WalkUP Roslindale’s intent with this occasional series is to take a few minutes to have a chat with folks with whom we’re involved and/or aligned and hear more specifically from them about their perspectives, how they’ve come to participate in the Squares & Streets process, what they think about it, and where they hope it takes this part of our neighborhood.
Interview with Andrew Murray, Founder of Rozzidents for More Rozzidents
NOTE: This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
WUR: Andrew – Welcome to the WUR website and our occasional series on resident viewpoints vis-à-vis Squares + Streets in Roslindale. The first question I have is: what’s the organizing idea behind the movement you’ve started – Rozzidents for More Rozzidents? What should we know about it?
AM: Yeah, definitely. I want to answer that. I did want to say one thing just off the jump, just as a kind of a disclaimer. I work for the MBTA; in human resources. I’m helping programs to get better at hiring bus operators and all kinds of fun internships and apprenticeships. All that to say, I am not speaking on behalf of the T. I couldn’t remember if you and I had talked about that before.
WUR: Good to know and totally understand.
AM: So that’s my disclaimer. Now to answer your question, yeah, I think in a lot of ways my intention was just for it to kind of mean what it means to each individual and bring together what I think is a pretty big tent of people who are concerned either because it’s affecting them directly or because they care about their neighbors and they recognize the benefits of having folks of all walks of life be able to have access to our neighborhood and people who don’t view Roslindale as like some kind of scarce resource that there’s only so much to go around, right? And that actually like we’re made better the more that we’re willing to share this space and the more people that there are to frequent Roslindale the businesses that we like to frequent only makes us better and quirkier. And I recognize that’s different for different people, right? I don’t think everybody who wears a Rozzidents for More Rozzidents pin necessarily means you have to be like, yeah, let’s build eight story condos over the shops in the square where there’s no housing currently. It also can mean I am very much in favor of those kinds of things. And I recognize that other people might be in favor of other smaller scale changes. I think certainly I know that I am in favor of more of the traditional three and four story residential structure, uh, that is the makeup of the character of Roslindale. I think a lot of people maybe don’t recognize that that’s not something that you can just do anymore. Like there’s so many barriers to that. So, overall, my focus is on the big tent, on the things that align and allow for people to have nuanced opinions within that framework.
WUR: And how did you get involved in this? What was the spark for you?
ADM: You know, I think, honestly, I just got inspired. There was a group out of Minneapolis called Neighbors for More Neighbors that was a campaign that was for zoning reform there, which obviously… if you’re a housing advocate, Minneapolis is kind of one of the go-to success stories in terms of bringing forward wide sweeping zoning reform, allowing multifamily housing as of right in far more places than it was allowed before. And they’re starting to see the benefits in terms of rents declining in a time when they’re going up in so many other parts of the country, certainly places like Boston, where we don’t have those kinds of things. I’ve been really concerned, like a lot of people, with the rates of homelessness in the country and major cities in Boston and just sort of starting to be like, what are the underlying causes of that? There’s a great book called Homelessness is a Housing Problem. And very much, you know, that and other research, it all seems to indicate that the rental vacancy rate is the single biggest predictor of homelessness. And I think when you look at Boston, we have one of the lowest rental vacancy rates in the country. We don’t have as much visible homelessness here, which is a blessing and a curse in some ways. It’s a blessing because people have access to shelters that need it. Obviously, now, that system is being strained. But it does kind of make it out of sight, out of mind for people who say it makes the housing crisis a little bit less tangible than maybe in places like San Francisco, where it’s easier to point to it and say, hey, you guys are screwing something up here if you have this many people living this way. Whereas here we have more shelter space, which, again, I’m happy that we do. But I think it kind of puts it out of sight, out of mind for people. And now with the shelters being at capacity, I think we’re being forced to confront it head on in a way that we didn’t before.
WUR: Thanks for that answer and not surprised to hear about the Minneapolis example or that the rise in homelessness doesn’t add to the urgency of this moment. So, next question: how are you organizing? Is there any kind of formal organization around Rozzidents for More Rozzidents?
