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 Elvira Mora, AHMA Boston Organizer and WalkUP Roslindale Board member
NOTE: This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
WalkUP Roslindale (WUR): Tell us about AHMA. What should we know about it?
Elvira Mora (EM): Absolutely. All right, so AHMA, also known as Abundant Housing Massachusetts, was founded in 2020, so in the heart of the pandemic. And there were just a couple of people that were very pro-housing, got together, and decided that this should be a thing. And four years later, here we are, ramping up. We had our first lobby day earlier this year. We’ve been making strides statewide with the bond bill advocacy. And now that we have me as full-time Boston organizer, I can really dedicate my time to different initiatives in Boston, which is definitely important just as we go along with the different timelines of the city’s planning efforts. Bottom line, we are an organization that focuses on the policy, on how we can help mitigate the housing crisis that we have in our state. We believe that supply is definitely a part of the conversation, a part of the solution. And I feel like not enough people know the context behind that or the why behind that. So I feel like our mission right now is to sort of not just talk about it, but talk about it in a way that is community oriented, right? So talking about the need for market rate housing, you can say, oh, well, everything’s expensive here in the city already or in the state, really. So why do we need more market rate housing? Well, it’s because there needs to be a variety of different housing options, right? For folks that have different income levels, for folks that might need different housing options, like moving into… an apartment or a duplex or a condo or even buying that single family home, right? And even pushing the idea of living in an ADU or having that be obtainable. Different housing structures and just in a lens of community is what we do at AHMA. And yeah, I think we are just getting started and four years in, we have a small but mighty team. So I think we’re off to a really good start there.
WUR: Following on that, how did you get involved with AHMA? What was your path?
EM: So I’ll start with my own housing story of living and growing up in a triple decker and fortunately still residing in one in Roslindale, no less. I was born and raised here and I have been a public servant in different capacities. Whether it’s political organizing or actually serving at City Hall for a limited amount of time, I’ve always had this calling back to housing and really how to help people at the most policy-focused point possible where actual change is achievable, where we’re actually interacting with lawmakers and other community advocates that do push the needle on certain things – like WalkUP did for getting those bus lanes to and from the square. And I feel like just small ideas can really sprout and become big ideas and become action. And that’s kind of my driving point behind getting involved with AHMA. It’s just that housing has always been really important to me. My family was lucky to be able to purchase a triple decker property in ‘95. Too many families now don’t have the opportunity to buy anything without substantial help of some sort, whether it’s government subsidies or city initiatives for a first home buyers class or something of that nature. So I feel like there’s just a lot more disparity now. And I’m fortunate that my parents were able to have, you know, the opportunity to buy a property and make it into a home. And I feel like that should be just the norm for everybody across the state, especially because I love the city of Boston. I love the state that we’re in. And I just feel like everyone deserves a home. And that’s really the mission of AHMA as well. Everyone deserves a home.
WUR: And how long have you been in your position?
EM: I want to say nine months now. It will be a year in November.
WUR: And then this may be a quick one, but how is your organization structured? So you guys are a nonprofit, I assume, or what’s the situation?
EM: Yes, we’re a 501(c)(4). So we don’t take PAC money or anything or endorse any candidates, but we do help with initiatives and even ballot questions so that we’re just basically advocating for the policy points that would help housing in the state. For me as the Boston organizer, I’ve kind of structured it neighborhood by neighborhood to start us off with before we can meld into something bigger. Right now, I’m focusing on the small area plans that are part of the Squares & Streets initiative as well as the situation in Allston/Brighton since I know that they have a lot going on with the Harvard property at Allston Yards. So I just want to kind of get ahead of all of those initiatives and sort of see where we’re at. I know that there’s a lot of organizers in the area that are in separate cohorts and separate silos, so I’d love to bridge them together and really just take this city-wide. From Hyde Park to East Boston, I want there to be some coverage of pro housing advocates in the area because they are out there – there just needs to be somebody to tap into and sort of get to know them, meet them where they’re at, and see if they can become part of our coalition. That’s very much ongoing.
WUR: That’s great to hear and a really important mission. Next question: What’s AHMA’s overall view of Squares & Streets? And then in Roslindale in particular.
