Density and Displacement

NIMBY v. YIMBY                                                                                                             

Density and Displacement

Zoning is more than a bloodless means of regulating what may be built and where.  It shapes demographics, economic zones, and the look of neighborhoods.  It can also give rise to strong emotions between planners and residents, between long-time residents and newcomers, and between local control and top-down initiatives.  At its worst, it provokes disparagement of those with differing views on what is important and how to achieve it, to the point of labeling them exclusionary and/or racist.

Broadly, there seems to be agreement in Arlington that many residents want to preserve aspects of the town that they love, such as our trees and green spaces, our older neighborhoods, and our unique small businesses; and also that Arlington is becoming ever more expensive, and that we need to provide affordable options for existing residents and newcomers both.

For a long time, the best path to creating more affordable, and more-affordable, housing was believed to be by allowing greater density and loosening zoning restrictions.  But density efforts have been in place long enough now for new research to emerge, based on outcomes rather than theory.  Much of it paints a different picture of what works to create affordable communities, and shows how current efforts have actually led to a decrease in affordable units, the displacement of existing residents at the lower end of the income spectrum, and a homogenization of economic and demographic diversity.

         “Real estate interests and some scholars argue that unaffordable housing costs

               are primarily due to a shortage in housing supply, and that any increase in

               supply—including luxury development—will ultimately help depress rents. While

               there is some evidence new housing production does eventually help lower

               median rent in the neighborhoods where construction occurred compared to

               other areas, these effects take decades to surface. Worse, by the time such

               price effects register, large numbers of low-income residents have likely already

               been pushed out ... During the decades analyzed, significant displacement had

               already occurred and median rents were hiked up by gentrification.”

                    -- “Here’s What We Actually Know About Market-Rate Housing 
                              Development and Displacement”

                              Amee Chew

                              Shelterforce.org

One of the most significant findings is that new development can actually decrease the overall number of affordable units, because it destroys “naturally occurring” affordable units when new units are built in their place.  Consider the older “garden apartments” in Arlington that line Mass. Ave. and Broadway, with rents at or below HUD-defined affordable rates.  Once targeted, they are likely be redeveloped as market-rate rental units, with a certain percentage of affordable units required.  The overall result is the addition of market-rate apartments to a community, a small number of affordable units, and a net loss of existing lower- rent units.

               “In Chicago, where rezoning also occurred to allow for more growth and taller,

               denser construction (known as upzoning), the changes have been shown to have

                 no effect on housing supply while ‘housing prices rose on the parcels and in 
               projects that were upzoned.' "

                    -- “Is It Time for American Cities to Stop Growing?” 
                              Vinnie Rotondaro
                              Vox.com

In “Neighborhood Upzoning And Racial Displacement: A Potential Target For Disparate Impact Litigation?” a paper from the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change, author Bradley Pough says, “... upzoning changes are taking part in the same underlying activity as exclusionary zoning tactics: maximizing the value of land in the hopes of attracting or retaining mobile capital.  The perhaps not so obvious corollary to this activity is that, by maximizing the value of land, residents and elected officials are gradually pricing out consumers who can no longer afford this product.  In the case of exclusionary zoning, these consumers are the low-income minorities who, but for the cost, would move to the desirable suburb.  In the case of upzoning, these consumers are often the low-income minority renters already living in the neighborhood who are gradually pushed out (i.e. displaced) due to higher rents and pricier surrounding amenities.”

In “Zoned Out! Race, Displacement, and City Planning in New York," editors Tom Agnotti and Sylvia Morse also present the case that upzoning drives minority displacement.  They use neighborhoods in New York City as examples, where upzoning has led to an increase in average rents, a reduction in affordable housing units, an increase in white residents, and a noticeable reduction in the neighborhood’s minority populations.  They go on to say: "But rezonings are very difficult to deal with.  With zoning, most people don't understand it.  It's kind of a hocus pocus, a lot of technical terms, and the way they're explained at community meetings, they're explained in way that doesn't encourage most people to get engaged in any serious way - a lot of pretty pictures and maps, and a lot of nice sounding fairytales about how great the neighborhood's gonna be after the rezoning.  The big challenge today is to discredit this kind of charade."

