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(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)
By Joseph A. Curtatone
Last week I joined with leaders from 14 other cities and towns in Greater Boston to announce our intention to add 185,000 new housing units by 2030. It’s an ambitious goal that would more than quintuple the region’s current rate of development. Most importantly, it recognizes that we face a collective housing crisis that demands action, and we realize that none of us can combat it alone.
All of us helped create this problem by spending decades not building enough housing to keep up with demand. Our economy boomed, multiple times. Massachusetts has had its share of miracles. Just since 2010 our 15 communities have added 148,000 jobs. Yet we’ve only added 32,500 new housing units. That is unsustainable. It squeezes out the people lower on the wage scale, pushing them farther away from the metropolitan center where those jobs are.
It doesn’t help that the limited amount of housing that’s been built skews mostly toward higher earners. Thanks to inclusionary housing provisions in our various communities, when the luxury homes go up, developers are required to also create some affordable units (though it’s not nearly enough). Unfortunately, the vast majority of people who exist between those two extremes have been left out. The slow pace of new housing development has led to a lack of diversity in new housing.
What we are aiming to do is shatter the status quo, which isn’t working for any of us. A dramatic rise in new units will force us to tackle issues like shell corporation ownership and unoccupied investment holdings. We need to push through changes to state zoning regulations that have stalled on Beacon Hill. All of our communities are going to need to redraw our zoning maps. We’re going to need to tackle transit issues and infrastructure too.
It also will put more focus on issues like transfer fees to generate money for affordable housing development. Our intention is to bring in the tide and make sure it lifts all boats. I understand there’s healthy cynicism about that, because people have only seen the system work one way for so long it feels like that’s the only way it can ever work. What I can offer in the way of encouragement is we’re all feeling enough pain to break apart that system.
Our 15 communities understand at the most fundamental level that we can no longer put off addressing the housing supply issue. We’re at the table. This is a priority for every one of us. It truly has become a crisis, one that will not allow anyone to sit it out while the others fix it. More communities will join us as we gain momentum and show them a path forward.
We’ve put together a set of 10 guiding principles for how we’ll approach the addition of these 185,000 new units:
- Stakeholder and municipal engagement – we need to activate our respective communities.
- Housing production – both rental and homeownership.
- Housing preservation – minimize teardowns, rehabilitate older units.
- Housing affordability – for low-, moderate- and middle-income households.
- Housing stability – minimize displacement, eliminate unfair rental practices, create permanent housing for the homeless.
- Fair housing – abolish discriminatory practices and neighborhood segregation.
- Housing diversity – essential to providing housing for a truly diverse population.
- Housing design – universal accessibility, suitable for both the young and the old.
- Housing location – close to services, transit, open space and job opportunities.
- Complete neighborhoods – create vibrant places where real, connected communities can form.
This will apply in Arlington, Boston, Braintree, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Newton, Quincy, Revere and Winthrop as much as it does in Somerville. All of us need to build for a growing and diverse population. Frankly, our regional economy will suffer if we don’t. We’re pushing our workforce to the breaking point with longer commutes and housing instability.
What last week marks is where we start moving from lip service to action. Everyone hates the runaway housing costs in our communities, but we’ve been reluctant to make major changes. All it’s gotten us is more of the same. That is coming to an end.
My hope is Somerville can lead the way, which is why Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and I called for the Housing Task Force that united our 15 communities on this in the first place. We’ve thought through these issues more than most. We’ve done more projects, put more concrete proposals on the table, drawn up plans for our various city squares and former industrial areas. Other places are looking at building neighborhoods that look a lot like the neighborhoods we’ve always had, with two-family homes and triple-deckers. Someone’s got to be at the front of the charge. It ought to be us.
We don’t intend to hand off this problem to our children to solve. Not having enough housing is a fixable problem: you build more housing. Simple as the solution may be, it’s taken a long time for everyone to make peace with it. Now that we have, it’s a race toward sanity.
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Meanwhile in Somerville . . . For the very reasons stated above, a Sustainable Neighborhoods Working Group was assembled with much fanfare at the time by the Mayors PR team. It had a lot of knowledgeable well-intentioned residents who came up with a lot of good proactive and workable plans to tackle the type of housing problems listed here. They issued reports and recommendations to the Mayor on how to implement such reforms in Somerville. And stressed the urgency.
