NEWTON RESOURCES

Planning Department Friday Report

• Weekly planning-related meeting information and project updates. Sign up for email newsletter here.

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City Council Friday Packet

• Links to all the material the Council will be using for meetings in the coming week. For things posted in a prior week, check the Friday Packet Archives.

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Zoning Redesign (Planning Department page)

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Newton Zoning Ordinance (existing)

• Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance (Art. 5, Sec. 5.11). Inclusionary Zoning is a tool local governments across the country use to leverage private development to create affordable housing. Such ordinances commonly require a percentage of units in a private development be rented or sold at affordable levels to low- and moderate-income households, usually at or below 80% of area median income (AMI).

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Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice, FY2021–2025

• 12/7/20 consultant presentation to the Planning Board (video)

  • Presentation slides

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WestMetro HOME Consortium Fair Housing Workshop (4/11/21, Judi Barrett of Barrett Planning Group presenting)

• Presentation slides 

Newton Housing Strategy (2016)

Newton Transportation Strategy (2017)

Newton Economic Development Strategy (2019)

Newton Climate Action Plan (2019)
 

Newton does not have enough homes (our 2-page flyer)

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Letter—Newton officials, residents to MA legislators: Support H.4263, "Housing Choices" bill (5/9/20)

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Northland Project

(approved 12/2/19 by City Council, affirmed by referendum 3/3/20)

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Livable Newton

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Friends of Austin Street

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Engine 6 HUD Complaint (2013) and Conciliation Agreement (2015)

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The image in this page's background is a screen shot of the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation map for Newton and areas east toward Boston, from the interactive website Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America, a collaboration spearheaded by the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab.

ACTION RESOURCES

Keep it positive!

• Suggestions for responding to anti-zoning reform negativity

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Potential Benefits of Zoning Reform

• Actual social media post by Kathy Pillsbury with great attitude and positive language

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Instructions for Submitting to the Newton TAB

• Parameters, deadlines for letters and opinion pieces

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NEWTON CITY HALL

Mayor Ruthanne Fuller

rfuller@newtonma.gov

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Newton City Council

citycouncil@newtonma.gov

• Go here for individual emails.

• Acting Council Clerk:

Nadia Khan, 

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City Council Committee Assignments

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Land Use Committee

    Rick Lipof, Chair

    Andrea Kelley, Vice Chair

    Nadia Khan, Clerk

        nkhan@newtonma.gov

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Zoning & Planning Committee (ZAP)

    Deb Crossley, Chair

    Vicki Danberg, Vice Chair

    Danielle Delaney, Clerk

        

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Planning Department

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• Housing & Community Development​​

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• Current Affordable Housing Opportunities in Newton​

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• Other Affordable Housing Resources

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• Community Preservation Program. ​The Community Preservation Act (CPA) allows local communities to adopt a surcharge on property taxes and receive state matching funds for 1) affordable housing, 2) historic resources, and 3) open space and recreation land. Newton voters adopted the CPA in 2001, the first possible year, with a 1% local surcharge.

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Community Preservation Committee

    Mark Armstrong, Chair

    Lara Kritzer, Program Manager

       

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Newton Housing Partnership

    Lizbeth Heyer, Chair

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Planning & Development Board

    Peter Doeringer, Chair

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Fair Housing Committee

    Ted Hess-Mahan, Chair

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Zoning Board of Appeals

    Brooke Lipsitt, Chair

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OTHER RESOURCES

Other YIMBY Groups

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The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Richard Rothstein, Liveright Books, 2017)

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• Essential reading for a true and comprehensive understanding of how the suburbs were created, Newton's role in the regional housing shortage, and our moral obligation to something about it.

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• Watch Rothstein's 11/17/20 Newton talk, which was followed by Q&A, then a talk with Richard Evans, Newton native and former resident of "The Village," the historic Black Newton neighborhood destroyed by Mass Pike construction in the 1960s; then an overview of Zoning Redesign by Councilor Deb Crossley, Chair of ZAP. Event sponsored by the Newton Free Library, FORJ, and the LWVN (League of Women Voters of Newton), and part of the forum series "Overdue: Confronting Race and Racism in Newton."

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The State of Zoning for Multi-Family Housing in Greater Boston (Amy Dain, June 2019)

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Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2019: Supply, Demand and the Challenge of Local Control (Engine 6 summary of Newton findings in the report by The Boston Foundation)

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TODEX: Transit-Oriented Development Explorer for Massachusetts (MHP Center for Housing Data)

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• This interactive map allows you to explore housing development patterns across neighborhoods in the MBTA rail system. Click on any station to see a graphic with surrounding housing density levels. Click "Data" tab to sort, filter, and download info for any station, line, or town in the data set.

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• Research suggests a recommended minimum density of at least 10 homes/acre to support rail service. For the Green Line D stations in Newton, the densities are: Chestnut Hill—1.9; Newton Centre—3.2; Newton Highlands—4.0; Eliot—4.2; Waban—2.1; Woodland—3.6; Riverside—2.3.

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MAPC Metro Mayors Coalition Housing Task Force

• Compact: "After factoring in the housing demand created by... new workers, the increasing number of senior households, and the changing needs of existing residents, we estimate that the [15 municipalities of the] Metro Mayors Coalition will need to add 185,000 housing units from 2015–2030 in order to meet demand and reduce—or at least stabilize—housing costs." Pro-rated by population size, that means Newton should ideally add 1,000+ units a year through 2030. 

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Can 40R help address our housing shortage?

• 4/9/20 Newton-Needham Chamber panel with Bill Reyelt, Principal Planner, Smart Growth Programs, MA Dept. of Housing & Community Development; Julie Mercier, Community Devel. Director, Reading; David Gillespie, VP–Development, AvalonBay

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Affordable Housing Finance 101 (5/14/19 presentation to A Better Cambridge by Peter Roth, Lecturer, MIT Center for Real Estate & Department of Architecture)

• Presentation slides

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Cambridge Affordable Housing Overlay

• Approved by City Council on 10/5/20. It allows construction of 100% affordable, four-story apartment buildings anywhere in the city by right, entirely eliminates parking minimums, and eliminates or mitigates any zoning feature that impeded apartment construction.

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The Waning Influence of Housing Production on Public School Enrollment (Oct. 2017 MAPC research brief)

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Race-Class Narrative Project (Demos)

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Housing Justice Narrative Initiative  (PolicyLink)

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Fifty Years Of “The People v. HUD”: A Timeline of Significant Civil Rights Lawsuits and HUD Fair Housing Advances

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