I  | Newton MA News and Politics Blogposted something a while back that drew on Alice Ingerson’s research about the history of zoning in Newton.  I just learned that Alice continued and expanded her research and gave a presentation about it for Historic Newton in January.  

I’m sorry to have missed her lecture but here’s a link to a PDF of the presentation – it’s chock full of interesting maps, quotes, and facts and historical background.

What’s most interesting is that 100 years later, all of the same issues and concerns about zoning are being debated – everything from supporting economic diversity, maintaining property values, discouraging knockdowns, geographic divides in the city, pace of development, racial/ethnic issues, etc.

The only topic from 1925 that I haven’t heard much discussion of in today’s zoning talk is “airships”.

At the May 1925 public hearing, resident Amand C. Band opposed single-residence district because “only 10% of the residents of Massachusetts lived in single-family houses, [which] required an income of at least five thousand dollars a year.  … He also predicted that “within five or ten years, the development of airships would mean that the people of such incomes would commute from places over a hundred miles away and that they would not want to live in Newton anyway”. (Newton Graphic, May 9, 1925)

The one thread that seems to run through all of this zoning history is that with each wave of new zoning regulations in the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s it became harder and harder to build new housing in Newton – single family only, bigger minimum lots sizes, bigger set backs, etc.   An ironic part of all this, is that a very large fraction of the pre-zoning housing in the city (e.g Nonantum, Upper Falls, Newton Corner, and much of Newtonville and West Newton) could not be built today due to ever more restrictive zoning over the years.

Many thanks to Alice Ingerson and Historic Newton for putting together and making available this timely history