The Boston University professors whose research found that most people who come to public hearings to oppose new housing tend to skew older, whiter, and more conservative than the overall city or town they’re in, took Newton to task in a Boston Globe op-ed this weekend for our entire approval process. They’re particularly concerned that the referendum even happened
It should not require a well-organized campaign and the votes of 18,565 people to get one housing project approved. Representative government requires delegating responsibility to our elected officials. If we do not like how they have approached development decisions — or other matters — we can vote them out in the next election.
The piece also points out that our lengthy (18 month) approval process emboldened the clear minority who were opposition that not only slowed down the process but got the size reduced. The authors acknowledged the advantages (green space, transportation improvements, etc) but noted that this arduous process makes the cost of development that much higher.
They’re not alone in this thought. Amy Dain calls this part of Greater Boston’s “paper wall” that keeps out new housing. Our own Economic Development Study found the same thing.
We must fix our permitting process and reduce the need for special permitting. I believe that city council should hand off special permitting for most properties to the planning board and focus only on those that have city-wide and regional impact.
Lots to agree with here, @Chuck. But wouldn’t Northland and Riverside meet the standard for those developments “that have city-wide and regional impact?”
@Paul yes, they would. But there are a bunch of others that are clogging up the system and should be offloaded. Part of this, of course, is fixing our zoning so we can reduce the need for special permits overall.
Right!
I agree.
I could not find the conservative reference in the op-ed. If I am correct, maybe Chuck should edit the blot post.
I did not read the paper, just the op-ed. Comparing meeting participants to the general population is misleading. People who get involved in the political process never perfectly mirror the population. For example, voters also are older, whiter, and more likely to own homes. This does not mean we should “fix” elections.
Increasing the certainty and decreasing the politicization of the development process doesn’t mean we need to have low standards. If the city codifies transportation/traffic/parking standards, considers raising its affordable housing/inclusionary zoning standards, and does the same in energy efficiency and open space, then developers have a set of known standards to meet.
Other cities even have public art and community building requirements, which would fill gaps in Newton’s public funding.
Trade high standards for certainty, objectivity, and efficiency. Everyone knows what they are getting. All developers treated equally.
“tend to skew older, whiter, and more conservative than the overall city or town they’re in”
That’s true for every event at city hall I’ve ever been to.
Did they sample other topics? I’d say older whiter possibly more conservative ( forNewton, a conservative is just someone who watches CNN vs MSNBC) are the people who have time to show up, don’t need baby sitters and don’t have to take kids to ( add your music/sport/xtra curricular activity here.
When my kids were young, I never had time to participate in local politics. Now I do.
So no surprises here
Mike Halle, are you in favor of eliminating single family zoning city wide?
That could potentially add huge amounts of more affordable housing that’s non rental, if single family parcels could become two family.
@Rick, not speaking for Mike but I am 100% in favor of that. Part of the issue we have is multi-family can only be built in select areas and along select streets. This increases pressure for these areas and why we see the type of construction happening in the Washington St area for example. Make 2-family by right, 3-family along a public bus/rail etc. route. With good design standards, and especially elimination of parking requirements (A small developer is not going to build underground parking or want to remove all their green-space on a small lot to build a parking lot, we need to encourage these types of developers as they have more “skin in the game” in terms of community focus) they can look like the 2-family my wife and I rent in Newtonville, e.g. look like a nice large single-family. Even three-family units can look like a more traditional house. Too few areas can change, so the areas that can, change a lot.
Rick, I am 100% in favor of staying on topic.
My comment is specific, actionable, (I believe) politically pallettable, and complementary to any discussion or changes in zoning.
@Jeffrey as I mentioned in the post, these are the professors who did the research. I did not say that they called on that specifically in the op-ed, but it certainly informed their writing, as they pointed to the research itself .
Here is a City Lab article on the subject, if you don’t want to read their research: https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/09/nimbys-dominate-local-zoning-meetings/569440/
What seems to be missing from this discussion is the word money. There should be some admission that money is the driving factor in the push for urbanization of our villages.
The Mayor believes that more building means more tax revenue and she is correct. However, I am not aware of any evidence that more revenue will solve Newton’s fiscal problems.
Housing advocates believe that more housing will alleviate the need for housing for families with low/moderate income. They are right. However, there are other means to provide the same or more housing without disrupting neighborhoods and leaving Newton citizens believing they are voiceless.
Part of the problem is that the City Council is unable to stand up to developers. Perhaps it is a lack of experience. Perhaps there are other reasons.
You can make a significant profit building a 3 or 4 story apartment building. You can make a lot more money if it is 5 or 6 stories. You can hit a home run if you can get permission for 10 stories.
Newton was a suburb. We are in the process of changing it to an urban satellite of Boston.
