Globe Editorial - Boston zoning code should be revamped

A recent Boston Globe editorial agrees with Mayor Wu's assessment that the city's zoning code is “long, dense, and internally inconsistent in ways that make planning confusing, unpredictable, and costly.’’The consultant from Cornell who analyzed Boston's arcane code (and who is being hired to spearhead the revamping) gives the following example:“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. The costs of zoning compliance make Boston less affordable, because those costs get internalized or passed on, including to tenants and customers.’’The Globe editorial writers agree that the code is a problem but also wonder if there is the political will in the legislature to change it. The editorial notes that "every line in that 3,791-page code is there because someone had the political muscle to put it there or today benefits from it."

Read More

Wu to overhaul Boston's arcane zoning code

Boston's Mayor Wu has proposed a wholesale overhaul of the city's complex zoning bylaws. She announced it a Chamber of Commerce speech, signaling that she believes the changes will be helpful to business. The news was reported in the Boston Globe.Rather that the current neighborhood-based model, the new zoning will focus on "squares and streets," making mixed-use hubs along main corridors near transit - sometimes straddling two neighborhood.The BPDA will look at reforming zoning by-laws so that fewer projects would require a variance and would instead be granted by right.A Cornell professor who consulted on the review and will work on the revision called Boston's current zoning "bloated, outdated, inconsistent and inequitable" and says Boston's code - at 4,000+ pages long - is too much. Nashville's zoning bylaw is 349 pages long and Portland, Oregon's is 1,830 pages.Neighborhood groups and individual owners are concerned. Right now they can kill a project they don't like or at least stall it with complaints to the Development Review Board. With more uses provided by-right, they will lose that veto power and with it, the power to have a say in how their neighborhood develops. 

Read More

"60% crime, 40% history" - Two Boston crime tours

If you've seen all there is to see on a Boston Duck Tour, you might like to try a crime tour. You can choose between a trolley tour led by former Boston police lieutenant Joe Leeman and a Mafia-tour led by South End native Tom Collins, who toyed with becoming a gangster before choosing a life making special effects in Hollywood.Leeman describes his tours as "60% crime and 40% history" and combines Samuel Adams with Whitey Bulger to show how they impacted Boston's landscape.Collins' tours are called "Mobsters and Lobsters," and leans towards Boston Italian mafia, but also includes the Boston Strangler and the ubiquitous Whitey Bulger. It ends with a lobster dinner at Venezia restaurant in Dorchester.This recent article in the Boston Globe shares some snippets and photos from Leeman's tour.

Read More

ADUs can help the housing crunch, says builder

Scott Bailey, a co-founder of Bequall, a California based building firm that specializes in constructing accessory dwelling units (ADUs), published an editorial in the Boston Globe recently. In the piece, he lists changes he wants made to an ADU bill put forward in the MA Legislature in 2023.He takes issue with five components of the bill as it stands. The minimum lot size is too large and he suggests using setbacks as the main zoning requirement to keep the character of the neighborhood. The bill only allows for ADUs for family members with disabilities and seniors, rather than having anyone be able to use them. He says the minimum build size of 450 SF is "arbitrary" and should be increased. The bill requires owner-occupancy in ADUs, and he disagrees with that requirement. Lastly, he'd like the parking space requirement lifted, as many ADUs could be built close to public transit.Wonks and officials have been saying "Massachusetts needs 200,000 new housing units in the next eight years" and this is, says Bailey, a good way to get there.

Read More

Is Massachusetts finally ready to make changes to Boston Harbor and coastal communities?

Bill Golden, former MA Senator, former city solicitor for Quincy, and one of the founders of the EPA, wonders if the time has come for the various political bodies to work together and protect Boston Harbor and 15 coastal communities in MA  from more flooding.In an op-ed in the Boston Globe, Golden details how he used his position as Quincy's solicitor to get the Harbor cleaned up. He believes a Boston Harbor Coastal Resiliency Authority is the answer and urges city and state officials to act now.

Read More

West Roxbury: Residents and City Hall differ on Centre Street plans

The Boston Globe reports that Centre Street in West Roxbury has had numerous incidents of vehicle to vehicle crashes and of cars hitting pedestrians, including one death in 2019, The city and residents understandably want to reduce car and human touches, but have different ideas of the best way to get there.Some West Roxbury residents want longer times for the walk signal at pedestrian crossings (allowing pedestrians more time to get across the street), more signalized intersections with those longer walk times (thus slowing down drivers who have to stop more frequently) and an increased police presence issuing tickets to speeders.The city wants to reduce Centre Street from four lanes to three between LaGrange and West Roxbury Parkway and add parking-free bike lanes. The city says this fits into the Mayor's "Safety Surge" program and will transform this area from a speedway into a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood.In 2019 under Mayor Marty Walsh, the city proposed the same plan. Opposed residents gathered 1,000 signatures and scuttled the plan. City officials say their minds won't be changed this time and construction will begin in October 2023.

