabilities to find housing in Newton, even those who can afford it, without substantial modification. Multi-family, high density housing, on the other hand, is most likely to be full accessible or adaptable, have elevators, ramps and other necessities for people with disabilities. These people include a significant number of seniors, whose mobility has been impaired or restricted, for whom a second floor apartment or condominium, or two story townhouse, is simply not an option. Approximately 40 percent of Americans over the age of 65 have some sort of disability, the most common of which is mobility impairment, and their downsizing options in Newton are limited, once again, by the existing housing stock. Moreover, most of the housing stock in Newton is not even “visitable” by people with disabilities, which means friends or family of residents who are disabled cannot even visit without significant modifications. Once again, multi-family, high density housing is far more likely to meet their needs as well.
About a third of Newton’s residents will be over the age of 65 by 2030. So when we are talking about “putting high density housing to the test,” I sincerely hope everyone keeps in mind the needs of those who are or may become disabled during their (your) lifetime. For many of these people, high-density housing offers legitimate housing opportunities that are otherwise severely limited in Newton.
@Ted As always, your comments are spot on. Housing for people with disabilities is key. I talk about it often in my candidate events. I lived through trying to help my in-laws find a new place to live that would work for them after they became unable to safely walk up the stairs and we were working on taking away their car keys. They lived in their Newton Highlands home for over 50 years. There was really no place they could move in Newton that was one-floor living, near critical amenities. If Austin St. had been opened, that probably would have worked for a while. Yes $4000 a month seems high, it is easily less than half of a senior living facility and twice the independence.
People should keep in mind that a disability can happen to anyone at anytime. A stroke, car crash, fire or chronic illness can leave people in the prime of their lives struggling to maintain their independence and care for their families. I have had a few people say to me, Newton isn’t a great place for people with disabilities. But instead of supporting efforts to fix it, they suggest that people with disabilities should move to Boston where things are probably better. It takes a great deal of self-control not to scream at them.
@ted
No one is saying adults with disabilities could not benefit from nor should be denied assistance. Fair to say you have consensus!!
At the same time, it does not support flooding 2,000 market rate (e.g. luxury) apartments into a transit system and education system incapable of supporting it.
Once again, this is a binary augment for a very complex situation with many possible outcomes (middle ground and compromise). It does not have to be all or nothing. It’s not “one or the other”as there is much room for something in between.
@alicia, I respect your passion for your cause, but pursuing them blindly without thought to your broader constituents, and wearing blinders to those who may not agree with your position may hurt your chances on Nov 5th. It’s a bold move and I wish you the best in the Ward 6 race.