Multi-Family Zoning Requirements for MBTA Communities

[Stlin]

If the proposal is limited to new construction, with modern fire safety systems like sprinklers, then I think the fire safety folks have a lot less ground to stand on - a lot of the cases that IAFF likes to reach for as examples lack sprinklers or modern fire resistant construction. (Not withstanding the fact that "lightweight" modern construction methods and materials can be much more vulnerable)

The building design element is really more important than the cost or square footage element to an extent that I don't think the casual observer of this proposed change really understands. The "family-sized apartments" that so many clamor for does not fit well at all in the confines of double-loaded corridor design, which is a product of multiple-staircase requirements. If you allow a cluster of a few apartments to be built around a central staircase -- as is common in cities all over the world -- it unlocks a building type that has been regulated out of existence in the US, and that building type can fit in lots that today would not work for typical five-over-one. It also allows smaller apartment buildings (but not smaller apartments) that can be taken on by smaller developers with less capital and resources, leveling the playing field on the supply side.

The goal of the regulatory change is not to "build the same five-over-ones but save money on fewer staircases," it is to "allow new building forms that don't work with multiple staircases."

Up next on the docket should be elevator reform, as North America has also regulated the smaller-and-more-standardized elevators used in the rest of the world out of existence. Do both of these and you'll be able to fit, for example, a seven-story building with twenty-six three-bedroom corner apartments plus ground-floor retail on a lot of 10k - 15k sf.

Your archetypal urbanist's dream apartment buildings in Barcelona or Paris -- or even New York -- simply don't work if every building is required to have two internal staircases separated by corridors between units.

I generally agree, except for the elevator item - elevators are basically modular as it is already, and given generalized federal elevator regulations... I would be surprised if elevators being installed in the US are anything but practically off the shelf. The single person sized elevators found in some older European buildings just will never be legal here... so not worth bothering with? Unlike Europe, our elevators basically are built to satsify ADA requirements that they don't have - minimium dimensions are intended to allow a wheelchair to turn around, but bigger can be preferred by developers - and notably... nothing requires redundant elevators in residential structures? (Which is probably best practice for disability access.)

That said... an average elevator shaft is what, 8x10? If its only serving a small number of units downsizing somewhat closer to ADA minimiums is eminently plausible, so a single, smaller elevator shaft co-located with the single stair is hardly outside of the realm of possibility. The issue then is whether more elevators is cheaper than the floor space for a double loaded corridor, which is much more nuanced.

 

[ritchiew]

I generally agree, except for the elevator item - elevators are basically modular as it is already, and given generalized federal elevator regulations... I would be surprised if elevators being installed in the US are anything but practically off the shelf.

My understanding is this this unfortunately isn't correct. The rest of the world has basically converged on some European standards, but the US hasn't in a bunch of way.

Here's an opinion piece about it and a few quotes. The whole piece is interesting

Opinion | The American Elevator Explains Why Housing Costs Have Skyrocketed

An illness led Stephen Smith to study why America has so few elevators. What he learned explains why housing costs are so high.

www.nytimes.com

Elevators in North America have become over-engineered, bespoke, handcrafted and expensive pieces of equipment that are unaffordable in all the places where they are most needed. Special interests here have run wild with an outdated, inefficient, overregulated system.

The first thing to notice about our elevators is that, like many things in America, they are huge. New elevators outside the U.S. are typically sized to accommodate a person in a large wheelchair plus somebody standing behind it. American elevators have ballooned to about twice that size, driven by a drip-drip-drip of regulations, each motivated by a slightly different concern — first accessibility, then accommodation for ambulance stretchers, then even bigger stretchers.

Not only do we have our own elevator code, but individual U.S. jurisdictions modify it further. More accurate and efficient electronic testing practices, for example, are still mostly viewed with suspicion by the nearly 100 boards and jurisdictions that regulate elevator safety in North America. (The exact number in the regulatory patchwork is hard to nail down.)

Architects have dreamed of modular construction for decades, in which entire rooms are built in factories and then shipped on flatbed trucks to sites, for lower costs and greater precision. But we can’t even put elevators together in factories in America, because the elevator union’s contract forbids even basic forms of preassembly and prefabrication that have become standard in elevators in the rest of the world. The union and manufacturers bicker over which holes can be drilled in a factory and which must be drilled (or redrilled) on site. Manufacturers even let elevator and escalator mechanics take some components apart and put them back together on site to preserve work for union members, since it’s easier than making separate, less-assembled versions just for the United States.