EM: Generally, we love the idea of Squares & Streets. We applaud the mayor and her administration for putting this together, both the initiative and the skeleton work. We do think that it does not go far enough in terms of housing. I know that there’s different missions through Square & Streets, which is not just housing, but also in terms of transportation, in terms of small business, arts and culture, right? So I feel like the housing component could be pushed for a little bit more. We could upzone more in some areas. I know upzoning is a very scary term for some people, but it seems like it would be wasteful not to advocate for upzoning, especially when there’s first story businesses or first story homes that have the possibility to house more neighbors. And in Roslindale, I feel like we’re ready to meet that moment. At least, from what I’m seeing, there is support for this. And it seems that people are generally more on the grain of wanting something to change. And, you know, there were a lot of folks at the recent Ideas reception in Roslindale, and I feel like people are asking the right questions and seeing how they can get more involved and really just comparing it to their own daily experiences, right? We all take the commuter rail, we all take the bus, we all take the subway at some point. So I think… by just having those conversations and meeting people where there are, it really serves a purpose. Roslindale is doing really good in that regard, because there are already strong supporters, not just WalkUP Roslindale, but also Rozzidents for More Rozzidents.
WUR: Is there a particular aspect of the process and proposals so far you would pick and say, you know, this struck me as particularly interesting or a good thing or bad thing or whatever, any aspect of it that’s kind of hit you?
EM: Yeah, so it actually hasn’t been the housing front. It’s actually been part of the arts and culture bubble. Revamping Birch Plaza, which has been something that many Roslindale residents have been pushing for because it just feels undone when you go there. It used to be a street that people could drive on and now it’s not. And honestly, it’s benefited a lot of folks being able to sit down there, being able to have a space that is truly pedestrian friendly, and that they won’t have to fear about cars being in that area. So I just love that there is a focus to revamp it, you know, add planters and add all the things to beautify that area. And I love that that was included in this plan as well, just because it shows folks that, you know, city hall is really listening to them.
WUR: Agreed. And then last one on Squares & Streets: What would be a successful outcome for the small area plan in Roslindale?
EM: I would really love to see a little bit more upzoning especially across the square and we should be even taking it up a notch and upzoning to S-0 in the residential areas that are nearby just so that they could serve more homes for more folks. I feel like our main street is already so beautiful and compact and emblematic of a 15-minute neighborhood from a home in that area. Like for me on Belgrade, I’m able to walk 15 minutes to the square and it’s great. So why not have that be possible for as many people as possible to live there and actually have that experience? And then I’d also love to see, from AHMA’s organizing point, that more residents affiliate with us as we join forces with WalkUP Roslindale and Rozzidents for More Rozzidents. I feel like there can be more than one pro-housing organization in this space and that multiple groups can coexist and help push the needle more on what we feel we need here in Roslindale.
WUR: Completely agree. There’s plenty of room in this space for folks to get out there and welcome anybody who wants to contribute to the effort. And I think your point about the 15-minute neighborhood is right on point. There’s definitely an opportunity to make what is generally a well laid out, walkable neighborhood even better. And totally with you, obviously, on the notion that the more people we can let live that way, by building housing for them in those locations, we’re all better off. And then the last question is more free form. Is there anything you would want anybody who’s reading this to know about Elvira Mora, what she’s up to or what she’s done or wants to do?
EM: Sure. So for all those newbies out there, I am born and raised here in the city of Boston, in Roslindale. I do have an idea of what I’m talking about. For folks that like to have that notion that if a new neighbor moves in and they haven’t been here for the entirety of their lives, that their opinions don’t matter? That’s not true. As long as they’re a neighbor in a certain neighborhood, then they belong there, first off. And second, they have the same voice as anybody else. And it shouldn’t be diminished because of how many years they’ve been here. So I am proud, but I’m also fortunate to be born and raised in the city of Boston and in Roslindale specifically. I think, honestly, it’s my favorite neighborhood. I would not want to move anywhere else. And a little bit more about me. I’m a first-gen Ecuadorian-American, bisexual woman. So I cross a lot of different categories. And I just want… more neighbors in my neighborhood. I want more people to have homes. I want an abundance of homes. Everyone should have a home. Everyone should have a place to live. And that’s my mission with AHMA and that has been my mission before AHMA. I’m glad to have this as the place to call home career-wise and that is awesome.
Website Host Note: The below post, which is a deep dive into the topics it explores and almost certainly sets a length record for this website, is the first in what we hope will be a series of pieces about the current Squares + Streets planning process in Roslindale Square from folks with whom we are generally aligned. In this case, the poster is Nate Stell, a volunteer with Abundant Housing Massachusetts (AHMA), the statewide pro-housing organization of which WalkUP Roslindale is an organizational member. The views reflected here are Nate’s own and are not official positions of WalkUP Roslindale or any of its board members or, to our knowledge, AHMA. – Matt Lawlor, WUR Board president.
Squares + Streets: Rezone the residential streets, too!
Roslindale Square is one of the first two sites of the Squares + Streets zoning initiative to encourage more housing and mixed-use development near transit and main streets. The final step for Roslindale will be an update to its zoning map, which will happen by the end of the year.
