The upshot of the project is really quite simple: The housing market in the greater Boston area suffers from a lack of supply, which has led to
skyrocketing real estate prices. The number of new housing permits is quite small compared to, say, Houston or Las Vegas. (Prof. Glaeser is quick to state that he does not favor shifting to those areas’ model of development!) But development vis-a-vis land availability does not follow a simple model of demand following supply: The towns that are already very dense (e.g. Somerville, Chelsea) issue the most permits, while those that are least dense (e.g. Lincoln, Weston) issue the fewest.
Contrary to common belief, there is not a scarcity of land in our area. But the least dense communities have created the highest obstacles to development, doubtless in order to preserve historical and environmental character, and to boost property values. But the effect
of this regulation affects the entire area’s real estate market. Effectively, there is no “safety valve” for development under conditions of high demand, such as we have today — and after all, high demand is a “nice problem to have”, says Prof. Glaeser.
Lot size and wetlands protection are two of the most significant obstacles to development in the ‘burbs. Those who live in
the immediate Boston area will chuckle at the extravagance of requiring two-acre lots for a single-family home, but indeed that requirement
applies to 90% of the area of 14 towns, including Carlisle, Boxford, and Medway. (And for some towns that technically allow multi-family homes, the results of such requirements can be comical: one imagines a high-rise with many acres of land surrounding it … Maybe you could start a farm co-op in such a development.) Unusual lot shapes
(“porkchop”) are generally forbidden. And cluster zoning, wherein a developer is free to take a parcel of land and divvy it up into smaller lots, is commonly allowed but used only infrequently because of minimum lot sizes and other restrictions.
While wetlands protection is important on any number of levels (ask New Orleans), many towns have chosen to exceed the state’s requirements in
very creative ways: How does one define a wetland? How often does a wetland flood? How deep is it? etc. Towns in MA seem to have every variation of answer to these questions, which makes developing property extremely unpredictable: The more time for which you have to pay a surveyor and a lawyer to figure this stuff out, the less incentive you
have to develop.
Because of the area-wide nature of the problem, Glaeser recommends a state-based approach which enhances incentives for development, calling for “40B on steroids”, to encourage new affordable housing development. This would not be taken well by the more spacious communites: In jest, Glaeser said he feared “blood on the streets of Lincoln”. In addition, Glaeser recommends simplifying the legal environment for development — perhaps replacing regulations with more straightforward user fees.
It was an interesting group of folks at the talk today, from a wide variety of fields; one hopes that it shows a commonality of interests
in trying to solve the problem.
[…] in a 50-mile radius of Boston (but not Boston) to find out It got front-page coverage in the Globe …
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Is there some text missing there?
will fix.
Those who live in the immediate Boston area will chuckle at the extravagance of requiring two-acre lots for a single-family home
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By my math, those should be 25-family homes!
Is your friend Amy a conservative? Glaeser certainly is. And while conservatives can have good ideas, from reading what the Globe wrote about it, he seems very pro-sprawl and anti-city, like many conservatives.
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I grew up in the western suburbs, and overriding Lincoln’s environmental protections doesn’t seem like a good way to solve the housing crisis in Boston. For that matter, building in Lincoln doesn’t seem like a good way to solve the housing crisis in Boston. It takes a long time to drive from Lincoln to Boston, and the train is slow.
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Why shouldn’t we induce more infill development in areas that already have transit? Cambridge, for example, is almost all single and two family homes outside the universities, yet has 6 subway stops and a commuter rail stop. If you’re talking about letting the free market override community wishes in development, why not expect that the Mass Ave corridor in Cambridge should become more 5 to 10 story apartment buildings? The same could be said of many communities around Boston.
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Also, Glaeser pooh-poohs 40R and 40S, which give positive incentives to communities to build denser development rather than declaring that environmental laws are the problem and forcing density upon a town. Glaeser says this in the Globe article:
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Glaeser’s response sounds a lot like he really would love Boston’s western suburbs to look more like, say, Nassau County on Long Island (America’s original sprawl and quite unpleasant). No, thanks.
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For more, see my post on Alpie.net about this when the article first came out.
Is Amy a conservative? Well… I think I won’t answer that. Let’s
evaluate the ideas on their merits, without putting ideological labels
on them: Either the research is good, reliable and factual, or it’s
not. Read the report
and decide for yourself.
As for Glaeser, I seem to remember him praising 40R and 40S, but saying
that they are actually not strong enough inducements to develop. They
would be especially valuable (as you say) in very dense areas already
near public transportation, and to serve those for whom market-rate
housing just doesn’t work. He is not a fan of affordable-housing
restrictions on new developments in the ‘burbs, since it actually
prevents housing from being built. I think Glaeser wants to caution
folks not to overestimate the attractiveness of public transportation
to many people, and I don’t blame him. Really, we ought to make public
transportation as attractive as possible — as people in Somerville,
Cambridge, and even East Arlington seem to find the Red Line — and
hope that folks will use it.
“why not expect that the Mass Ave corridor in Cambridge should become
more 5 to 10 story apartment buildings?”
I have dreamed about that very idea. I say we build it up to the sky.
My model is the lake shore of Chicago — super-high density,
well-served by public transit, and widely-varying housing prices,
serving many income levels. And in fact, as I mentioned, Somerville,
Cambridge et al are issuing many many more permits than are the
less-dense communities. Again, the less-dense places are not providing
the “safety-valve” for closer-in demand — and not everyone wants to
live in a city.
By the way, the housing price problem/bubble/crisis is regional,
not just a Boston problem. It’s expensive as hell to live anywhere around
here.
Look, I don’t want “free-market” solutions to be thought of as
“conservative.” We need to find the right tool for the job. I think
it’s important for folks to find affordable places to live, so that we
can have a variety of people living in the area and so that we keep
jobs in the area. We can’t just ignore the problem of supply and demand
— that’s reality, and this is a “reality-based” blog, after all. đŸ™‚
Now, in the Q&A session, I might have also brought up the notion
that housing prices are also being pushed up by a speculative bubble,
which I think is the case — but that wasn’t the focus of their study.
From page v of the report:
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“The state could alter local incentives by using state aid to reward localities that encourage new construction and punish those who discourage it. While the recently passed Chapters 40R and 40S, which are designed to eliminate fiscal problems created by new development, are small steps in the right direction, the state needs to use the bulk of its local aid to successfully encourage new construction.”
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Doesn’t sound like pooh-poohing, at least not in the way you mean it.