Read More

How can Boston protect itself against rising sea levels?

The Wharf District Council, a Boston-based non-profit, has put forward a resiliency plan for the city. They believe that with $1.2 billion of upgrades, the city's waterfront could be saved.Without some kind of action, much of downtown's infrastructure could be underwater or washed away by 2070, as this dramatic image illustrates. The Wharf District Council plan was a privately-funded report. You can read more about the flooding issues in this recent Boston Globe article: This is Boston's biggest challenge

Read More

Home sales declined across the country in April 2023, including Boston

Yahoo Finance reports that "homeowners are quiet quitting" the sales market, as they hold on to their lower interest rate mortgages and listings are down more than 20% compared to April of 2022. Inventory is low, mortgage rates are high, and only those with the ability to handle a 7% mortgage rate (or wealthy enough to pay cash) are buying homes right now.This is the case in Boston, too. The Boston Globe reports that "prices, sales volume, and new listings have all declined during what is typically one of the busiest months of the year."While the market in Boston is segmented on an almost street-by-street basis, overall, the median price for a single-family home in Greater Boston fell by 3% compared to the previous year and condos fell by about 1%.The Globe article notes that most homeowners have a mortgage rate between 2-3%, which is less than half the current rate and can result in about $1,000 more per monthly payment."Buyers still outnumber sellers" in many Mass towns, "but bidding wars are much more rare."

Read More

Matta-plan

The Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) recently released a detailed report with zoning and planning recommendations for Mattapan, as part of the sweeping "Imagine Boston 2030" planning revision. The BPDA vision for Mattapan encompasses a neighborhood where “a resident can obtain all their basic needs and material wants within a 10-minute walk” according to the 93-page long PLAN: Mattapan document. The idea of being able to reach “all basic and material needs and wants” in just ten minutes is upping the ante on the idea of the “15 minute city” a current favorite concept of urban planners around the world. In the UK, the idea of the 15 minute city (15mC or FMC to the cognoscenti) is also paired with strong feelings about the urgent need to reverse climate change by reducing automotive emissions. City planners in Oxford (England) were shocked to find that there was vehement opposition to their proposal to create 15 minute zones, which severely limited where residents could and couldn't drive their cars. People driving outside of their allotted 15 minute radius would be fined 70 pounds (about $85) when driving outside of the allowed zones. Thousands of Oxford residents signed petitions protesting the enforced no-drive zones and the planners were simply astonished that residents felt their rights were being impinged upon and took to calling those opposed to the plan conspiracy theorists and "flat earthers".PLAN: Mattapan believes that the way to reach the 10 minute walkability goal is to implement significant zoning changes, including allowing more business development in residential neighborhoods (outside of the Mattapan Square area where business is now concentrated and also by adding residential development in the Square).The proposed zoning changes will also allow ADUs by right, encourage microunits, and expand multi-family zoning throughout the neighborhood, especially around transit hubs, which supports the walkability goal.One such development has already happened. The Loop at Mattapan Station, built on a former parking lot, opened in April 2023. It contains 135 affordable apartments, all of which are reserved for households earning less than the area median income (which is $112,150 for a family of four). The Loop at Mattapan Station also contains 10,000 SF of storefront retail and a 2,000 SF fitness room for residents. There are plans, according to the Globe to build a second building with nine affordable condo units.PLAN: Mattapan touts itself as having been created with significant community input, unlike the top-down Oxford 15 minute zones. Mattapan residents have often felt left out and left behind when it comes to businesses and infrastructure. “Greater Mattapan didn’t get to where it is overnight,’’ said Fatima Ali-Salaam, chair of the Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council in a Globe article. “It’s a buildup of decades of neglect.’’ PLAN: Mattapan envisions an urban planner’s utopia – ample bike and pedestrian access, abundant public transit (by extending the Mattapan T line into Readville and electrifying the Fairmount Line, plus increasing bus traffic), more open space, larger front setbacks for new development, and trees planted along the sidewalks. It has a vision “to proactively shape development and investment” and prioritizes small local businesses over national chains.Many of the zoning changes are in effect in other Boston neighborhoods and sub-neighborhoods, such as Neighborhood Shopping (NS) and Multi-Family Residential (MFR) zones, that allow increased residential and business density along key neighborhood corridors.The plan goes into very minute details of how to improve Mattapan, such as by hanging public banners that “honor and affirm residents’ cultural identity”.                     The BPDA is going through the same process in other neighborhoods in the city and we can expect more planning and zoning changes in the next few years. The last time the city's zoning laws were revised (city-wide) was 50 years ago and the "Imagine Boston 2030" initiative is an attempt to bring the city's planning and zoning regulations into the 21st century.