This week, the Boston Planning Department (formerly BPDA) will present its first zoning map recommendations for a ⅓ mile circle around Roslindale Square.
I expect that the bulk of the new zoning will concentrate along the main corridors of Washington, Cummins, South, and Belgrade. This is a great place to start, but it would be a big missed opportunity not to rezone the residential streets, too.
Specifically, I’d like to see the S0 “Transition Residential” district applied to all streets currently zoned for one-, two-, and three-family homes, which make up the vast majority of the Squares + Streets area.1 Mapping the S0 district could result in 520 new homes and welcome 1,200 new neighbors over the next decade.2
The ⅓ mile circle around Roslindale Square is under consideration for Squares + Streets rezoning. The periwinkle shading represents the residential streets that are unlikely to be rezoned, i.e. most of the Squares + Streets area. The Roslindale maps in this piece were all created with Perci PBC’s excellent Envision tool. Check it out!
Applying the S0 to residential streets will benefit existing homeowners by granting them significant property rights and slowing the growth of property taxes.
The S0 is also a smarter way to thicken up our neighborhood. A fairly typical planning approach to adding housing in a community is to lump it all into the busiest areas. While this may get the job done, so to speak, it can also exacerbate the problems that growth-resistant residents bemoan the most: crowding, parking, and traffic. Taking a rising tide approach to growth can minimize these effects by distributing them more evenly.
Finally, applying the S0 is the right thing to do, because it will help us add more desperately needed homes, it will diversify our neighborhood by diversifying our housing (think triple-deckers, townhomes, and small condo and apartment buildings, not towers), and it will help our city better adapt to the impacts of climate change.
More of this energy, please!
Ok, I can already hear your groans:
“That’s a terrible idea. The crowding. The parking!”
“What the hell is an S0?”
In this essay, I unpack the jargon around the S0, and then paint a picture of how our residential areas may change under it: the kinds of buildings we’ll see; when and where they’re built; and what their impacts will be. I am convinced, and hope you will be too, that these changes will benefit both future and existing Rozzidents.
Addressing questions and concerns about the S0
What’s an S0 district?
If the Planning Department mapped the S0 district to your street, that would technically permit a homeowner to build up to 4 stories with 14 units of housing on their lot without needing a variance. But there’s a big difference between what’s technically allowed and what’s effectively allowed.
In most cases, the S0 effectively permits a homeowner to build 3 stories with 6 units of housing without needing a variance due to zoning’s interaction with other housing policies, building codes, and lot size.
Let’s look at some of these factors whittling down what’s feasible under S0:
Boston’s updated Inclusionary Development Policy (IDP), which goes into effect October 2024, requires that new buildings with 7 or more homes set aside 17% of as income-restricted to households earning 60% of Area Median Income, plus another 3% of homes set aside for housing voucher holders. A tradeoff of this laudable policy is that market rate developers aren’t going to build many multifamily buildings with 7-14 homes (the max permitted under S0), because they simply can’t make enough margin on the market rate homes for the project to make financial sense. Instead, we will see an increasing number of small multifamily buildings with 6 or fewer units. If you don’t believe me, ask any small residential developer or off-duty urban planner. Few people discuss this publicly, but inclusionary zoning results in fewer homes being built.
Elevators! The building code requires that residential buildings taller than three stories have an elevator. Between the added cost and the floor space that elevators eat up, it’s not worthwhile to build 4-story buildings with so few units.
Lot size. If you look at a 4,000 square foot lot, which is typical for the Roslindale Square area, the maximum floorplate allowed by S0 is 2,000 square feet. If the lot is developed with any parking, then the flooplate will need to shrink accordingly, and so will the number and/or size of homes in the building.
What would new developments under S0 look like?
Under S0 zoning, we’d see more 4-6 plexes built over the next 10 years, along with some small apartment buildings. Some of these will be new infill development, while a good number will be redeveloped single- and two-family homes. I think it helps to visualize these buildings and how they’d fit into the neighborhood, so I’ve included a few examples below.
The small 6-plex
This building on 16-18 Hewlett Street lies on a 5,000-square foot lot in an area currently zoned for two-family homes. The building has six 800-square foot condos, and fits nicely within the context of the neighborhood. The smaller home size contributes to their relative affordability for the neighborhood ($450K vs. $660K median sale price April ‘24). This is a great example of what gentle density can achieve: more homes and greater affordability while maintaining the neighborhood feel.
The big 6-plex
Now let’s consider another scenario on the same parcel, but where a developer takes full advantage of the allowed building footprint so that they can build larger condos more suitable for families. It has the same frontage, but a smaller backyard. Does it still fit within the context of the neighborhood? Sure.
