Globe: 15 communities help address housing crisis (spoiler: Newton not on list)

by | Jul 28, 2019 | Affordable housing, economic development, housing | 51 comments

From Sunday’s Boston Globe…

A recent report highlighting the need for more local housing production found that from 2013 to 2017, 15 municipalities issued more than half the building permits in the state. Boston led the way, followed by Cambridge, Plymouth, Watertown, Everett, Weymouth, Somerville, Burlington, Chelsea, Framingham, Hopkinton, Middleborough, Quincy, Arlington, and Canton.

and here’s a key quote:

The recent report “demonstrates the power that local communities have to

Is Riverside Station a transit-oriented site? Yes or no

Is Riverside Station a transit-oriented site? Yes or no

by | Jun 4, 2019 | City Council, economic development, MBTA, Riverside | 33 comments

In a multi-pronged proposal to the City Council’s joint Zoning & Planning and Land Use committee meeting Tuesday, the Right Size Riverside committee (also known as Lower Falls Improvement Association) started its presentation for the Riverside MBTA station site (city documents here) with an usual request..

Don’t call the Riverside MBTA site a “Transit Oriented Development.”

Here’s how Right Sized explained its request in a memo…

“…Riverside is not robust.  Located at the terminus of the Green Line D Branch, with long travel times to most major centers of employment, and with only one MBTA bus line stopping at Riverside only

Do attendees at public meetings reflect the views of the general public?

by | May 23, 2019 | Affordable housing, development, economic development | 23 comments

From a story on the CityLab website….

To understand local housing politics over the past several decades, consider a recent study out of Boston University. Political science professor Katherine Levine Einstein surveyed all of the minutes for zoning and planning meetings about housing across 97 cities and counties in Massachusetts…

 

“In every single city and county we studied, the advantaged dominated the proceedings,” Einstein said at a recent Brookings Institution panel on housing. Residents who are older, men, longtime residents, local voters, and homeowners are much more likely to participate in these meetings. And they are much more likely to oppose new construction than the general public.

 

Residents who oppose new housing are also

Newton’s ‘hiring crisis’ weighs heavily on our local businesses

Newton’s ‘hiring crisis’ weighs heavily on our local businesses

by | Jan 10, 2019 | Business, Chamber of Commerce, development, economic development, Newton TAB | 45 comments

Here’s a column I wrote for the TAB about how a very tight labor marking may impact Newton businesses in 2019. And here’s one excerpt…

The good news is local business is booming. Generally speaking, our merchants, restaurants owners and many other businesses operating in our village centers and commercial districts report that 2018 was a good year.

The bad news is that an alarmingly large number of those same employers say their ability to be successful in 2019 will largely hinge — not on their ability to attract enough customers — but their ability to find enough employees.

Parking and traffic: economics over engineering

Parking and traffic: economics over engineering

by | Dec 31, 2018 | economic development, Newton, parking | 35 comments

Republished from Newton City Coucilor Jake Auchincloss’ latest newsletter.We tend to think of traffic like a liquid: it requires a certain amount of volume to flow smoothly. Congestion, in this view, is the result of constrained volume. Widening roads should reduce congestion, because automobiles will flow through a wider aperture.This does not work. Widening roads does not