Boston to update its zoning code

Developers and investors also require confidence in the market. No one’s going to finance those projects if practically no one is buying. See the sales at Winthrop Center and resales at MT, Ritz, 580 Washington, etc. Some of you are a bit oblivious when it comes to the whole concept of supply and demand. Five over ones in Dorchester, JP, Allston/Brighton are a million times more effective at alleviating the housing crunch than the glitzy towers that few buyers have demonstrated any interest in in recent years. A crunch at the bottom of the market doesn’t necessarily equate with demand at the top.
 
kmp1284 said:
Developers and investors also require confidence in the market. No one’s going to finance those projects if practically no one is buying. See the sales at Winthrop Center and resales at MT, Ritz, 580 Washington, etc. Some of you are a bit oblivious when it comes to the whole concept of supply and demand. Five over ones in Dorchester, JP, Allston/Brighton are a million times more effective at alleviating the housing crunch than the glitzy towers that few buyers have demonstrated any interest in in recent years. A crunch at the bottom of the market doesn’t necessarily equate with demand at the top.
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I think you're right about the current state of the market, but I don't see why that means that Boston shouldn't move forward with liberalizing downtown zoning.
 
kmp1284 said:
Developers and investors also require confidence in the market. No one’s going to finance those projects if practically no one is buying. See the sales at Winthrop Center and resales at MT, Ritz, 580 Washington, etc. Some of you are a bit oblivious when it comes to the whole concept of supply and demand. Five over ones in Dorchester, JP, Allston/Brighton are a million times more effective at alleviating the housing crunch than the glitzy towers that few buyers have demonstrated any interest in in recent years. A crunch at the bottom of the market doesn’t necessarily equate with demand at the top.
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I agree too. But, among the rational crowed on this forum, If I had to guess what frustrates many of us, it's not just what you describe pitting 60-story lux towers against outer-neighborhood 5/1s. It's: why is there nothing in the middle? Why are 8-14 story, mid-market offerings so untenable to investors and developers? Other international cities in developed nations elsewhere have figured it out. But it doesn't really exist here. I am not arguing these investors are acting irrationally; I have no doubt such, in Boston, are not in fact attractive economically.

My hypothesis is the issue falls not just with zoning, but with the intersection of building code and zoning. The U.S. doesn't have an economical way to build middle-size/mid-class urban residential structures.
 
Building these intermediate structures in West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Milton is exactly the solution. Go propose it and your family will never find your body.

Things are built in permissive environments and for better or worse it’s either the poor neighborhoods or already-dense areas that get the new projects. Upzoning the whole city would make it much more permissible to build all kinds of new structures but is a political death trap.
 
Justbuildit said:
Building these intermediate structures in West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Milton is exactly the solution. Go propose it and your family will never find your body.

Things are built in permissive environments and for better or worse it’s either the poor neighborhoods or already-dense areas that get the new projects. Upzoning the whole city would make it much more permissible to build all kinds of new structures but is a political death trap.
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I think I agree with the point you're trying to make, but my (I believe) different point is you basically can't economically build an 8-14 story residential building anywhere in the area these days due to U.S./local building code, elevator requirements, first responder access requirements, materials requirements, etc. And to be clear, I am 100% committed to safety and transparently adhering to requirements, but if other nations can do this safely, I think we're missing something. For instance, single stairwell with multiple exterior fire escapes is allowed some places. Smaller elevator sizes for buildings above a certain height are allowed some places. Here, the useable residential footprint for an 8-story just isn't doable. The kicker is that I am not convinced a twin-stairwell, 8-story with zero exterior fire escapes is necessarily safer than a single stairwell building with several well-placed exterior escapes. We stopped doing exterior escapes, despite other nations continuing to do them prevalently, etc. etc. My point is even if 8-stories was 100% allowable by zoning everywhere, we still would see almost none of them built. There's a lot of bloat in code that comes not just from a pure place of safety, but from trade groups lobbying for complexity in areas that suit their trade.
 
Oh I'm 100% behind you on this, and elsewhere I've mentioned the single vs double loaded staircase issue, including a template for people to write their local representatives to advocate for building code changes. This is #2 for me after required parking minima to reduce costs in building. There's the whole separate issue of general innovation in building methods from improved "modular" building to formworks and advanced materials. I obviously haven't run an analysis of costs to build in different neighborhoods, but there has to be a chance of vacant lots, dilapidated buildings, etc., that can pencil out to some 4-8 story multifamily construction in places that aren't Newmarket Square or Mass/Cass.