The cute 4-plex
Another example development we may see more of are 4-plex condos with 700-800-square foot units like this cute building a stone’s throw from Fallon Field. Does it fit in the context of the neighborhood? Well, I’ve walked by this building a hundred times and only noticed that it was a 4-plex when I started scouting sites for this piece.
The small income-restricted apartment building
A crucial exception to the effective cap on 6-unit buildings is when a project is actually intended for affordable housing. For practical purposes, the City defines an affordable housing development as one where at least 60% of the units are income-restricted at 100% of Area Median Income (AMI) or below.
Affordable housing developers are significant contributors to Boston’s housing supply, having built 21% of new homes in the last decade. The S0 may create an interesting opportunity for introducing greater affordability to our residential areas with 4-14 home apartment buildings.3
7-unit income-restricted condo building in JP
Given the lot size constraints, some developers may pursue a Single Room Occupancy (SRO) building, which offers affordable homes to single adults with a private bedroom and shared facilities. Some, but not all, SROs serve targeted populations such as individuals in recovery, survivors of domestic violence, and veterans.
12-unit SRO in Dorchester
The compact living building
A few years back, the City launched a Compact Living Pilot to test the idea that building smaller-than-usual homes could be a path to greater affordability and sustainability.
Perhaps the most ambitious project under this pilot is 141westville in Dorchester, a 4-story, 14-unit building of 280 sq ft studio apartments costing $750/month (most utilities included). It is living proof that “market rate affordable housing” doesn’t have to be an oxymoron.
141westville pushed the envelope on a few fronts:
The apartments were smaller than others in the pilot. Nevertheless, it demonstrated the demand for affordable, compact, single living by leasing out its apartments shortly after its recent opening;
It was able to avoid triggering the 4th floor elevator requirement, perhaps because both of the ground floor units are accessible;
It cleverly earned community buy-in before the permitting process even started by hosting 250 on-site tours of a full-scale model apartment that they built on a trailer;
Being located near transit, the project built no off-street parking and only leases to residents who do not own a car.
I am really impressed with 141westville, and would love to see several projects like it take shape in Roslindale. But I think it’s unlikely that we’d see more than a few built anytime soon.
For one, it would be very difficult to finance the development with debt or investor money due to a lack of comps. The 141westville owners were trailblazers who self-funded their project and took on considerable financial risk, in part so that others in the future may not have to. We now have a comp, but I’m assuming we’ll need at least a couple more self-funded passion projects before lenders will hand out reasonable term sheets.
Another key challenge is threading the needle of complying with IDP while keeping the project financially feasible. If not for 141westville’s dogged pursuit of a workaround to the complicated and costly tenant lottery mandated by IDP, their project would have been underwater for 15-20 years.4 What’s worse is that the lottery process itself hasn’t changed, so the next developer will have to face these same issues. If they don’t have the same resourcefulness to find a workaround that the City will accept, their project will likely go unbuilt.
All this is to say that while I think compact living is due for a comeback in Boston, we’re still in the early days.
Won’t my street be flooded with new developments?
No, and here’s why:
Financial incentive. Just because zoning allows a property owner to redevelop doesn’t mean it’s financially worthwhile. If they own a parcel with an older ranch-style home in disrepair? Sure, that could be a good redevelopment candidate. A triple-decker renovated 15 years ago? Not so much.
Slow turnover. Even when the financial incentive to redevelop is there, owner-occupied homes tend to redevelop very slowly.5 This is because people who own their homes generally like where they live and will stay put until they’re good and ready. Redevelopment of condos is especially slow, because multiple owners need to agree to sell at the same time.
As I mentioned in the introduction, S0 zoning could result in 520 additional homes over the next decade, built on about 110 parcels. This represents an 11.5% redevelopment rate.
Let’s visualize what an 11.5% redevelopment pattern looks like on a typical residential street. Pictured below is my block on Farquhar Street with 33 parcels (sadly, we’re just outside of the Squares + Streets area). If 11.5% of them redevelop in the next ten years, we might see four single family homes turn into 6-plexes by 2035, for a net addition of 20 homes and 45 new neighbors.
I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t look like development run amok to me; it looks like the epitome of incremental development. This is how you add gentle density to a neighborhood.
But what about the parking?
Rezoning residential streets for more homes raises two important points related to parking:
More homes = more parking demand.
The S0 does not require off-street parking for new homes.
This might seem like a recipe for overwhelming our street parking supply, but that’s just not going to happen.
If you take the overnight parking demand that comes with 520 new homes, and compare that with residential street parking, then there are enough spaces for all the new cars. This holds true even if developers don’t build a single off-street parking space, which of course they will.
To figure out if we have enough street parking for 500 new cars, I simply counted the number of spaces available. Peak demand for residential street parking is overnight, so it stands to reason that if there are enough open spaces after, say, 10PM, then our supply is sufficient.
