Meeting Newton’s Changing Housing Needs

Newton experiences periodic demographic cycles that change the population mix of the City. While Newton has had a high percentage of older residents in recent years, it is reasonable to expect that there will be a cycle in the next decade during which an increasing number of young families will move into Newton. Similar to many suburbs, Newton’s housing is primarily comprised of single-family homes. As a result, two particular groups of Newton residents are often unable to remain in the City when their needs change: senior citizens who decide it is time to sell their houses and move into smaller accommodations and the children of Newton residents who want to stay in the community, but are ready to move out of their parents’ homes. In addition, there is a need to update our affordable housing strategy to target public subsidy resources where they can be used most effectively. Currently, we do not have a plan to attain the state-mandated level of ten percent affordable housing. Instead, we have ceded de-facto control of our affordable housing development program to private developers who seek comprehensive permits under Chapter 40B of Massachusetts General Laws. We need a proactive approach to meeting the affordable housing needs of our community.

Summary of Proposed Solution

Newton will:

Encourage the development of small- and moderately-sized apartments and condominiums in existing residential and mixed-use areas, particularly near public transportation, village centers, and key mixed use corridors; and

Develop an affordable housing plan that describes how we will improve the supply of reasonably priced housing with annual benchmarks that aim to meet state requirements.

Discussion and Implementation Plan

i) Small Residential Unit Development

The first challenge of local officials seeking to influence housing markets to meet community needs is to match housing policies and regulations to intended goals and consequences. For example, an unintended consequence of zoning restrictions that require large minimum lot sizes can have the effect of increasing housing prices. For this reason, it is important to balance competing community values when making housing policy. Zoning restrictions should therefore be developed with full understanding of their consequences.

Some of the unintended consequences we should seek to avoid are adding students to already overcrowded classrooms, decreasing tax revenue by allowing residential development to replace businesses in commercial areas; and negatively impacting the quality of life in our neighborhoods by adding traffic, noise and other disruptions. If new residential development is not accompanied by new mixed use, commercial, and office development, our tax base may not be able to support the service needs.To achieve a balance between the revenue and costs of new growth, we should promote the development of small- and mid-sized apartments and condominiums in existing residential areas and new mixed use areas, especially those that are near public transportation. These units can be designed to appeal to senior citizens who sell their houses looking for smaller places to live, and to young people who wish to live within easy walking distance to shops and public transportation. Promoting development of smaller housing units which are inherently more affordable than single-family homes will create local affordability without public subsidy.

The Mayor will submit a small residential unit zoning amendment to the Board of Aldermen by January 1, 2011.

ii) Affordable Housing Plan

Under Chapter 40B of Massachusetts General Law, cities and towns that do not have ten percent affordable housing or an approved plan to get to ten percent affordable housing lose local control over housing developments that are proposed through the comprehensive permit process described under the statute. However, municipalities that take the initiative to plan their affordable housing strategy locally can have a much greater local autonomy with respect to housing development decisions.

Known as a “Housing Production Plan,” this type of local initiative is described by the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development as follows:

A Housing Production Plan (HPP) is a community's proactive strategy for planning and developing affordable housing by: creating a strategy to enable it to meet its affordable housing needs in a manner consistent with the Chapter 40B statute and regulations; and producing housing units in accordance with the HPP.

The HPP regulation became effective on February 22, 2008 when the DHCD promulgated 760 CMR 56.00, Comprehensive Permit; Low or Moderate Income Housing. The HPP regulation is contained in 760 CMR 56.03(4). HPPs replace Planned Production under 760 CMR 31.07(1)(i).

If a community has a DHCD-approved HPP and is granted certification of compliance with the plan by DHCD, a decision by the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) relative to a comprehensive permit application will be deemed "consistent with local needs" under MGL Chapter 40B. "Consistent with local needs" means the ZBA's decision will be upheld by the Housing Appeals Committee.

By adopting a Housing Production Plan, Newton would not only regain control of our affordable housing strategy, protecting our neighborhoods from the threat of inappropriately dense construction, but we would also engage in a discussion about how best to allocate our limited affordable housing dollars to achieve the maximum possible results.

Newton’s current reactive approach to affordable housing has resulted in proposals that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in public subsidy per affordable unit being approved, not because that was the most cost-effective use of those funds, but because it was the proposal offered by a developer.

Through the process of creating and implementing a Housing Production Plan, we will be able to target our limited resources to help the neediest amongst us.

The Mayor will work with the Planning Department, Board of Aldermen, housing developers, neighborhood associations, and other interested parties to develop a Housing Production Plan by January 1, 2012.