Not terribly surprising. People fighting change and perpetuating exclusionary zoning practices are what got us into the housing crisis to begin with.
For more, read this: https://tcf.org/content/report/walls-exclusion-massachusetts-three-mothers-overcome-discriminatory-zoning-laws-improve-lives-children/ *The constraint on supply has had a highly predictable result. In a 2020 study of housing affordability by Moody Analytics and U.S. News & World Report, Massachusetts ranked forty-eighth of fifty states, making it one of the least affordable states in the country for housing. The median price for single-family homes in the state exceeds $500,000. In Boston, the percentage of homes in the metropolitan area that cost $1 million has nearly doubled in five years.* John On Sun, Nov 12, 2023, 7:07 PM Karla Gravis <karlagra...@gmail.com> wrote: > I would encourage folks to read about what happened in Newton's recent > elections, held this past November 7th. > > A grassroots volunteer group was created due to resident > dissatisfaction with the HCA plan being proposed by the town, as well as > discontent with residents' voices being ignored. The local movement group, > "Save Newton Villages", endorsed a number of candidates and won 5 seats > in the recent election (Micley, Farrell, Block, Getz, and Lobovits were > all endorsed by “Save Newton Villages"). > > Interestingly, even though Newton is very different from Lincoln, the > concerns of the Newton local group mirror the concerns being expressed by > Lincoln residents. You can look at their site here > <https://savenewtonvillages.com/what-residents-want> for the full list, > but they include: > > - Zoning should be for people, not for developers! > - Give Newton citizens a voice and let them vote on zoning reform! > - Newton should hold onto our “Special Permit” power over developers > so we have greater control and public input over what gets built and how. > - Conduct a community capacity/needs assessment. > - The minimum open space requirement for a lot in the proposal (30%) > is much too low; it needs to be at least 50%. Preserve nature, don’t > over-build. > - Promote and support much more affordable and moderate income housing > - City Hall's zoning proposal needs to be changed! It's unreasonable. > Their proposal allows buildings that are too high and out of scale with the > villages, calls for too much density, will lead to gentrification, is > not environmentally friendly, will harm local small businesses and fails to > provide enough affordability." > > A few quotes from the winning candidates > <https://www.bcheights.com/2023/11/10/meet-newtons-new-city-councilors/>: > > - “For-profit developers don’t ever try to lower housing prices,” > Lobovits wrote in the statement regarding housing affordability. “Their > redevelopment model is based on pushing rents and housing prices as high as > possible because their only motive is maximizing profits.” > - “[VCOD] will zone for around 15,000 by-right units—much taller > buildings by-right than we need to to reach the mandate,” Micley said. “My > issue with that is, I really think it just gives up too much power to > developers that we don’t need to hand over to them.” > - “We have to weigh [traffic] when we think about what kind of > additional housing we’re going to allow in this city,” Block said. “I > chaired the neighborhood committee and was part of the negotiating team > that advocated for a smaller development to reduce the impact on the > adjacent neighborhoods,” Block said. “With support from our Ward 4 > councilors … we reached an agreement with the developer for a development > of 1 million square feet, one-third commercial and two-thirds housing.” > - “(...) most of it’s going to be market rate and what they call > affordable, again, in my opinion, is not affordable for the people that we > would want to live there.” Farrell said. > > -- > The LincolnTalk mailing list. > To post, send mail to Lincoln@lincolntalk.org. > Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/ > . > Change your subscription settings at > https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. > >
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