Here in Arlington, the US Census indicates that we have around 7,200 rental units, of which 1,100 are subsidized, leaving roughly 6,100 non-subsidized rental units.  And of these, approximately one-third is in older, higher-density district apartment buildings.  The overall median rate for market rate rentals in Arlington, including studios, one-bedrooms, etc. in apartment buildings and two-and three-families, is $1,593.00, which is right between the HUD rates of $1,647 for a two-bedroom, and $1,484 for a one-bedroom.

By contrast, if we look at new market rate developments, we see much higher rents.  For instance, at Vox on 2, just across Rt. 2 from Arlington, a studio apartment starts at $2,275.  Two-bedrooms run between $3,085 and $4,395.  This building has 228 units.  At a 15% affordable requirement, it would have had to include 34 affordable units.  Our own Housing Corporation of Arlington currently has two projects underway which are 100% affordable, and which combined will provide 48 units.

The way to create affordable housing is to build affordable housing.  Trickle-down development will never supply affordable housing in meaningful numbers.

                “A real solution to the economics of American cities would require more work—more          

                taxes, more laws, more intervention from the federal government. Those things 

                are hard. Gentrification is easy.”

                      -- How to Kill A City
                              Peter Moskowitz

                “ ...despite stable economies, liberal leanings, and high involvement in municipal 
                politics in both New York and San Francisco, policies that could potentially help 
                poorer residents have been much slower to come and less robust than the influx of 
                new private capital that devours neighborhoods and displaces residents. In just 
                about every city [Peter] Moskowitz examines [in How to Kill A City], he finds that 
                choices by city and state governments limited the creation of affordable housing 
                and changed public-housing policies, giving poorer residents little refuge in 
                increasingly expensive cities.”
                     -- “The Steady Destruction of America’s Cities” 
                             Gillian B. White
                             The Atlantic

And as Pough says in the UPenn paper, “... while inclusionary zoning programs aim to counteract the lack of new affordable public housing units, in practice they often end up serving a demographic noticeably wealthier than the intended recipients of the original public housing programs.”

He goes on to say that there are methods of creating affordable housing, such as community land trusts, that are succeeding, and that “At its core, the community- based planning movement simply asserts that residents living in areas slated for change ought to have some real say in how their neighborhoods develop. ... While full veto power almost certainly is not appropriate, the ability to cast votes of consequence over the changes occurring in their neighborhoods is necessary for ensuring that municipal policies do not completely trample local considerations.”

                “Twenty years into this grand experiment, residents are bucking against what all this

                growth has wrought: high rents, displacement, and a gutting of the very character
                of  their cities.”

                     -- “Is It Time for American Cities to Stop Growing?” 
                             Vinnie Rotondaro
                             Vox.com

It's on again: Mugar property - 219 units threaten to increase flooding and load on Arlington services

By Aram Hollman

The proposed 219-unit development at the Mugar property near Thorndike Field in East Arlington is once again moving forward, despite the as-yet unresolved problems it presents to residents. Flooding, traffic, and education costs are all major concerns, and have not been realistically addresssed by the planners of this project.

Whether flooding can be mitigated, and to what degree, depends on the details, including topography. The closer a site is to the lowest point around, the less feasible it is to mitigate flooding, because that's where the water goes when it dumps, and Mugar's Florida swampland on Rt. 2 is pretty close to the low point.