ADM: I honestly don’t know yet. I got inspired and just kind of came up with the slogan, right? Rozzidents for More Rozzidents, again, just based on that Neighbors for More Neighbors campaign. So, I kind of had an idea and worked with two great designers, Sam and Anna Knope here in Roslindale. They’re awesome. Definitely recommend them to anybody. They helped make my vision a reality. And we made these buttons and stickers that were based on the [Birch Street Plaza] mural or just kind of like a purple and green, like sort of like very natural, very natural Arboretum vibe. I just kind of wanted to have something that could be a way for people who probably don’t agree on every aspect of this, but to kind of have a way to show support for a lot of the zoning reform initiatives. I think dialogue is great. And I think everybody should have an opinion. I think everybody should voice their opinion. What concerns me when there’s things like squares and streets or zoning reform, it tends to be easier to organize when you’re against it or to, you know, if you go to a meeting and you like an idea, you might say, okay, that’s great. And then you kind of move on with your life. Whereas if you hate the idea, it’s kind of like, it becomes your like whole, like every day I have to get out and make sure people know. I just didn’t want people to get erased from the conversation when in reality, I think a large number of people see the need and the crisis we’re in and so are in favor of this and want to see it move forward and you sometimes hear either online or in meetings, like these calls that we have to slow this down. And that’s not really the case. You might not want it. And that’s again, your right as a citizen to advocate for that. But please don’t ignore the rest of us here that do. And we voted for a mayor for whom this was a central pillar of her campaign. She won convincingly and I think a lot of people support this and it’s just important to remind folks of that so we can have healthy discussions and hopefully participate in the squares and streets process, which I think if you’re willing to participate in the way that they’ve set it up, engage in their meetings, the way that they’re set up, I think there’s really been a lot of great opportunities to voice your opinion and get some insight. I know that I have thrown ideas out there that I’m sure other folks have as well that are showing up in the draft plan and I think that’s really cool. I also really like the overall mission of simplifying the zoning code and setting it up in a way where, like, let’s allow things just to be built as needed, right? Or letting businesses move in to serve the needs or demands of the community as needed rather than like, I think in the past, we’ve made the mistake of over planning and over dictating what can go where. If there were more opportunities for businesses, more spaces available for them to rent, I don’t think we would be seeing so many businesses facing the rent pressure that they’re facing, just like housing. So I think one of the things I really like is the idea that we’re going to enable more space to be used for both commercial and housing. And I think that’s great. I mean, I think that’s step one of any plan to fight displacement. I think that that has to be step one. So I’m really excited about that part of it. I certainly think that things need to go further in terms of more general reform, right? Like I think you should be able to build the kind of multifamily housing that for decades we were able to either build or convert and that allowed immigrants, working class families, middle-class families an opportunity to participate in land ownership and acquiring property, acquiring a home rather than what it is now, which is sort of this inflated Ponzi scheme to, you know, if your house property value isn’t going up at better than a stock index, then, you know, it was a bad investment. Roslindale is great because it’s got a great amount of diversity, a lot of folks have different incomes, but it’s also pretty segregated, so I’d like to see more multi-family housing allowed in parts of Roslindale that maybe haven’t been as accessible to everybody in the past.
WUR: Fully agree. If Squares + Streets succeeds in bringing more housing to the part of the neighborhood that has the most accessible amenities, that’s a win-win for sure. I’ll also note here that the rest of the country plans and rezones much more regularly than we do. And I hope that what we do is, when we get this done, that we don’t just put it in a box for 15 years and act like the revised regulation is perfect. It needs to be every three to five years that we look at this again. Did we get the results we want? What do we want to do more or less of? And that’s a big ask. The city needs to set itself up to do that and then do it.
ADM: I really appreciate that. I think that’s been a learning experience for me. I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, which has its own issues, but it’s a city that’s the same population as Boston spread across 10 times as much space. And it has a zoning code that’s like one 10th the size, right? Boston’s zoning is super complicated. And certainly while I might not always agree, I do sympathize with people who have just gotten used to things a certain way. One thing that was really eye-opening for me that a friend in the neighborhood pointed out is that for so many people of a certain age, activism, standing up for community meant, like, fighting against the Southwest Expressway, right? That would have been where the Southwest Corridor Park is now. That would have been certainly a disaster, you know, to somebody like me who wants more walkability, biking, transit, But that’s the central idea, that you had to fight to stop things in order to be a successful advocate. And then now it’s switching gears to say actually we should be for change and new stuff too, to help combat the real problems we’re facing. And that’s hard. For example, I’ve heard people in good faith equate this zoning process to the Southwest expressway, even though to me, they are totally different ends of the spectrum.
WUR: OK. Last question. From your perspective, what do you want to see Squares + Streets do in Roslindale? What would a positive outcome look like?
ADM: I think for me, just allowing as much housing to be built as there’s demand for and of different varieties. I don’t only want, five over one condos or whatever. I want people that can afford those units to have the opportunity to go and buy them because I’d rather them do that than drive up the sale price for a hundred year old house or be competing with a working-class family to rent a naturally occurring affordable housing unit, know what I mean? I’d also like to see the city supporting and creating more opportunities for subsidized, government-funded housing that’s mixed with market-rate housing.
WUR: In closing, tell us a bit about yourself, whatever you think someone should know.
AM: Yeah, I mentioned I grew up in Nashville. I came to Boston when I was 18 for college. I think like a lot of teenagers, I was just like, I want to be the opposite of wherever I was, right? And I think it just like dumb luck that I landed in such a great place to live with Boston. It’s been such an amazing place for me. I feel so lucky every day that I can get around without needing to drive everywhere. My wife and I, we own one car between the two of us. I love that I can get to work very easily either on the Orange Line or by biking. I work downtown. I find there’s a lot of things in the city that I can access with very little inconvenience without needing a car. Sometimes it’s flat out better or faster to just bike or take the Orange Line. So, you know, I think we have challenges. We need better bike infrastructure. The T needs to keep operating better. We need to keep improving service, all those things. But the glass is also half full and we’re very lucky to have access to these things. They can support far more people even right now, just as they are, I think.
People like Andrew make me proud to be a Rozziedent!