I used sidewalk squares to roughly measure open spaces.
I walked about half (17) of the residential streets in the S+S area on three different nights in June between 10PM and midnight. Following the Metropolitan Area Planning Council’s parking study guidance to document “typical days,” I went out on a Sunday, a Wednesday, and a Friday in June before the school year ended for public and charter schools. For every street with 10 or more open spaces, I walked it at least one more night to make sure the first count wasn’t a fluke. For each street on the map below, I reported the lowest count.6
Again, this is only half of the residential streets in the S+S area. Knowing a bit about the streets I didn’t walk, I think it’s reasonable to expect that they host a similar number of open spaces. So we’re looking at 680 available overnight street parking spaces. Even if you think I overcounted – perhaps I should have used 4 sidewalk squares instead of 3 to count a single parking space – you can lop off 25% from my count and still get more than 500 open spaces.
Long story short: There’s enough street parking, within close walking distance, to absorb all of the new cars.7 And this is before we even consider the hundreds of unused off-street parking spaces in the S+S area. I may write a future post on the parking management best practices we could put in place should it become necessary, but for now I hope that I’ve been able to make a convincing case that we have a glut of residential parking.
The tradeoffs are worth it
At the end of the day, land use planning is about making tradeoffs. Will things look a bit different? Taller? Street parking a bit tighter? Yes, yes, and yes, and that won’t be to some people’s liking. But I argue in the next section that the benefits of upzoning to S0 are well worth the tradeoff of some smaller yards, slightly taller shadows, and at worst a 4-minute walk to your car in the morning.
The benefits of upzoning residential streets
Intrepid researchers and advocates have organized the vast literature on upzoning’s benefits. For our purposes, I’m only going to cover a few advantages, starting with some “What’s in it for me?” benefits, then touching on some key “we” benefits for Roslindale.
Upzoning gives homeowners more property rights
Want to put in a dormer on your third floor? Pop a simple roof on your back porch so that you can still use it when it’s raining? Well, the chances are that you’re going to need to apply for a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) to be able to do this. To get your variance, you first need to get the blessing from your abutting neighbors, and then you can wait 5 to 7 months to present your case to the ZBA. Oh, and it’ll probably cost at least a few grand to hire an architect and a lawyer to present plans that in most cases could have been done by a contractor.8
“Wait, what? Why?!” It’s because more than ⅔ of homes in the Roslindale S+S area are out of conformance with the zoning code. In most cases, this happened because after the home was built, the zoning code was updated to be more restrictive, prohibiting uses that had been previously allowed. And when your is out of conformance, you’ll need to get a variance any time you want to make a significant change to your property.
Every colored parcel is non-conforming with zoning.
A powerful side effect of S0 zoning is bringing virtually all homes in conformance with zoning, and much more operating room for making improvements to your property without needing a variance.
The green parcels were brought into conformity by S0 zoning; the gray parcels were already conforming; most of the red parcels are data error, because they’re not located on streets currently zoned for residential.
I understand that the Planning Department is looking to usher in some zoning relief through its ADU program that may allow for some of the uses I described above. However, I think that updating the base zoning code for residential streets is the most appropriate approach to bringing properties into conformance.
Adding density will slow our property tax increases
You might have heard about commercial real estate’s struggles in the wake of the remote work transition. That’s a problem for Boston, because commercial property tax contributes more than a third of our tax revenue.
To fill the commercial-sized hole in our tax base, a residential property tax hike is all but inevitable. Allowing more housing and mixed-use development is not the only, or the strongest, tool to slow the coming tax increase. But in the long-term, adding more density will grow our tax base and lighten the burden on individual renters and homeowners.
From a tax revenue perspective, the most “productive” parcels are those with more property on them to tax (i.e., floors, units of housing, workspaces). On the flip side, among the least productive parcels are those with big lots and one or two homes. I’m not bringing this up to shame anyone – I live on one of these “unproductive” parcels myself!
The point is just to recognize that parcels with more homes benefit us all by contributing more tax revenue. For example, on South Street at the edge of the S+S area is a newer 9-condo development. Not only does it fit seamlessly into its neighborhood and add foot traffic to the coffee shop across the street; it’s a relative tax revenue powerhouse!
Of course dense developments consume more city services in total, but they’re still net contributors. Also, nine condos on a single parcel use proportionally less road, sewer, snow plows, etc. than nine adjacent parcels with single family homes.
I’m not advocating for some huge neighborhood redesign for the sake of maximizing the tax base. But I do think that the expected tax contribution for new developments should be part of the discussion, and frankly it’s kind of weird that we don’t consider things like this already. We’re likely entering a new fiscal era in Boston, and allowing our residential streets to fill out a bit is good for the city’s financial health.