State law requires that a property owner's "enjoyment" of his or her property, for example, by developing it, does not adversely affect one's neighbor's right to the same. To that end, developers must create "compensatory flood storage", additional flood storage on their property to ensure that their development does not simply displace flooding onto their neighbors' properties. In addition, any developer wants to protect his or her own investment from flooding. If you look at what Cambridge developers along Rt. 2 have done, they have sculpted out a retention basin inbetween Acorn Park Drive and Little River to compensate for some of the flood storage their buildings occupy, and they have raised their buildings several feet above surrounding ground level to keep them dry. These measures are inadequate, but, because those properties were initially developed before compensatory storage requirements were enacted, they need not be fully adequate. As a result, floodwaters spread out furth
er and higher, including into East Arlington.

In large storms, 3 of which occurred from 1996 to 2002 (large enough to shut down Rt. 2, and requiring Arlington and Cambridge Fire Departments to pump out homeowners' basements once the floodwaters started to recede), existing buildings displace floodwaters elsewhere, generally onto someone else's property. That is exactly what all those buildings in Cambridge will do, various flood abatement measures notwithstanding. Since then, many more buildings have been built in and near the floodplain, each one making its small contribution towards worsening flooding.

In 2016, the would-be developers of the Mugar property said that if they were allowed to build, they would "fix" the flooding problem on their property. It was not clear whether the fix that they proposed (additional regrading of the site) would actually solve the flooding problem, or simply displace it elsewhere. Furthermore, that fix was not overly expensive. The Mugars could have and should have done it simply to be good neighbors, and it would have given them some credibility as such. That the Mugars held on to this bargaining chip in exchange for being able to develop their property shows just how little they care about their neighbors or the rest of Arlington, despite words to the contrary. For Arlington to rely on the Mugars or their developers to ameliorate flooding is like having the Kurds rely on Donald Trump for security.

No matter how much development occurs on the Cambridge side of Rt. 2, it's wrong, and it's wrong to allow the Mugars to develop their property in Arlington for the same reason: It will worsen area flooding (haven't mentioned climate change thus far). The best use of the Mugar site would be to dig a big hole in the ground, call it Mugar Pond, and use it as compensatory flood storage for the surrounding area.

Of course, there's also the traffic. In the triangle bounded by the bike path, Rt. 2, and Spy Pond, there are roughly 500 residential structures. Roughly half of them are 2-families, so there are about 750 housing units. Lake St. is critical for residents of these units to get in and out of their neighborhood (notice that I'm ignoring the portion of Lake St. between the bike path and Mass. Ave, for which Lake St. is important, but not absolutely critical). Allowing a single project, all on one side of Lake St., to increase demand on this already-congested portion of Lake St. by roughly 30% is not only absurd and bad planning, but a safety hazard. As it is, drivers headed for even more congested Alewife divert to Lake St.

Then there's education. Any children in grades K-5 living at the Mugar Monstrosity there would attend the rather full Hardy Elementary School. Its population has increased from 300 in 2006 to 350 in 2012 to 450 today, a 50% increase since 2006. This has been possibly only because, systemwide, all 6th graders were relocated to the Gibbs School in 2018.

This 40B project, with 25% affordable units, would not make Arlington more affordable. On the contrary, it would make Arlington even less affordable than it is now. More affordable units push up the price of market-rate units. Arlington does not need more market rate units, but more affordable units, ideally 100% affordable.

In short, construction of over 200 units of housing on the Mugar site would worsen flooding in a flood-prone area, worsen traffic in an area that is terribly congested even by Boston standards, would further overcrowd the local elementary school, and would make Arlington even less affordable than it is now.

-- Below, is the text of a recent Newsletter alert from the Arlington Land Trust with details of the ruling against Arlington and allowing the Mugar development to continue.  Since it is not yet available on the http://arlingtonlandtrust.org/ website, we have included it here:

State agency rules against Arlington on 40B "Safe Harbor"   Mugar hearing resumption postponed at developer's request The state's Housing Appeals Committee (HAC), in a decision that is disappointing but not surprising given HAC's longstanding bias against local control, ruled this week that Arlington has not achieved a target that would have strengthened the Town's hand in controlling 40B development.