Thursday, Feb 27th from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm, Temple Shalom in Newton, Room 101
Join the Temple Shalom Tzedek (Justice) team for a discussion on Affordable Housing in our community.
The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) projects that Massachusetts needs to produce 500,000 housing units between 2010 and 2040 to maintain existing levels of employment without accommodating any significant job growth. Two-thirds of that projected housing demand is for multifamily homes, much of it in metro Boston’s inner core and in close suburbs with good access to jobs and transportation.
Lower income people are harmed the most. When housing supply is artificially constrained by zoning and other land use regulations it drives up rents and home prices across the entire housing market. While everyone is affected by increased housing costs, those increases are much more harmful to lower income households who pay the highest percentage of their income on housing.
(Source: MHP Center for Housing Data, https://www.mhp.net/about-us/data#qa)
At this event, local experts and religious leaders will provide insight into the current housing crisis and dialogue on affordable housing. Reverend Devlin Scott and Rabbi Laura Abrasley will introduce the topics. Lizbeth Heyer, Chief of Real Estate & Innovation at Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly, and formerly an Associate Director at the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development will provide background into the housing crisis in the Greater Boston area. Judy Jacobson and colleagues from Engine 6 will provide a deeper understanding of how Newton is working to address the housing situation, and finally Councilor Susan Albright will lead a discussion on some of the projects that are coming to Newton in support of increasing our housing supply.
This will be an informative dialogue. Free and open to the community.
The question I have is – why? Says who? Is it to satisfy companies building in flood zones in Boston?
Critical thinking is required here?
@Rick Frank – No.
It’s so ever larger number of our fellow citizens, don’t spend ever larger fractions of their income on housing, with ever diminishing standard of living, and ever longer commutes.
@jerry 500000 people have to be coming in closer to Boston for some reason. The reason stated by MAPC is jobs. Jobs in Boston. On land that will be flooded often in 20 years, if not underwater in 50 years.
“Housing supply is not keeping up with demand,” said MAPC Executive Director Marc Draisen. “Robust economic growth will attract hundreds of thousands of [new workers to fill an anticipated 235,000 new] jobs. Seniors want to stay in their communities. We need to accommodate [all of these interests].”
Where’s the planning for the flooding? And who pays for it ( hint – taxpayers)
Oh Rick. We’ve been through this before. I’ll respond the same as before with these two comments:
1. You talk as if all the jobs in Greater Boston are located downtown. Not even close to reality.
1. If downtown Boston become uninhabitable because we’ve failed to act on climate, our entire economy and way of life collapses. Building dense multi family housing in communities like Newton is one of many things we collectively need to do to reduce our carbon footprint to help address this very problem.
What Rick said.
The carbon footprint will be exponentially increased by the influx of cars on the road with all these new developments. Period. Full stop. #GBAIsNotAmsterdam
@Pat: Lucky for you, the answers to your concerns are addressed right here!
Pat where do you think the people with cars come from? Outer space? They exist and are driving here and now in Massachusetts. If we have more dense development, like Northland, they will be driving and polluting less because distances will be shorter between home/work/job/shops/etc.
What Lucia said.
@Greg: Needham St has been awarded an ‘F’. No amount of pretzel logic and voodoo economics will change that. Unless you completely take cars away from people & thus out of the equation (which is not going to happen). Again, #TheGreaterBostonAreaIsNotAmsterdam
@Lucia: the point is: with 800 units you’re adding that many more cars!
@Greg, @Lucia: yes or no: will (all these) development(s) add more cars to the (largely) daily tailgate party which is Needham St. Only three words, please.
@Pat: Wouldn’t life be lovely if problems like climate change, infrastructure, housing and road congestion could be solved with a yes or no question.
Yes or no did you read why Green Newton supports a yes vote? And after that, please read this.
I’ll take that as a no.
I had to collect some data on affordable housing in Newton. I worked with Planning Department spreadsheets to do this work. I want to share these data with you.
I examined 3 categories to find out how much new affordable housing we will have developed in the 20+ years between 2003 when the inclusionary zoning rule was amended to require 15% affordable housing to completion of existing approved projects. The categories include housing completed, housing under construction, and permits granted but not yet underway.
Since 2003 132 units of affordable housing have been constructed and there are 58 units of affordable housing under construction. This means in 20 years Newton has created 190 affordable apartments (roughly 9 apartments/year)
Permitted but not yet constructed equals 265 units but if you remove Northland from this there are only 125 units of affordable housing that will be created.
So in 20-25 years (including the time it will take to construct the permitted but not constructed projects) if the Northland project fails – Newton will have created a meager total of 315 affordable apartments. If Northland Yes vote wins – in 20-25 years we will have created 455 affordable apartments or roughly 22 apartments per year.
I think these data provide the answer to the question Affordable housing why now? why Newton? We have not even made a small dent in the need.