 

[Stlin]

My understanding is this this unfortunately isn't correct. The rest of the world has basically converged on some European standards, but the US hasn't in a bunch of way.

Here's an opinion piece about it and a few quotes. The whole piece is interesting

Opinion | The American Elevator Explains Why Housing Costs Have Skyrocketed

An illness led Stephen Smith to study why America has so few elevators. What he learned explains why housing costs are so high.

www.nytimes.com

Thx, I'll read into it a bit more, but from first impressions that sounds a lot more like the vagaries of a particularly strong union contract than government regulation.

 

[Scott]

We live in a bottom line society where half of the people who work full time for many large employers qualify for food stamps. It is unfair to say that other places don't have our labor problems because of the unions, and not point out that in Japan and Europe they have an appropriate social safety net that you commonly find in developed nations. Unions and employers in the US are forced to bargain for the most basic things like healthcare that are granted in those places and it clearly causes problems.

 

[ritchiew]

Thx, I'll read into it a bit more, but from first impressions that sounds a lot more like the vagaries of a particularly strong union contract than government regulation.

Some of it is strong union contracts, sure. (The article mentions that, but I don't know how widespread it is.) But having states and cities writing or tweaking their own elevator codes so that there are maybe a 100 different codes across the US and Canada, that is a government regulation problem. When smaller jurisdictions come up with their own codes, it doesn't make sense for many or any companies to really commit to mass production, and then buying any elevator requires a lot more expensive customization. And back to your original point, that kind of fragmented regulation means that it's actually hard to just get something "off the shelf."

 

[JumboBuc]

I generally agree, except for the elevator item - elevators are basically modular as it is already, and given generalized federal elevator regulations... I would be surprised if elevators being installed in the US are anything but practically off the shelf. The single person sized elevators found in some older European buildings just will never be legal here... so not worth bothering with? Unlike Europe, our elevators basically are built to satsify ADA requirements that they don't have - minimium dimensions are intended to allow a wheelchair to turn around, but bigger can be preferred by developers - and notably... nothing requires redundant elevators in residential structures? (Which is probably best practice for disability access.)

That said... an average elevator shaft is what, 8x10? If its only serving a small number of units downsizing somewhat closer to ADA minimiums is eminently plausible, so a single, smaller elevator shaft co-located with the single stair is hardly outside of the realm of possibility. The issue then is whether more elevators is cheaper than the floor space for a double loaded corridor, which is much more nuanced.

My understanding is this this unfortunately isn't correct. The rest of the world has basically converged on some European standards, but the US hasn't in a bunch of way.

Here's an opinion piece about it and a few quotes. The whole piece is interesting

Opinion | The American Elevator Explains Why Housing Costs Have Skyrocketed

An illness led Stephen Smith to study why America has so few elevators. What he learned explains why housing costs are so high.

www.nytimes.com

Here's another relevant piece, citing the work of the author of the NYTimes piece:

How One Ridiculous Rule About Elevators Explains America’s Housing Crisis

One man’s quest to fix the way we build.

slate.com

Two decades ago, the fire marshal in Glendale, Arizona, was concerned that the elevators in a new stadium wouldn’t be large enough to accommodate a 7-foot stretcher held flat. Tilting a stretcher to make it fit in the cab, the marshal worried, might jeopardize the treatment of a patient with a back injury. Maybe our elevators should be bigger, he thought.

The marshal put this idea to the International Code Council, the organization that governs the construction of American buildings. After minor feedback and minimal research (the marshal measured three stretchers in the Phoenix area), the suggestion was incorporated into the ICC’s model code. Based on one man’s hunch, most of the country’s new elevators grew by several square feet overnight. The medical benefits were not quantified, and the cost impact was reported as “none.”

It is one of the many small rules that have divorced our national building standards from the rest of the world. According to research by the building policy wonk Stephen Smith, who recounted this story in a report last year, changes like these are one reason it now costs three times as much to install an elevator in the U.S. as in Switzerland or South Korea.

