Massachusetts Ballot Question 7 was the only one I was undecided on when I first read the nine questions that appear on this year’s ballot.
Yes I’m interested in helping to lower the high cost of housing! But as a former member of the Framingham Town Meeting Standing Committee on Planning & Zoning as well as a retired data professional, I also know that not every idea aimed at solving complex problems is a good one.
If of interest to anyone else, here’s what I discovered after doing some research on Question 7. You’ll probably be able to tell pretty soon what I decided 😅
What does Question 7 do?
It would allow single-family homes on 5,000-square-foot lots in any residentially zoned area by right, as long as the lot has at least 50 feet of street frontage and access to public water and sewer.
Communities could regulate a few things like height and setback, but the new law appears similar to the Dover Amendment in that it bars special permits. As I understand it, that means communities could not require things like traffic mitigation for such developments.
Who is behind Question 7?
An organization called Legalize Starter Homes. Real estate and developer interests are its top financial backers, including the Greater Boston Real Estate Board ($350,000); the Massachusetts Association of Realtors and their Political Action Committee ($500,000); and Marcus Partners LLC, a real estate private equity firm with offices in Boston, Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, and Atlanta ($100,000).
The group’s chair, Andrew Mikula, is chief housing economist at the Pioneer Institute, a think tank that opposed the Millionare’s Tax and opposes rent control.
You can see more about who is financially supporting Question 7 at the Commonwealth Beacon, Boston Globe (paywall), and Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance.
How might this impact our local neighborhoods?
Nobscot resident Herb Chasan estimated that the 30-acre property between Edmands and Edgell Roads could end up with 180 to 220 homes – a density roughly four times that of the nearby Livoli Road area. As I understand it, the city would have no way to require developers to make nearby roadway improvements for handling additional traffic or pay for any needed sewer capacity beyond whatever tax revenue would be generated by the new homes.
For those who believe increasing available housing is more important than measuring impact on existing neighborhoods or municipal budgets, this will likely be a desired outcome.
However, those hoping for less expensive houses that young people can purchase should know that there’s no guarantee the new homes would be “affordable” or even be for sale at all.
Question 7 says communities can restrict these homes from being used for “short-term rental” – i.e. as an Airbnb. But nothing prevents them from being owned by private equity and rented out. And there’s no language about pricing the new homes at market or below-market rates.
Could this affect areas without large vacant parcels?
If passed, I expect Question 7 will encourage teardowns – developers buying an existing home, razing it, and building multiple homes on that lot. For example, one home on a corner lot in half-acre zoning such as Pinefield could be torn down and replaced with four smaller houses in the same area (with less open space around them).
Homes on non-corner lots with 100 feet of street frontage could be replaced with two houses.
Another possible effect: If developers overpay for a few existing homes in order to tear them down, it could increase the value of other nearby homes, raise their prices, and push many other older homes farther out of reach for new homebuyers.
What do Question 7 opponents say?
The Massachusetts Municipal Association says that while the state needs more housing, this is the wrong approach because it doesn’t take into account infrastructure needed for dense housing or environmental conditions.
“As drafted, the regulations allow new subdivisions and development as long as there is access to public sewer and water services. Just because infrastructure exists, doesn’t mean that capacity exists,” Ali DiMatteo, legislative and policy counsel for the MMA, told the state legislature’s Special Committee on Initiative Petitions. “Many, many of our municipalities with water and sewer are at or near capacity,”
And, she argued, “This ballot question really follows historically fraught supply-side economics without allowing provisions to promote affordability and accessibility.”
The legislative special committee decided not to support the question, concerned about testimony from opponents who “noted ambiguity around size of structures, and a lack of implementation guidance (including how ‘adequate’ infrastructure would be determined), which could result in uneven application across jurisdictions,” according to the Secretary of State’s Massachusetts Information for Voters guide.
Who else supports Question 7?
The website for Legalize Starter Homes lists a wide range of supporters including Boston Democratic Socialists of America, Home Builders & Remodelers Association of Massachusetts, League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Association of Realtors, and Progressive Massachusetts.
What do supporters say?
“Requiring huge lot sizes to build a single-family home makes houses expensive, reduces construction of new single-family housing, and encourages developers to build giant McMansions to recoupe land costs,” according to Legalize Starter Homes in the Mass Voters Guide.
The group also argues that its proposed 5,000-square-foot lot size is “a size more typical of suburbs nationwide,” although there’s no source for that data and no explanation on how they define “suburb”. Overall in the U.S., the median lot size for a new single-family home last year was more than 65% higher – 8,307 square feet, according to US Census data. And, that median was never below 7,800 in the Census Bureau spreadsheet starting in 1976.
My conclusion
I understand frustration over high home prices, local zoning that prevents building more houses, and “NIMBY-ism”. But I can’t support bad legislation, even if it’s trying to solve a very real problem.
I lived in an area of single-family homes on tiny lots for a number of years. It was a great neighborhood! But it was planned that way.
There were sidewalks on both sides of the street. We had a couple of grocery stores within walking distance. There was a high school less than a mile away. And we had access to public transit within walking distance or a much shorter drive than from north Framingham to commuter rail – and that transit ran much more frequently.
I could walk places. Other people could walk places, or take a train to work that ran frequently enough to be usable even off rush hour. Everyone wasn’t in their cars all the time to get anywhere. Parents weren’t driving 8 or 9 miles roundtrip to pick kids up from school.
There were also enough doctors and hospital capacity. Is anyone working to increase ER doctors, hospital beds, and primary care physicians if we significantly increase population density? Or are we assuming the “free market” will solve it all?
What is the answer?
What does the MMA propose instead to help with the housing crunch? DiMatteo noted that existing Chapter 40Y promotes starter-home zoning “with incentives,” she said. “Municipalities can now adopt starter home districts and qualify for state payments to help pay for these opportunities, and there’s bonus payments that can help expedite these units to be built.” 40Y regulations were just published this year, so it’s too soon to see how it might work.
I believe that high-speed frequent rail into Boston connecting to a Red Line running every 5 minutes from South Station to Kendall Square, Harvard, MIT, and Mass General would also help. Great transit makes it more appealing for people to live farther away from Boston and Cambridge, lessening pressure on places closer in.
But if we want to significantly increase a community’s population density to help solve this, we have to be serious about it. That means working on building infrastructure needed to support that at the same time new housing is created.
Unfortunately, Question 7 assumes that infrastructure and capacity issues will somehow work themselves out as if by magic. They won’t.
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