Now, as they begin crafting broader changes to the city’s housing rules, Newton’s leaders ought to take the March referendum results as a bellwether of a heartening shift: The longstanding consensus against denser, more affordable housing in America’s suburbs is beginning to crack. For generations, large, single-family housing has been the only kind many suburbs wanted. But the way that once-cherished limits on growth have harmed the environment and deepened racial segregation is coming into ever-sharper focus, aided by local activists and the national soul-searching over systemic racism fostered by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Now, Newton’s City Council has an opportunity to meet the moment by getting rid of the blanket regulations that, for almost a century, have outlawed lower-cost, multifamily housing in much of the city. It’s those kind of zoning restrictions that have mapped racial and economic disparities onto America’s geography — and it’s by abandoning them that Newton and other suburbs can lay the groundwork for a more inclusive future.
Currently, about three-quarters of Newton’s 23,000 residentially zoned lots are reserved for single-family homes, according to the mayor’s office — which means they’re limited to people who can afford median home prices that have ballooned to about $1 million. With an initiation fee that high to join Club Newton, the city’s racial demographics shouldn’t come as any surprise: the city is about 3 percent Black and 5 percent Latino, according to the Census, well under half the rates in the state as whole.
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Thank you Boston Globe editors for urging us to follow our better angels.
The racial and economic disparities in America’s geography haven’t been mapped only by zoning restrictions, they’ve been mapped by the municipal boundaries that allow places like Newton and Wellesley to have $200 million high schools with the best teachers and private police forces patrolling the eastern boundaries of town.
Eliminate local government. Education, public safety, infrastructure, and zoning should be uniformly administered across the entire Boston metropolitan area, if not the whole state.
Michael,.your comment is an observation of disparity but hardly a solution. Boston has a unified school district. Think its schools are equally good and offer equal opportunities?
Local government gives individual residents the greatest chance to make a difference, to track down the person responsible for a decision and appeal to them, for example. Getting rid of local control would abstract decision-makers from the people they service to a greater degree.
The real difference comes with resource disparity. Some communities simply have more income a their disposal, and the ones that need more investment in, say, schools often have the least to invest. Even Newton is hurt by this fact due to its small commercial base. State aid to cities and towns doesn’t make up for that problem. Fix that problem and you break one of the major socio-economic chains holding many Massachusetts citizens back.
@Mike you’re way more sanguine on “local control” than I am, at least in practice in the suburbs. The reality quantified and documented in the 2019 TBF Housing Report Card—”Supply, Demand and the Challenge of Local Control”—is pretty stark.
@Mike Halle –
Yes, it absolutely does, and that’s why it’s unfair to have fiscally-autonomous suburbs, especially in the context of an economically-integrated metropolitan region. Anyone serious about socioeconomic justice would want to ensure that all communities have access to identical capital and operational per-pupil funding.
But the inequity extends beyond funding and applies to the administration of each district. One of the primary shortcomings of local government is that an absurdly narrow demographic of Bay State residents have the time, means, and outspokenness to make their voices heard in the local decision-making process, and those residents are invariably concentrated in communities like Weston and Lexington.
The status quo of using local government to, as you say, allow residents to make a difference and track down those responsible to appeal to them, is quite effective for allowing the top 5% to defend their self-interests. For the other 95%, not so much.
The Island of Montreal offers a good blueprint for equitable municipal reorganization and school board amalgamation, as implemented by the the Parti Québecois beginning in the mid-1990s (although some elements of the merger were subsequently undone by an Anglophone government, primarily on the West Island).
‘The real difference comes with resource disparity.’ Per pupil spending Boston: $22,748.42, Cambridge: $27,597.30,
Newton: $18,458.20 Chelsea: $13,260.04 MA Virtual Academy at Greenfield: $7,771.52 (a public school) http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/ppx.aspx
Resource disparity is a part of the problem, but there is a much bigger problem that money alone cannot solve in our nation’s public education system.
Lucia, I agree with you that funding is only part of the picture, but the caveat on those figures is that they’re generally higher in urban districts because of SPED costs Also, they only depict operating costs, not capital projects.
For those looking for actual data about the connection between race and zoning:
From the 2019 Greater Boston Housing Report Card: ““What may be surprising is the level to which overt redlining tactics designed to keep racial and ethnic minorities out of some areas has been replaced by economic, social and zoning barriers which still make housing diversity difficult, impracticable or impossible in many communities.” https://www.tbf.org/news-and-insights/press-releases/2019/june/gbhrc-2019-20190626
From a 2013 Harvard study of block-level data: “My results imply a large role for local zoning regulation, particularly the permitting of dense multi family structures, in explaining disparate racial location patterns. Blocks zoned for multi-family housing have black population shares 3.36 percentage points higher and Hispanic population shares 5.77 percentage points higher than single-family zoned blocks directly across a border from them.” https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/resseger/files/resseger_jmp_11_25.pdf
I’m so tired hearing about what the Boston Globe thinks about Newton. When Globe owner John Henry moves from his 25,000 square foot house on a 200,000 square foot lot in Brookline to a multifamily unit, I’ll pay attention to what they think we should do.
What does Newton keep getting singled out? What are Wellesley, Weston and Needham doing for the cause?
“One idea the councilors have discussed is to allow multifamily zoning within a quarter- or half-mile radius around MBTA stations and bus stops….”