More housing and neighbors IS the main benefit
Decades in the making, our current housing crisis has left us short tens of thousands of homes in Boston, and hundreds of thousands across Massachusetts. The consequence of too few homes has been housing costs gone bananas, which devastates renters’ finances and drives out young people and families with children.
We are all worse off for this housing crunch. Our kids can’t afford to move here as they enter adulthood. Our parents can’t afford to retire here. And the workforce serving our community can’t find a place to live nearby.
Building more homes is the most important, if not the only, solution to increasing access to good, affordable homes. This argument can be surprisingly controversial in some progressive circles, so for the supply skeptics out there, please see Exhibit A:
Snarkiness aside, I hope that most of us can agree that the housing shortage is so deep and pervasive that it requires an all-hands commitment to building homes. We shouldn’t flinch at the thought of making room for more neighbors on our residential streets.
Again, what we’re talking about here is thickening to the next increment of density, not becoming the next Manhattan. This will enrich our lives by adding cool new businesses to our streets, more foot traffic to our local favorites, new friends to bump into while walking to the Square, more kids for our schools and playgrounds, and more weekend events to choose from. This is a story of increased neighborhood dynamism, and it makes me excited.
Diverse housing will diversify our streets
At the neighborhood level, Roslindale is relatively diverse across race, income, education, and age.
But if you look under the hood at the three census tracts that make up the S+S area, it’s clear that some parts are more diverse than others.
It’s not a coincidence that the least integrated census tract also has the most homogenous housing stock (Full disclosure: I live there!).
The good news is that S0 zoning can reduce street- and block-level segregation by allowing more housing types to flourish. In his review of Greater Boston zoning regulations, BU economist Matthew Resseger found that blocks zoned for multifamily housing have 9% more Black and Hispanic households than adjacent blocks zoned for single-family homes.9
Assuming we can agree that it’s important to encourage racial and economic diversity at the block level — especially for kids10 — then we need to take diversifying our housing stock seriously. In particular, we’d do well to feather in more multifamily rentals and affordable housing of the type that S0 would allow.
Rental housing will add to our social fabric by making space for people who might not be in a position to buy here: our workforce, young professionals, and young families.11 It will also (ultimately) provide relief to Roslindale’s beleaguered renters, 34% of whom spend at least a third of their income on rent. In the wealthiest census tract above, more than 41% are rent-burdened.
As for affordable housing, Roslindale could stand to add more. Currently, 13% of our housing stock is affordable. This is higher than the state’s minimum 10% threshold, but well below the city average of 19%. While Boston should be commended for having the highest percentage of affordable housing of any major American city, this accomplishment is dulled a bit by the fact that 73% of it is in high-poverty areas. It really matters where affordable housing is built.
I’m a member of the Longfellow Area Neighborhood Association, which has championed a Habitat for Humanity project to convert a blighted vacant property into 4 affordable homes, one of which is fully ADA-compliant. It’s a great project in a highly desirable area, with the Roslindale Wetlands in its backyard and the Arboretum a block away. Let’s do more of this!
To be sure, street-level diversity isn’t enough for integration to occur. But it is a prerequisite.
Upzoning will diversify our developers and building styles
A complaint that I share with many growth-resistant neighbors is that housing development in Boston, like everywhere else, is dominated by huge players that seem to be addicted to building apartments that all kinda look like this…
But let’s reflect on how this situation came to be.
One key reason we have so few players is that our zoning code makes it really hard for small developers to thrive. For one, the code prohibits the small multifamily housing I’m arguing for throughout much of the city. Secondly, the code is 3,800 pages long, full of complicated district overlays and contradicting terms. And finally, by default, if not by design, the code requires that most new developments go through a variance process.
In other words, the code’s a mess, so any developer will need deep pockets to pay for a good zoning lawyer to carry their project through the lengthy approval process. “Paperwork favors the powerful,” writes Jen Pahkla in her book Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better.
Fortunately, we’ve got a remedy! By making zoning compliance less complicated and expensive, which the S0 does, more people get to play. This creates an opening for smaller and more diverse builders to have a hand in shaping the growth of our city. I think that’s going to result in some interesting ideas for our built environment.
If we want to see a greater variety of home builders and styles in the next 10-20 years, we first need to legalize more forms of housing in our zoning code.
Upzoning will make us more climate resilient
In the not-so-distant future, the combination of sea level rise and more numerous, violent storms will bring consistent flooding to the low-slung coastal neighborhoods. A patchwork effort is underway to make these areas more resilient to severe flooding, but it’s looking unlikely that we’ll build enough infrastructure in time to stave off some of the damage to come.