Read More

Will Lower Rents and Government Grants Fill Those Empty Boston Storefronts?

An April 2023 article by Diti Kohli in the Boston Globe detailed various approaches being considered to fill empty storefronts in Boston. The residential areas of the city, such as Back Bay and Hyde Park, have a booming storefront retail market right now. But the office-centric areas of Downtown Crossing and the Financial District are struggling to find both office and storefront tenants.Kholi details a variety of approaches being considered: lower rents, grants from the city to relocate businesses impacted by COVID, to name two.Katie Grissom, head of retail at Nuveen Real Estate, interviewed in the article, says that big box and national chains were already doing poorly in 2019 and she thinks this is a great time to reimagine downtown. More independent retailers and experiences such as the WNDR Museum are what pedestrians want, she says.             Michael Nichols, the president of the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District, said that downtown has 10% more places to eat today than it did in 2019. However, it's unclear how long those restaurants and cafes will last, because in 2022 Boston only saw about half the foot traffic it had pre-pandemic and is projected to hit only about 60% of pre-pandemic levels in 2023. With offices clearing out due to layoffs and the preponderance of remote workers, something different definitely needs to happen on the streets of Boston.   

Read More

Boston Housing Crisis Q&A

Andrew Brinker, business correspondent for the Boston Globe held a Q&A on Reddit about the Boston housing crisis.You can read the whole article here, including more lengthy answers, but below are some of his answers to short questions posed by Reddit users:

  • Q: How do we ban tenant-paid broker fees?
  • A: State legislation

 

  • Q: How much housing in Boston is owned by foreign investors?
  • A: There's no data that tracks that, but cash buyers may indicate foreign investment.

 

 

  • Q: What percentage of housing is corporate owned?
  • A: No one has done that research

 

Read More

Renting in Boston Just Got Harder

As if the rental crush that started as the pandemic eased in late 2021 wasn't bad enough, rental apartments are even harder to find in Boston today and the rents on the few units that do become vacant are just going higher and higher.According to the Boston Globe, rents in Greater Boston are up 6% since March 2022, which is a steeper increase than the nation as a whole. The median rent for a 1BR in Boston is now $2,011, on par with NYC and San Francisco. That's $24,132 a year, and it means that the income needed to rent that median unit is about $100,000 per year.The vacancy rate is 0.49% - which essentially means any unit that becomes vacant will be rented in a day. A healthy vacancy rate is 5%The Globe interviewed a young woman who couldn't find a place to live on her own after a break-up and wound up spending months living in her car before finding a room to rent with strangers in Jamaica Plain. Another interviewee is a Harvard instructor who lives in a room in a shared collective. She would like her own place, but can't find anything she can afford.White collar professional workers are living like students just to be able to afford to live near their jobs.

Read More

Is the MBTA Communities Zoning Plan Realistic?

Former MA Governor Charlie Baker signed into law a requirement for all Eastern and Central MA communities served by public transit (MBTA, commuter rail, or bus station) to create a high-density zoning district by right, within a half-mile of a train or bus station. The high density districts must be of at least 50 acres, 25 of them contiguous and allow multi-families by right.Charlotte Kahn published an excellent analysis of the problem with this plan back in March 2022, while the public comment session was still open.Some of the main critiques are:

  • The plan calls for massive numbers of new residential units in towns that are already quite dense. For example, Somerville is required to construct 9,067 new units. 13,477 are required in Cambridge, and 12,642 in Worcester.

  • There is no requirement about affordability of these units, so towns that are already prone to high-end market rate units will just get more, which may push out lower earners.

  • "Upzoning" to these densities will mean displacement of existing residents and businesses and the destruction of green space and historic buildings.

When first proposed, towns were allowed to opt-out, with the understanding that they would not be allowed to access funding through the Housing Choice, Local Capital Projects, or Mass Works streams. These are major public funding sources for some communities and not used at all by others.But this year, Massachusetts has a new Governor and a new Attorney General, who have now ruled that there is no opt-out option. "Compliance with the MBTA Communities Zoning Law is mandatory," said AG Andrea Joy Campbell.The AG press release goes on to say how important safe and affordable housing is to the state government, yet the MBTA law says nothing about affordability or the rational behind the plan.This topic seems to be flying under the radar of major news organizations, but we at Daly Appraisal Services will continue to monitor it and share updates.

