Mayor Ruthanne Fuller and challenger former City Councilor Amy Sangiolo met in a debate moderated by our old friend, Village 14 co-founder, and Charles River Regional Chamber President Greg Reibman. They devoted around a third of the just-over-an-hour-long debate to housing. 

I had originally intended to break down the entire housing portion of the debate. Mayor Fuller and Councilor Sangiolo, with Greg’s firm guidance, touched upon just about every housing issue that matters and their conversation sheds light on these issues more broadly than just their race. Certainly, watch it yourself. But, the section on single-family zoning really merits its own discussion. I may still attend to the balance of the housing discussion in a later post, as it does represent a good survey of the key issues. 

The full debate is here. The housing discussion starts here (at about 23:20). The six-minute or so single-family portion of the housing discussion is included at the bottom of the post.

The big takeaway for the single-family zoning discussion: after her stated commitment to eliminating systemic racial bias in Newton, her acknowledgement in one of her newsletters that land use policies can be systemic racial bias, her promoting the city-wide reading of The Color of Law, her promoting a conversation with Professor Richard Rothstein, the author of the Color of Law, Mayor Fuller used neighborhood character as a justification to defend single-family-only zoning in Newton.

The idea of eliminating single-family zoning is not at all on the table. Is not expected to be on the table. That’s because we have such unique and special neighborhoods that you would never want to, across the board, eliminate single-family zoning.

Mayor Fuller defended single-family zoning using the coded language historically used to cover the racist intent behind single-family zoning in the first place. I am not suggesting that Mayor Fuller is a racist. I am not suggesting that she has racist intent. But, how deep can her commitment to racial justice be if a) she’s defending a signal example of systemic racial bias, an example of systemic racial bias that is fully in the city’s control to eliminate and b) when defending that example of systemic racial bias she can’t be bothered to avoid what is racially charged language to the ear of anyone familiar with the history of exclusionary zoning such as Newton’s?

Councilor Sangiolo gets to the nub of the problem with single-family zoning: the injustice of deciding who gets to live where. “Everyone thinks their neighborhoods are special and unique. And, trying to figure out whose neighborhoods can have more density is just you know … it’s not an easy task.” Actually, it was an easy task, and Newton’s 20th Century political leaders did it. They decided that only parts of Newton would have density, and not very many parts and not much density. They decided that Boston and Somerville and Lynn and other communities would have the density and the people of color and others who couldn’t afford to live in Newton.

And, Councilor Sangiolo and Mayor Fuller fully intend to perpetuate those decisions.

Let’s back up.

Before Greg introduced housing as a topic, Mayor Fuller and Councilor Sangiolo engaged in a compelling and intense discussion about diversity and inclusion, each claiming to be deeply invested in increasing diversity across a number of dimensions and each claiming to be the better leader on the issue(s). Neither of them raised land-use as an issue of diversity and inclusion.

Towards the end of the housing portion of the debate, Greg steered the discussion to single-family zoning. Neither mayoral candidate addressed the diversity and inclusion implications of exclusionary zoning. 

Greg introduced the topic of single-family zoning as a matter of marketing. “It feels to me that we’ve bandied this term around in a misleading and often deceitful way. Isn’t it more true that when they talk about … we’re not talking about abolishing single-family homes, we’re talking about making it easier to build multi-family homes?”

The candidates — appropriately — answered a different question: should we have single-family zoning.  

Councilor Sangiolo says she’s open to exploring additional multi-family districts, but where it goes “has to be carefully talked about.” She doesn’t believe in upzoning throughout the city. She explicitly wants to retain single-family zoning in our zoning code. She believes that the need for additional multi-family housing in single-family districts is met by our accessory dwelling unit (ADU) ordinance and that the small uptake in ADUs is a matter of education and promotion. And, she thinks it may even be appropriate to subsidize the generation of more ADUs.

Mayor Fuller was very clear about where she stands on eliminating single-family zoning. No. Absolutely not. Not on the table. Because we have unique and special neighborhoods. (See above.) We might want to add by-right two-family zoning in “targeted areas” around village centers with transit. And, she essentially agrees with Councilor Sangiolo on ADUs. 

It’s notable that neither Councilor Sangiolo nor Mayor Fuller affirmatively promotes gently dense multi-family housing — duplexes, triplexes, small apartment buildings — as a solution to any of our housing needs. Which is entirely consistent with their shared defense of single-family zoning. It’s also notable that Mayor Fuller said she might support by-right two-family zoning in targeted areas around transit. This is about as limited a statement of support of denser housing around transit as you can make.

Earlier in the housing discussion, both Mayor Fuller and Councilor Sangiolo expressed support for residential development in our commercial areas: housing over existing retail, with Councilor Sangiolo careful to limit her support to two or three stories of residential. They cited the benefit of more people being able to walk to and patronize local businesses or more people being able to live car-free or car-lite because of proximity to transit.

Combining their village center and their single-family answers, they both make it clear that they are not promoting any broad change to zoning around village centers, the places that already have housing, even though their arguments for adding more people to village centers apply just as well to adding more people around village centers, at least within a short walk. In fact, Councilor Sangiolo’s desire to limit the height of buildings in the village centers might be more compelling if it were paired with a plan to increase housing around them. The areas around the village centers have much more capacity for additional housing than the village centers themselves.

So, this is what we’ve got. Two candidates well-versed in the value of more housing near retail and near transit, but who are both careful to limit what they support to housing over retail, with minor exceptions. Neither candidate affirmatively supports Missing Middle housing, the kind of gentle density that could provide more housing options across the spectrums of income and housing needs, which Missing Middle housing is precluded by their support of single-family zoning. Two candidates unable or unwilling to raise and address the racial justice issues inherent in exclusionary zoning. One candidate indifferent enough or sufficiently tone deaf to employ racially charged language to defend single-family zoning.

And, as a capper, Mayor Fuller engages in what can only be considered gaslighting.

But, I know no one is suggesting that we eliminate single-family zoning in the city. I don’t know anyone who is supporting that. Period.

In August 2020, her very own Planning Department issued a draft zoning ordinance that would have made it legal across the city to build a two-family home or convert a single-family home to multiple units. It is no longer available on the city web site, that I can tell.

Also, after she, Council President Susan Albright, and School Committee Chair Ruth Goldman pledged to eliminate systemic racism in the wake of the George Floyd murder, I wrote to her, Council President Albright, and other officials pleading with them to eliminate single-family zoning.* I have not changed my position. And, I am an anyone. 

The full single-family zoning portion of the debate:

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* Maybe by “no one” and “anyone” Mayor Fuller meant elected officials, but that would have been easy enough to say.