Source: Lane Turner, The Boston Globe
This new normal will suck for the people who live and work there. It stands to reason that a couple of severe incidents will inspire many to move elsewhere. The question becomes: where will they go? Do we want them to stay here, or take their families and their talents out of town? And what happens to Boston’s future as a city of consequence if they leave?
I would much rather see them stay in Boston, and that’s going to require that we make some room. Adding flexibility to the zoning code, particularly in areas safe from sea-level rise, will strengthen the City’s ability to plan for these future internal migrants.
Conclusion
The Boston Planning Department’s mission is to advance resiliency, affordability, and equity across the city. I’ve tried to present a practical and principled case for why rezoning residential streets touches on each of these goals, but I want to linger on equity for a moment longer.
If we are going to equitably address our housing crisis, then it needs to be everyone’s job to welcome greater density. That includes our residential streets. It would be unwise and, frankly, unfair to saddle our commercial streets with sole responsibility for this challenge.
Obviously, solving the housing crisis is bigger than what we can accomplish in this ⅓ mile dot in Roslindale. But as one of the first of what may be 18 S+S areas throughout the city, Roslindale is a pacesetter for the overall initiative. What happens here can also set an important precedent for the broader revamp of Boston’s zoning code in a few years’ time. I’d like to see us make the most of this opportunity.
Here’s the the method I used to calculate this 10-year housing projection. Huge thanks to Perci PBC’s Eric Ouyang for developing it.
I calculated the population estimate by multiplying the housing projection of 520 additional homes by Boston’s current average people per household of 2.26 per the US Census Bureau.
Small income-restricted buildings with 4-14 homes are not uncommon in Boston; they make up 14% of the City’s affordable development projects. According to the City’s Income-Restricted Housing Inventory, there are 1,491 affordable housing developments in the city; 144 have between 4-14 rental units (9.65%), and 68 have between 4-14 ownership units (4.56%).
Rather than the City managing a centralized lottery process for affordable housing units, IDP requires that each developer run its own lottery for every development project with mandated income-restricted units. Carrying this out requires hundreds of hours of administration, and so most small developers hire a consultant to manage the process for them. In 141westville’s case, this would have cost $30,000 to manage the lottery for its two officially designated affordable units, plus an annual recurring fee of $3,000 to maintain the waitlist and keep applicants up to date by mail.
Ironically, the income-restricted units were required to charge a higher rentthan their market rate units, ($790 vs. $750/month). 141westville was able to provide naturally affordable housing by choosing a lower return on their investment. With a razor thin profit margin, the lottery administration cost was such a burden that the owners were considering whether to increase the rent on the other apartments by 15%, or to just leave the income-restricted units vacant. It’s a relief that they ultimately reached a resolution with the City, because those are two terrible alternatives.
Some of these streets are resident permit parking only, but anyone in Roslindale can get a free resident permit parking sticker with a 5-minute application.
Sara Bronin’s report Reforming the Boston Zoning Code, commissioned by the BPDA, includes this banger on pg. 17: “A homeowner who wishes to put a gabled dormer on a roof or a small business owner who wants to add a takeout component to their restaurant may pay $10,000 and undergo a six-month review process to achieve what in other places might have a one-day approval turnaround time and cost less than $100.”
Underscoring the point that the zoning process requires homeowners to incur often unnecessary professional service fees, see the exchange from the pro-housing group Discord between two veterans of the zoning appeal process, one of whom is an architect:
Member 1: “Well, you need [RE attorney name redacted] ($600/hr) and your architect ($400/hr) to present to [local zoning board of appeals], so that’s a thousand bucks for the hour. And before that the architect has to draw up 3 versions of your plans detailing the different plantings, fenestration, siding styles, etc…A lot of these types of projects you could just have a contractor do otherwise.”
Member 2 (the architect): “this is huge tho, so many people who don’t really need an architect need an architect in boston for renovations.”
I want to be careful not to oversell zoning’s part in this multi-factor story. It’s certainly not the only driver behind differences in housing stock and demographics across these census tracts. After all, they mostly share the same zoning (2F-5000). However, it’s notable that the green tract does have a chunk of 3F-4000 zoning, which contributes to its much higher proportion of multifamily housing.
Harvard economist Raj Chetty’s groundbreaking research into the Moving To Opportunity voucher program found that providing low-income families with vouchers to move to higher income areas resulted in significant benefits to the children of those families, especially if they were young at the time of the move. They found that every year spent in a lower poverty neighborhood during childhood increased their earnings as adults. “More broadly, our findings suggest that efforts to integrate disadvantaged families into mixed-income communities are likely to reduce the persistence of poverty across generations.”
