Newton for Everyone forum: The Politics of Housing
At Newton for Everyone’s forum, How Housing Scarcity is Costing Massachusetts Political Power, Boston University Professor Maxwell Palmer advocated for statewide zoning to increase housing and maintain Massachusetts’s political power. Congressman Jake Auchincloss said he does not believe the number of Massachusetts congressional representatives sways opinion on housing policy. He suggested looking at new approaches to increase housing, like hyper-local zoning.
Palmer: Population is political power
The keynote speaker for the Newton for Everyone event on September 24 was Prof. Palmer, Associate Professor of Political Science at Boston University. He described how:
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Congressional representation for Massachusetts has gone from 12 to 9 since 1970, giving the State less influence nationwide.
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Population growth has been half the national average since 1990.
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The majority of residents moving away are in their prime work years, ages 25 to 45.
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The main reasons given for leaving are housing expenses and the high cost of living.
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State housing growth and population growth align.
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Florida, New Hampshire, California, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are the top five states former residents have moved into.
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59% of former residents move to neighboring states, with many commuting back to Massachusetts for work.
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The most popular move is from Middlesex County to Hillsborough County, NH, where rents are 28% lower, and housing costs are 44% lower.
Why is housing policy uniquely hard in Massachusetts?
People want to move to Massachusetts, Prof. Palmer stated, but a typical house here costs twice the national average. Massachusetts residents can fix the problem, he said, by reforming zoning. Zoning decisions are uniquely local in Massachusetts, with each city and town having its own zoning authorities and ordinances. Texas, a state of roughly 32 million, has 433 zoning authorities; Massachusetts, a state of roughly 7 million, has 351. Texas, at the vanguard of the clean energy revolution, also has cheaper energy and more liberal land laws.
Prof. Palmer noted that differences in zoning codes – from setback sizes to tree protection ordinances to energy requirements – complicate development and increase building costs, which are passed on to homebuyers and renters.
Housing politics is local politics
Prof. Palmer argues that Massachusetts-style government – with odd-year local elections, public hearings, town meetings, and referendums – empowers opponents of housing.
Homeowning community stakeholders, who are older, whiter, and richer, are more likely to vote in local elections, run for local office, attend planning board meetings, and oppose housing development. Prof. Palmer’s research on 97 Massachusetts cities and towns found that homeowners comprised 45% of voters and 73% of public meeting attendees. He noted that the potential future stakeholders – renters and homeowners who would benefit from more housing – are not part of the local political process.
Prof. Palmer said extremely liberal communities, like Newton, tend to support housing at the national level but not at the local level. He noted that most communities subject to the MBTA Communities Law did the minimum, meeting paper compliance with the law and that since 2010, 12 Massachusetts communities have spent $55 million of public money to buy land to prevent housing development. Half of those communities used Community Preservation Funds towards those purchases.
The Boston Foundation’s 2024 Opportunity or Obstacle housing report, which Prof. Palmer worked on, used Newton’s Walker Center (purchased with $2.45 million of American Rescue Plan Act funds) as an example of a “seemingly viable housing project proposed on suitable public land” that may never be completed.
Auchincloss: Is housing an asset or a commodity?
Americans have conflicting views of housing, said Congressman Jake Auchincloss; they expect it to be both an asset for building wealth (with growing value) and also a widely available, affordable commodity with stable pricing. “We need attainable middle-class homeownership,” he said. Massachusetts is pricing-out the middle class and creating a generational divide among Democrats. The average first-time homebuyer is now 42, up from 29 in 1981 and 33 in 2021. He suggested people could focus on investments beyond housing to build wealth.
Congressman Auchincloss suggested hyper-local zoning as a way to support new housing development. It empowers neighbors on a street or even a single block to agree on zoning specific to their own immediate area. John Myers, who runs the YIMBY Alliance in London, has said that with hyper-local zoning, “votes by street or by block would give residents a way to negotiate to share the benefits of new development and ensure that it will suit them.” London, Houston, and Japan are used as examples of increased housing through hyper-local zoning.
Congressman Auchincloss said Massachusetts needs modular housing, and it needs to be manufactured in-state to bring down costs. He suggested manufacturing and developing modular housing on unused military bases and said the Metropolitan Area Planning Council is looking into this.
He said that people generally approve housing for three reasons: because they see their property values go up, they see housing they can downsize into, or they see housing that their grown children can move into.
At the end of the event, Newton for Everyone collected signatures for a citizens’ petition to the City Council for the adoption of:
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Multi-family housing and business uses in Newton’s underused manufacturing districts
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Residential buildings up to 5 stories in existing business districts
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Up to 4 units on lots where current zoning allows 2
A video of the event will be available on the Newton for Everyone website.
By: Lucia Dolan
Source: Fig City News