Even if all these reforms were implemented I think the political element would absolutely be a project killer and that doesn't change until there's some political will. At least the city is trying for some of that downtown.


Mid-rise single stair apartments

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, Boston Indicators, and Utile have a new report out advocating changing the Mass. building code to allow up to six-story single stair housing. This could be a game changer for building dense housing on small lots and allow for a greater variety of...
archboston.com
 
Justbuildit said:
Oh I'm 100% behind you on this, and elsewhere I've mentioned the single vs double loaded staircase issue, including a template for people to write their local representatives to advocate for building code changes. This is #2 for me after required parking minima to reduce costs in building. There's the whole separate issue of general innovation in building methods from improved "modular" building to formworks and advanced materials. I obviously haven't run an analysis of costs to build in different neighborhoods, but there has to be a chance of vacant lots, dilapidated buildings, etc., that can pencil out to some 4-8 story multifamily construction in places that aren't Newmarket Square or Mass/Cass.

Even if all these reforms were implemented I think the political element would absolutely be a project killer and that doesn't change until there's some political will. At least the city is trying for some of that downtown.


Mid-rise single stair apartments

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, Boston Indicators, and Utile have a new report out advocating changing the Mass. building code to allow up to six-story single stair housing. This could be a game changer for building dense housing on small lots and allow for a greater variety of...
archboston.com
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Completely agree it is a combination of really at least 3 things, connecting all of our points: economics, political will, and code. Solving only one likely won't solve it.

In the meantime, I present a delightful flickr album showcasing the exterior staircases of Tokyo (credit: jun560):
www.flickr.com

é常é段

Explore this photo album by jun560 on Flickr!
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com

I'm not saying we could replicate that here, more so, just that we could probably be a lot more creative with code updates, while still sustaining safety, if we tried. What I think a lot people forget in the historic comparative aspect of the housing affordability debate (i.e., "middle class housing purchasing power was so much better generations ago in the U.S.") is that it was so much cheaper and easier to build back then (though no doubt less safe). While inflation, politics, economic policy/rates, etc, no doubt are contributors, it's important to remember we are literally not building the same buildings as back then.
 
themissinglink said:

Mayor Michelle Wu announces passage of groundbreaking Net Zero Carbon Zoning | Bostonplans.org

Stay informed and involved. See news, press releases, and more.
www.bostonplans.org www.bostonplans.org
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When I see this kind of stuff, I always think about a point that local economist Ed Glaeser makes about nonlocal effects. The marginal person who can't live in Boston will likely move to a suburb or new construction in North Carolina so the good of decreasing local emissions is offset.
 
sean99090900 said:
When I see this kind of stuff, I always think about a point that local economist Ed Glaeser makes about nonlocal effects. The marginal person who can't live in Boston will likely move to a suburb or new construction in North Carolina so the good of decreasing local emissions is offset.
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Agreed. Reducing CO2 is so important, and this seems like such a bad way of going about it.

Just to drive this home, here's a website mapping CO2 emissions per household for every zip code in the country. Any neighborhood in Boston already produces a half or a third of the carbon emissions of nearby suburbs. This isn't because Boston has great, carbon-friendly housing stock. It's because people in Boston have to drive less and heating apartments is more efficient per capita. Wu is bragging this policy would reduce Boston's carbon footprint by fractions of a percent. By far the better policy is building more housing so people can live here and drastically reduce their carbon footprint.


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“ICYMI: The City of Boston wants to make it easier to build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) across the city. Read more about these efforts in a recent Boston Globe article that includes the voices of Mayor Michelle Wu, a resident attempting to build an external ADU in Roslindale and more!”

www.bostonglobe.com

‘Granny flats’ hit all the right notes in Boston’s push for ‘gentle density’ housing - The Boston Globe

Despite the Solomonic wisdom they represent — keeping families together in a crowded, high-rent city and providing rental income — ADUs have traditionally met with resistance.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

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Mentioned this in the Cambridge zoning thread, but the Planning Department is quietly proposing a significant loosening of zoning rules dubbed "Neighborhood Housing" (short survey for anyone interested). While the primary stated purpose is to allow for easier ADU construction, it sure looks like they also intend to legalize as much of what already exists as possible.

Stated goals include:
  • Enable the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
  • Simplify upkeep and renovation of existing homes
  • Reduce the time and cost of renovations and construction of new small-scale housing
  • Provide predictability to the community at large around what is and is not acceptable, removing the case-by-case variance pattern of the current appeals process

Depending on how this plays out, it's not hard to see thousands of new non-ADU units allowed with these reforms.
 
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