Any standard that is implemented under the assumption that unintended outcomes are not possible is a standard that should not be followed.

One thing I'm always struck by when I'm in Europe is how common both tower cranes and elevators are. I was in a (new build) two-family Airbnb a few years ago in the Alps and it had an elevator from the ground floor to the upstairs unit. And I'm not talking about some rickety old single-person elevator like you'd find in a pre-war apartment building in Rome or Paris; this was a modern system with stainless steel and an LED screen built by a company with a German-sounding name.

All around the region (France and Switzerland) I also saw countless miniature tower cranes being used to build structures as small as single-family homes.

You would never find either of these in the US, as both tower cranes and elevators are subject to so many regulations in the name of "safety and accessibility" that they're completely infeasible at a scale so small. But the end result of these regulations is often buildings that are less safe and less accessible, to say nothing of cost.

 

[themissinglink]

Holden Town Meeting overwhelmingly rejects plan to comply with state housing law​

Town Meeting voters, in a packed auditorium at Wachusett Regional High School on Monday, March 2, sent a message to state Attorney General Andrea Campbell. Bring on the lawsuit.
Less than a year after Town Meeting rejected a proposal to comply with the state's MBTA Communities Act, the body once again, this time after being sued by Campbell, declined to comply.
The “no” vote, which garnered a greater than two-to-one margin, indicates the town will now be served the lawsuit, a legal procedure Campbell had been holding off on, town officials said, ahead of the vote.

 

[Blackbird]

Cut them off! No state tax money for roads, schools, plows or anything else.

 

[DZH22]

I'm a little bit confused. I checked the commuter rail map and you have one line to the north, going through Leominster, Fitchburg, and ending at "Wachusett." The other line is well to the south, going through Westborough, Grafton, and ultimately ending in Worcester. Why should Holden be subject to this law at all? This feels like some serious overreach on the state's part. Clearly there is nothing within walkable distance to a commuter rail from any part of town. If we're looking at a small town northwest of Worcester and saying their compliance is part of the state's housing solution then we have lost the plot, period.

 

[TheRatmeister]

When compliance looks like, or at least can look like, a relatively small area that's zoned to allow duplexes, I'm not exactly overflowing with sympathy for any town really. You don't get to run a town like a gated community in a white flight suburb of Atlanta.

 

[themissinglink]

Holden is subject to this law because it borders a city/town with a Commuter Rail station. Adjacent communities like Holden are only required to zone for 750 units (no requirement to build), which isn't a big ask.

Holden isn't a "small town", it's a midsize bedroom community. It has a population of ~20,000, and it's part of the Worcester Metropolitan area. Why shouldn't they be subject to this law? The housing shortage isn't just a Greater Boston issue; it's a Massachusetts issue.

 

[KCasiglio]

One piece I'll concede, as as has been mentioned for other areas where's there's been conflict, I don't think it would be a big ask of the state to help set up WRTA service between the Worcester commuter rail and Holden if they do the zoning. Though for all I know Holden would actively oppose that as well, in which case yeah they can piss off.

This feels like some serious overreach on the state's part.

Subjective and a matter of perspective. I'd say zoning regs that aren't serving a public safety/health purpose are serious overreach on a locality's part. I'd much rather have government overreach in the direction of less government control.

 

[DZH22]

Holden is subject to this law because it borders a city/town with a Commuter Rail station. Adjacent communities like Holden are only required to zone for 750 units (no requirement to build), which isn't a big ask.

It's probably a 10-20 minute drive to the last stop on either line. From there either line is well over an hour to Boston. So we should somehow treat them the same way we'd treat, say, Woburn, which is about a 25 minute ride?

Also I looked and they would have put housing at a rock quarry. This is where we are focused? I mean, we are a desirable place to live strictly because of being near Boston. These people are going to have 2 hour commutes in each direction while Boston proper has basically run straight into a brick wall with its own housing construction. It's such a drop in the bucket, and even if every town complied we'd just become a suburban hellscape of a state while Boston continues to underbuild where people actually want to live.

 

[DZH22]

Subjective and a matter of perspective. I'd say zoning regs that aren't serving a public safety/health purpose are serious overreach on a locality's part. I'd much rather have government overreach in the direction of less government control.