Why won’t any of Newton‘s elected officials or housing advocates denounce the 1/4 or 1/2 mile radius bit and allow multifamily across all of Newton?? NIMBY perhaps?
@Matt – Many of us do. Constantly. I have. Sean has. Several of the city councilors have. Alicia Bowman said in her campaign she would support that citywide.
#like !
Anyone else? @kathleen?
Lucia, you mention the resources spent by school systems on students. But that is a very restrictive boundary to draw. I don’t think it covers capital investment in school infrastructure. It doesn’t cover libraries, or community centers, or social programs, or parks. Even simple stuff like trash pickup and street design for public safety. All of these elements require resources They attract and keep families and employers in a location. They help kids grow up safely and confidently. They help as adults turn old. They are a source of opportunity and pride.
The state provides some equity through state education and building funds, state facilities like parks and state routes, and local aid. But at the local level, there certainty isn’t equity.
Even within Boston, there isn’t equity across neighborhoods in part because of previous chronic lack of investment and prevailing poverty. And honestly, compared to some other cities, Boston is a success story, in part because of its tech-funded tax base.
The point is that resources and resource disparity are a big deal. We can as a state do something about it. Local control is also a big deal, and works much better when financed, and alternatives to it are neither popular nor especially practical at this time. I don’t think the people of Lynn, Chelsea, or Everett would vote to remove local control much faster than Somerville, Brookline, or Newton would.
I would be very interested to learn about Newton’s efforts to promote inclusive and affordable housing beyond subsidized units in new development or proposed changes to allow for more development.
These two existing measures, as hard as they may be to do, are comparatively easy. Subsidized affordable units are a narrow-based tax on the other residents in the development. This tool simply doesn’t scale sufficiently to provide a large number of affordable units without distorting the high end of the market as well. A change in zoning by itself does nothing; it’s the follow-up policies and execution of those policies that determine success or failure.
Failure, for example, could be a future Newton that is just as exclusive and just as unaffordable, only denser. Developable land and density are limited resources we need to use wisely to accomplish what we want. Failure could also be failing to develop a commercial tax base that we could commit to using to aid with affordable housing development.
I believe there are many more people who genuinely support the cause of affordable housing than support using these two primary mechanisms alone to accomplish it. I believe it would benefit Newton now to widen the discussion to include other ways to improve affordability and diversity.
There are a few mechanisms I know about that are used to provide actual improved affordability. I’m sure there are more. These mechanisms either complement or augment our existing tools. The ones I know about include:
* Partnership with non-profit developers and community development organizations
* Promotion of alternative housing models such as cooperatives and profit-limiting deed restrictions
* Residential tax exemption to transfer a portion of residential tax burden from lower to upper income owners
My quick browsing of the ‘net brought me to this resource. I am sure there are more:
https://www.localhousingsolutions.org/
There is no better time to have this larger conversation, then set in places a broad set of policies that address the problems of housing in many different ways.
Mike,
Local control of land use allows a city like Newton to concentrate wealth, through exclusionary zoning. The higher median home value, the higher the median tax rate. The higher median tax rate, the higher the amount available for education per pupil. The higher the amount available for education per pupil, the greater the incentive to maintain the land-use controls that concentrate wealth.
I just cannot imagine a world where folks in Newton would be just as excited as folks in Lynn to cede land-use regulation or education spending control to the state.
Hey Sean. Per the latest updated data (12/19), Newton spends $ 18,458 per pupil per year while Boston spends $ 22,748.
So are we done here?
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/ppx.aspx
Sean, I am replying to Michael’s comment that the answer to these problems is “abolish local government”. That goes far beyond residential taxation and land use. My claim is that you’re not going to find many advocates for eliminating local government in any community in MA, affluent or not.
And you and I will probably agree that Newton doesn’t use its local taxation to pay more into schools or parks or infrastructure at a rate comparable to its peers. It generally keeps its residential tax rate low. Limited override attempts and successes. Even worse than concentrating wealth within the community.
Fine, let’s talk about fixing it. But if you’re going to change zoning, figure out your next steps now to actually accomplish the social goals you want to achieve. More opportunities for higher end development is one possible path that few residents favor.
Patrick, you’re too cool for school! And too cool to read the comments, apparently:
The reason that Boston is higher than Newton in per-capita operating costs is because they have more special education students. And more ELL students.
Never mind the fact that those figures don’t account for capital projects, e.g. Newton’s $200 million high school.
Now we’re done
Here’s an analysis that covered 97 cities and towns in metropolitan Boston. It concluded that local government works perfectly.
For old, well-established, white males, that is. Quelle surprise!
Who Participates in Local Government? Evidence from Meeting Minutes
Hi Michael.
I generally don’t engage with anonymous accounts, but for fun:
Boston enrollment: 50,480, enrolled with IEP: 9,464, or 18.74%
Newton enrollment: 12,779, enrolled with IEP: 2,554, or 19.98%
That’s swell Patrick, how about this fun one:
Boston ELL = 17,000 (1 out of 3 students)
Newton ELL = 750 (1 out of 17 students)
Mike Halle, any progress in learning “about Newton’s efforts to promote inclusive and affordable housing beyond subsidized units in new development or proposed changes to allow for more development”?
You pointed to important and specific alternatives, but I’m afraid anything that doesn’t lead to developers’ profits is out of scope for V14 “housing advocates”.