Did I miss something in the discussion about “lower income”
and “elderly housing “at Riverside? Where, if anywhere, does it say that Newton elderly, or current Newton low income residents such as our adult children, or Newton’s workforce such as its teachers and police will have PREFERENCE for these units? Or is it first come, first served? Newton Housing Authority has emergency categories for placement and the Federal Section 8 waiver program list has years of waiting…. is there any assurance that Newton residents, their children or its workforce have a preference…yes, a preference in all this development ?
“For example, voters also are older, whiter, and more likely to own homes. This does not mean we should “fix” elections”
This is a great example of why we need to fix elections. Elections are set up so that it’s extremely hard to vote if you’re working-class, given you have to vote during the workday, and states routinely reduce the availability of voting locations near minority communities and make it near-impossible for students to vote. That’s how you get a old, white, rich electorate.
it’s funny, nowhere in the above post does it mention the need to “fix” elections. In fact, it points to elections as the antidote to bad policy decisions.
On a macro level I believe that @jim is correct. Though here in Newton polls are open early and remain so until 8pm with the hope that the timing works for everyone. Add in early voting options and that opens up the opportunity. We also don’t require any kind of ID and have accessible polling places.
Chuck – my apologies, I was responding to Jeffery’s comment and forgot to note that, which is probably why it seems off-topic.
“found that most people who come to public hearings to oppose new housing”
doesn’t say voting. Says hearings.
As I said, 90 percent ( my guess ) of the people who show up in Newton to anything at city hall tend to be older, whiter. They have more free time, and probably own homes and so have more at stake.
I could have saved the professors a lot of research! Penetrating glimpse into the obvious!
And Mike Halle, the whole editorial, whole perhaps not this post, is about housing so your purity of staying on topic is a dodge of my question.
I’ll take that to mean “no” as an answer to my question, until I hear otherwise.
Here’s my letter to the editor on this article
To the editor:
A true crisis requires drastic action. Simply improving the permitting process will not be enough to create housing other than rental apartments.
Newton and other cities should, as the entire state of Oregon has, eliminate single family zoning across the whole city.
Doing this will increase the number of homes that can be purchased to own, and at lower prices, so that more people and young families have a chance to get a start on home ownership. Right now only rental units are being created. A chance to own and build equity is not available given the current single family zoning restrictions.
Rick Frank
68 Brookside Ave
Newtonville MA 02460
Newton’s special permitting process for housing and mixed-use development, among other things like pot shop approval, has become political when it’s not meant to be. Below are a few ways to make these special permit decisions more objective.
1. Take politics out of the special permit equation by moving it to a non-elected body that follows a well defined process including public hearings.The city council should remain representatives of their constituents as well as critical thinkers.
Many residents and some city councilors, at least on pretense, know nothing about what is meant by the city council changing to a quasi-judicial body when negotiating a special permit. Having a representative elected city council switch to objective and judicial for special permit deliberations- continually going back and forth – is a stretch to understand for even a policy wonk.
This change would prevent residents from expecting their councilors to vote the way they want them to and councilors from talking about how they would vote during on-going negotiations of a special permit.
2. Change and complete the zoning redo so more can be built by right and reduce the need for gaining special permits all over Newton. As most people know zoning was used originally to segregate in many ways – people from people, wealth from lower income and housing from commercial, etc. Since Newton’s zoning hasn’t been changed in decades, it’s still serving the same purpose whether intended or not.
As it stands now, the new zoning still discriminates because of an attempt to “maintain the character of the neighborhoods” – whatever that is supposed to mean – while adding more changes and restrictions to parts of Newton than others. Zoning needs to be more fluid not less. For instance, rather than eliminating single family zoning, which would again make a lot of Newton non-compliant immediately, add fluidity by increasing what can be done with the property.
3. Increase the number of signatures required to a higher percentage of voters in order to hold a veto referendum and change the requirements that must be met to start the signature drive. A group of residents disappointed that they didn’t get their way after a proper process was followed should not be a good enough reason to hold a referendum. Saying “they didn’t listen to me” is entirely different from “they heard what I said but didn’t do it” which is what actually happened. Without the referendum, no ballot committees would have to be formed and the opposition wouldn’t have attempted to sway voters with lies and misrepresentations – the nastiness and divisiveness would have stayed at a minimum.
Marti
@Marti Bowen –
As I understand it, eliminating single family zoning wouldn’t make any more lots non-compliant. It would not require multi-unit housing be built on each lot. It would just optionally allow multi-unit housing across the city – so long as it complied with all of the other zoning regs – i.e. setbacks, etc
Jerry, that’s actually what I meant by making the zoning more fluid (multiple descriptions) so a lot could have a single family home or some description of a multi-family home instead of just eliminating zoning for single family homes – which sounds scary to some folks. Sorry my point got lost in my verbosity.