To me, keeping the forests intact serves the health of the state. I don't want to clear cut forests to put up some barely-dense housing when we should instead be telling Boston to turn their 3-6 story housing proposals into 20-50 stories. It also meets the "green" mandates better to have more housing in the already dense cities of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, etc than to put them in far-flung suburbs. The carbon footprints per unit are much smaller in the cities. But I guess you can't have a Massachusetts law unless it's paired with wild hypocrisy.

 

[Justbuildit]

Also I looked and they would have put housing at a rock quarry. This is where we are focused?

No, that's where Holden elected to place their overlay, which seems like a really bad idea. Maybe one so bad that it was designed to fail in the first place. The "They" in your post is literally your own town deciding where they want to put the district. Seems bad.

even if every town complied we'd just become a suburban hellscape of a state while Boston continues to underbuild where people actually want to live.

In your own screenshot, any one of those strip malls could have a zoning overlay for medium density housing at no more than 3 stories and this whole thing would be done. That's it. No worse suburban hellscape than the McDonald's or urgent care strip malls that are already there.

To me, keeping the forests intact serves the health of the state. I don't want to clear cut forests to put up some barely-dense housing

Then put them on the asphalt expanses currently fronting the one major road in town. Also, the winding street suburbs in your own picture weren't placed there by God. They were forests clear cut for housing in decades past.

In fact, just outside of downtown there's a swath of forest already partially bulldozed with vacant lots for sale. Some are so recent that the trees are still there from satellite view. Is this an affront to nature? Did the town protest the clear cutting of this forest for a few dozen single family homes? Why would a paper exercise taking a similar sized lot of forest land for townhomes lead to the self-inflicted wound of getting sued by the state? Basically every other city has obeyed the law that is in force. It costs $0 and can be done in a way to reduce the odds of any housing getting built. Failure to comply is obstinance and I hope every holdout at this phase gets papers served very soon.

 

[DZH22]

The "They" in your post is literally your own town deciding where they want to put the district. Seems bad.

It's not my town. I only knew where it was by pulling it up on the map. I could drive to Boston in the same amount of time it would take most of the Holden residents to drive to the commuter rail.

 

[Justbuildit]

I mean, we are a desirable place to live strictly because of being near Boston.

You can understand my confusion.

 

[BOS2BON]

https://www.holdenma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif4526/f/file/file/holden_zoningmap_36x48-8-1_1.pdf

This is Holden's zoning map. I've included a screenshot of the districts and their lot sizes. Allowing for smaller lot sizes with duplexes near their town center seems like one way to comply, at least on paper, with the law without cutting down more woods. I'm sure there are tons of ways to creatively zone to "comply" with this law without getting the housing actually built.

 

[KCasiglio]

To me, keeping the forests intact serves the health of the state. I don't want to clear cut forests to put up some barely-dense housing when we should instead be telling Boston to turn their 3-6 story housing proposals into 20-50 stories. It also meets the "green" mandates better to have more housing in the already dense cities of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, etc than to put them in far-flung suburbs. The carbon footprints per unit are much smaller in the cities. But I guess you can't have a Massachusetts law unless it's paired with wild hypocrisy.

I think to frame this as the tradeoff is disingenuous. As others have pointed out the only ones creating a "trees vs housing" discussion is Holden, by their own choice. Densify the town center and get a WRTA route there. Everybody wins.

I don't think you'll find anyone here who disagrees with you that Boston/Camberville and the rest of the inner core should be building densely at a much higher rate and leveraging existing transit assets as much as possible. But the housing crisis isn't exclusive to those munis either and we shouldn't further encourage anything outside the inner core to be exclusive estate towns for only the wealthiest among us. As I've cited before in either this or another of the housing threads, the median home in places like Belmont and Wellesley were affordable for about 15-20% of households in MA in 1980. To get back to that kind of opportunity and integration requires more than just condo towers in the inner core.

 

[DZH22]

You can understand my confusion.

If Boston wasn't there, and/or instead was some shittier city, all land within commuting distance would be substantially cheaper. That's what it means, people are paying an absolute premium to live in Metro Boston, not because a town like Holden has more to offer than any other leafy suburb in the country.