While I advocate here for prioritizing the growth of our rental stock, I believe that increasing home ownership for the historically disadvantaged is essential. The State Legislature’s Black & Latino Caucus reports that Massachusetts’ homeownership rate is approximately 37% for people of color, compared to 69% for white households. This chasm of housing inequality, rather than income inequality, may well be the single greatest factor driving the wealth gap between races.
Squares + Streets Foundational Zones Adopted by Zoning Commission – This past Wednesday, 17 April 2024, saw the Boston Zoning Commission, by a vote of 7-1, adopt the full set of S+S foundational zones – S-0 through S-5 – into the Boston Zoning Code as Article 26, along with a broad range of other modifications to the code. WalkUP Roslindale submitted its own comment letter and your correspondent testified in favor at the hearing, along with District 5 Councilor Enrique Pepen, among others supportive of the proposal. Congratulations and thanks to the city planning line staff who worked so hard to get these building blocks roughed into shape and to Director of Planning Aimee Chambers, to BPDA Director Arthur Jemison, and to Mayor Michelle Wu for supporting this work and leading the effort to get the initial step all the way over the line. Now, we turn in true earnest to the small area planning process here in Roslindale Square to figure out how best to land these zones within a framework of city policies, programs, and ordinances that will make our neighborhood center a better functioning, more welcoming place.
Squares + Streets Upcoming Meeting THIS WEEK – Zoning Workshop, 6 pm on 24 April 2024, Roslindale Community Center (corner Cummins & Washington). This is going to be an in-person meeting. If you’re reading this, we encourage you to attend for as much of the meeting as possible. BPDA staff describe the agenda and intent as follows: At this workshop, community members will be introduced to zoning as a tool that guides development and will discuss zoning through a community development mindset. The workshop will start with a walkthrough of how zoning works in Boston with a focus on existing zoning regulations in Roslindale Square and proposed zoning in Squares + Streets zoning districts as context. The second half of the workshop will be an interactive, facilitated activity to think about how proposals for community development projects would have to interact with existing zoning regulations in Roslindale Square. By the end of the workshop, community members will have engaged in initial conversations about community development goals that will support future engagement conversations on how the mapping of Squares + Streets zoning districts can support those goals.
AHMA gets the ball rolling on S+S buildout scenarios – Our friends over at Abundant Housing Massachusetts (AHMA), the Commonwealth-wide pro-housing organization, recently released their preliminary analysis of the likely range of new residential units that could result from Squares + Streets in Roslindale Square. Briefly stated, AHMA’s research projects that Roslindale’s Squares + Streets rezoning could result, over the next decade, in 300 to 1700 new residential units. That is a very broad range indeed. AHMA’s projections are presented in accessible PDFs and an interactive online tool. The tool allows users to adjust assumptions and explore rezoning’s impacts on housing production, property tax revenue, and zoning nonconformance. AHMA have also prepared a detailed video walkthrough for navigating the PDFs and interactive tool. AHMA’s analysis identifies underutilized sites on lots larger than 6,000 sq. ft. that are vacant or have older, low-rise buildings, and assumes 25-33% (i.e., up to a third) of these sites will redevelop over 10 years. The most minimal rezoning scenario only studies the transformation of commercial areas into mixed-used districts. By applying the newly adopted S2 District, which permits buildings up to five stories, this could increase Roslindale’s housing stock by 2.5% and Hyde Park’s by 5.7%. The top-of-the-range abundance rezoning scenario explores the potential for mid-to-high density housing and mixed-use projects across the entire Squares + Streets study area. By applying a mix of S2 and S3 Districts, which permit buildings up to seven stories, this could increase Roslindale’s housing stock by 13.4% and Hyde Park’s by 24.4%. More details on the methodology can be found in the PDFs and video walkthrough.AHMA have indicated that they have three goals in releasing these initial housing projections and the accompanying tools:
Education – AHMA wants to increase public understanding of how zoning actually translates into building more homes. The better people understand how this process works, the better the chances we can engage in collaborative community planning.
Advocacy – AHMA supports the abundance rezoning scenario and believes Roslindale and Cleary Squares can thoughtfully introduce far more homes while maintaining existing residents’ quality of life.
Framing the discussion– AHMA recognizes that the minimal rezoning scenario fails to adequately address the housing needs in Roslindale and Cleary Squares, but includes it as a plausible lower bound for community discussions.
Abundant Housing Massachusetts (AHMA) and WalkUP Roslindale (WUR) are officially inviting their members and supporters to meet up at the Substation (Upstairs) (corner of Cummins and Washington in the Square) on the evening of Thursday, 28 March 2024, at 6 pm. Come on down and get to know your fellow pro-housing, pro-walk, -bike, and -transit advocates!