Read More

Daly Appraisal Post - North Shore - Beverly thinks about limiting growth

NORTH SHORE HOUSING. A regional approach to housing needs to be advocated to quell NIMBYism. Beverly has added 1,400 housing units since 2014, when new Mayor Michael Cahill made housing a priority. But the growth has led to complaints from residents about poorly maintained streets and an aging & shut down bridge connecting the west side to the downtown. City Councilor Matt St. Hilaire says downtown story heights of apartment buildings should be reduced from five to three. Saugus and Peabody have already adopted similar anti-housing measures.Read full article here: 

Read More

Daly Appraisal Post - Online Boston Atlas

The Boston Public Library has a new mapping program to discover the presentation of a property in an old city atlas. For instance, you can type in a Marine Road address in South Boston and discover it used to be called Ninth Street. Or type in the address for the Boston Garden (a/k/a TD Garden) at 135 Causeway Street and find out that North Station was once called Union Station. Or find proof that 4 Yawkey Way (Fenway Park) used to be called and unfortunately is now again called 4 Jersey Street.  Here's link to mapping program: https://www.atlascope.org/Read full article here: 

Read More

Daly Appraisal Newsletter - Demand for Medium-Size Housing Swings Back

Appraisal Insights

Illustrating the power of real estate appraisals to provide valuable property and market insightsSometimes we discover a surprise gem when appraising commercial property, such as this organ now located in a Waltham retail store. It bears the inscription, "New England's Premier Organist John Kiley played this organ for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park for over twenty years." Mr. Kiley was organist from 1953-1989. He passed away in 1993.

Here's a sampling of some of our recent appraisals:

  • Retail and office building in Waltham Center

  • An industrial and automotive building in Waltham

  • A 1,200-SF parcel in South Boston approved for a 3-unit condo complex

  • An undeveloped vacant lot in Dorchester

  • A condominium complex being developed in Westfield

  • A used car lot in Springfield

  • A 20,000 SF Class A office building in West Springfield

  • An ice cream parlor & diner in Hampden

  • A hair salon & upstairs apartment in Medford

Featured Article

Demand for Medium-Size Housing Swings Back

By Linda Sakelaris

Staff Writer

Housing developers have spent the past decade building ever-larger homes just as the average U.S. household unit was shrinking.

This demographic upset has negatively affected existing home sales in the Northeast, where sales of existing homes fell 2.9% in July although existing home sales were up 2.5% nationwide.

Problems in New England have been blamed on an inadequate inventory of medium-size homes. The shortage has driven up prices, resulting in higher mortgages and greater obstacles for middle-income buyers.

Builders, however, appear to be shifting focus. Last year, the average size of new homes fell to 2,320 median square feet (SF) from 2,500 SF in 2015. This indicates that developers may address the “missing middle housing,” a term coined by California architect Daniel Parolek. Middle housing is affordable to middle-income buyers and includes duplexes, courtyard apartments, bungalow units and multiplexes as well as starter homes.

Since the 2008 economic downturn, the percentage of newly constructed homes larger than 3,000 SF has increased from 19% to 30% of new homes, according to Disruption Demographics, a recent report by real estate advisory company RCLCO.

Since mega-size homes go against the trend of shrinking household size, new home production appears to be moving in the opposite direction of U.S. demographics, according to the RCLCO report.

Increase in Non-Traditional Households

Demand for medium-priced homes is currently coming from two major classes: baby boomers and millennials. Married households without children and single households are expected to account for 69% of household growth in the next 10 years.

Baby boomers, with assets and established purchasing power, are beginning to downsize, and now seek smaller solutions that are flexible and modern. This group is an important customer for the home market since they will likely use their current home value to purchase another home.

Millennials, while still building their earning power, are capable of entering the home market but developers will need to properly align home products with prices to meet this demand, the RCLCO report states.  Compared with prior generations, millennials are having fewer children, driving average household size down.

If the needs of these two buyers are not addressed, the size of the new housing market could decline, experts say

What Do These Buyers Want?

Consumer preferences have changed in the past decade. While the detached, single-family home remains the most desirable product, at least 15% of buyers would now consider an attached townhouse or plex product.

Both boomers and millennials want to be close to activity and mixed-use development, such as shopping, services, jobs, shared open space and a walkable neighborhood.

Older buyers in particular are attracted to master-planned communities for the sense of community, safety and maintenance services.

Also, in demand are open floor plans that meld multiple rooms. While entertaining, guests in the kitchen can see guests in the living room, a system that requires design continuity that interconnects the spaces.

The dining room, which has been less pronounced in recent construction, is coming back but without the formality. Today’s dining rooms are comfortable and friendly, with perhaps a comfortable, well-lit adjoining living space.

Wall-free interiors first became popular in the 1970s, representing freedom from the succession of small rooms often found in older New England homes.

While it remains a popular concept, there is some indication that buyers wouldn’t mind a few privacy walls here and there. “Buyers are moving away from uninterrupted views,” Boston real estate agent Loren Larsen told the Boston Globe in March. Some spaces, some items, deserve a little privacy.

Read More