That was years ago. Mayor Curtatone then ignored 90% of their recommendations because the kind of building the SNWG said urgently needed to be encouraged was not the fast-buck luxury development favored by the Mayors cronies and campaign contributors. Instead, he invented the ‘it’s a regional problem’ argument to deflect any call to action that might dilute his cronies potential profits or any responsibility on his part for what he’s allowed to happen to our neighborhoods.
So today, he’s telling you that Somerville can’t fix it’s problems unless Newton and Lexington play along. When the city’s own working group told him years ago how to solve many of the problems locally, and he ignored them.
Oh Boy has arrived with the fake news. The Mayor is working on a lot of the SNWG recommendations. Like these
} 1% transfer fee has been passed by the alders
} Linkage fee increased also done
} Short term rental policy is being discussed by alders
} Increase housing production goal (see story above on that one)
} zoning overhaul is back in front of the board with a public hearing
} 100 homes initiative is underway
} 20% affordable housing rule has passed
} Density bonuses are in the new zoning
} Accessory structures are in the new zoning
All are ideas from SNWG that are moving forward because of the city. Tell me again why you think the Mayor is doing nothing?
I followed that too. That group came out with a bunch of half measures, but the mayor moved on almost all of it. He put a much more aggressive program at the start of this year. The problem in both cases is a Board of Aldermen that moves with close to zero urgency. That they haven’t passed zoning and a new condo conversion ordinance speaks volumes about them simply not getting it.
And, yeah, it’s a regional housing crisis. Anybody who thinks Somerville can fix this by its lonesome is deeply deluded.
sd – Notice how all of the things you listed have been advanced by the BOA, rather then the Mayor?
That the Mayor ‘is working on a lot of the SNWG recommendations’ is more like . . After the new BOA was sworn in, the Mayor realized that these things were going to get acted on and passed whether he liked it or not, so he had better jump on the bandwagon and crank up his PR machine to make it look like he’s the one leading the charge.
Just compare how much the Mayor was ‘working on’ these issues when the BOA was made up of his enablers and lackeys vs. now. The SNWG recommendations languished for years because the Mayor didn’t want them, his cronies didn’t want them, and the then BOA just tagged along. Now that we have a BOA that will actually do something . . voila! The Mayor has suddenly rolled up his sleeves and is leading the charge to tackle these important issues!
Oh boy, I think your characterization of the previous board being enablers and cronies is inaccurate. The former BOA passed the 20% inclusionary for developments over 6 units and furthermore legislated the highest linkage fees on developers in greater Boston. Albeit these won’t solve the housing problem in Somerville but it is more than this inept board has done. Let’s examine home rule petition for transfer tax shot down in state legislature. The right to first refusal languishing committee and the zoning overhaul in Land Use committee with no significant time horizon of approval. Hmmm my question to oh boy what significant legislation has this BOA implemented? If you can’t answer I can? Zero ! It’s all platitudes and pie in the sky initiatives that are going no where. So much for the Mayor’s cronies!
Suddenly it’s a “crisis” because people can’t afford to live in a very desirable area? Nonsense. People should just live where they can afford to live. Period. Maybe you will find the next Somerville and get in on the ground floor.
Look I get it….everyone wants a house or apartment which is 40% cheaper than its actually market value. Who wouldn’t? But there is no such thing as a free lunch. If someone is getting a below market rent condo isn a building, then someone else is picking up their portion of the “cheap” apartment.
There is no way anyone can build their way to cheap housing in the Boston metro area. It’s not going to happen. Manhattan and Hong Kong have lots of massive high rises and lots of people….guess what…it’s still very expensive to live there. And those cities have the transport infrastructure to cope. Somerville certainly does not.
Certainly pushing the idea of a “crisis” means the developer friends of the Mayor can make a lot of money doing all the building. I am not against people making money. I am just stating the obvious. As usual, follow the money.
Stop calling Matty and Mark lackeys! (And the corporate lawyer too.) Lol. That transfer tax sure went a long way. Rents and home prices are going up at a record rate. What’s Plan b? Move to Providence? Hit up mummy and pops for a historic home? All that Ivy League education and not much to show for it. Too much time toking in the Occupy tents?
Just saying nailed it. This BOA has yet to touch the concrete stuff. Zoning, condo conversion and short-term rentals – in that order – are where it can make an actual difference. I support the transfer tax, but it isn’t something the city can do by itself. A housing trust getting reliable revenue via a trwnsfer tax is a fine long-term goal. Yet it’s not a plan to address conditions as they exist on the ground.
Addressing the fundamental supply and demand problem will change things for the better. Hopefully they can move quickly on this.