General Boston Discussion

[#bancars]

Can This Man Blow up Boston Development's Status Quo without Destroying the City?

Last year, Arthur Jemison took over as head of the Boston Planning and Development Agency with thegoal of reforming the notoriously developer-friendly organization.

www.bostonmagazine.com

 

[stick n move]

Good read. I particularly liked this part

“One of the cities Jemison told me the BPDA is looking to as a model is Seattle, which undertook a series of incremental zoning reforms between 2017 and and 2019, and is on the way to hitting a five-year record in new apartment construction.”

I think seattle is a good model to shoot for. The amount of housing and transit they have built and are building is impressive.

 

[theSil]

Wu is proposing a rent control bill that would allow annual rent increases up to 6 percent higher than the federal government’s Consumer Price Index, i.e. if inflation is 2 percent, landlords could increase rent by up to 8 percent. Rent increases would be capped at 10 percent.

Wu floats long-awaited rent control proposal, but many hurdles remain - The Boston Globe

The proposal — a signature issue for Wu — faces a long road to final approval at City Hall and on Beacon Hill.

www.bostonglobe.com

 

[Charlie_mta]

Good read. I particularly liked this part

“One of the cities Jemison told me the BPDA is looking to as a model is Seattle, which undertook a series of incremental zoning reforms between 2017 and and 2019, and is on the way to hitting a five-year record in new apartment construction.”

I think seattle is a good model to shoot for. The amount of housing and transit they have built and are building is impressive.

Seattle is one of the most expensive cities in the US for apartments rentals, condos, and houses. It also has a huge number of homeless encampments, in large part due to that super-expensive market.

 

[#bancars]

Seattle is one of the most expensive cities in the US for apartments rentals, condos, and houses. It also has a huge number of homeless encampments, in large part due to that super-expensive market.

Seattle has also grown faster in the last decade than pretty much any large city in the country, but has managed to slow rent price increases and in some instances even level them off. Seattle outbuilds all but some sprawling Sun Belt metros; it would be a much more expensive city given the population growth pressures without the impressive growth figures. It's definitely a model Boston should be emulating, especially given how similar the two cities are in a lot of ways in terms of economy, population, etc.

 

[737900er]

Wu is proposing a rent control bill that would allow annual rent increases up to 6 percent higher than the federal government’s Consumer Price Index, i.e. if inflation is 2 percent, landlords could increase rent by up to 8 percent. Rent increases would be capped at 10 percent.

Wu floats long-awaited rent control proposal, but many hurdles remain - The Boston Globe

The proposal — a signature issue for Wu — faces a long road to final approval at City Hall and on Beacon Hill.

www.bostonglobe.com

This is very nitpicky, but I don't understand why it would be tied to the national CPI rather than the local one that BLS publishes.
Also, if we are going to go down this road we should have special rules for landlords who include heat/gas in their rents -- the Boston area faces unique energy challenges from the rest of the country.

 

[DZH22]

The problem with the "barely reasonable" height limits is also illustrated nicely in Seattle. They have a huge section of the city now that's all exactly 440', and then another section that steps up where it's all 484', etc. Basically, it encourages every single building in the area to be the exact same height. Imagine the Seaport effect, but spread to other neighborhoods and affecting/infecting the main skyline.

The other issue is that, hey, 400' would be exactly our 40th tallest building. So are they saying that nothing will be allowed that's taller than our 40th tallest building? I'm having a bit of a hard time fully deciphering this.

 

[WhackyCharlie]

Agree that there are neither conspiracies nor magic bullets to fix things. I’m a very reasonable person but radical in a few ways, especially around zoning (and realize those ideas will never come to pass). I’m running on two simple principles:

1. Some candidates/policies are more favorable than others
2. The actual effort to shift the balance in meaningful ways is relatively small, especially in a place like Boston where true partisan politics are nonexistent (yay one party rule?)

Michelle Wu the Mayor of Boston is actually from Chicago, IL. This mayor truly knows what Boston needs.

 

[Justbuildit]

Who am I to argue with the wise people of Boston? AEG was her opponent and is as Boston as it gets. Seems like the electorate didn’t care. Whatever you think of Wu she did her time on city council and ran a campaign that was effective. Are you suggesting Wu is too…foreign to be mayor?

 

[stick n move]

Commentary | Wu’s plan doesn’t fix the real cause of the housing crisis: NIMBYs



“The reason that abolishing the BRA is so difficult was left between the lines in the speech: Blowing up the development agency will not solve the problems that are causing the city’s housing crisis. One of the few concrete goals Wu laid out in the address was getting Boston’s population back up to 800,000 residents. Accommodating those new Bostonians would likely require a 20 percent increase in the number of housing units in the city, meaning about 55,000 new ones being built, which would bring Boston’s total number of housing units to almost 300,000.

Wu has long pointed to the BRA as the reason for Boston’s housing crisis, but the agency is not an impediment to construction in the city. Responsibility instead lies with the city’s many NIMBY — Not In My Backyard — residents who dominate Boston’s neighborhood groups, civic associations, and community development processes. They are responsible for tens, or even hundreds of thousands of missing units in the city, and the resulting lack of supply keeps relentlessly pushing up the costs of renting and buying.

The coverage of the fight to build an apartment building at the Shawmut T station shows how the city continues to miss out on adding housing units. The developer acquired the property in 2016 and proposed 100 units. Over the last six years, that number has been lowered and it now stands at 79. Neighbors who oppose the project want just 27.

The residents at Shawmut are exercising the same privilege that their peers have used in contesting hundreds of projects over the last several decades. In Boston and across Massachusetts, objectors are allowed to delay, even derail, housing developments that need to be built to meet the demand for housing that is causing our housing crisis.

Yet, how to deal with the Shawmut neighbors and their peers was not addressed in Wu’s State of the City speech.

Changing processes, renaming agencies, and moving staff around a reporting chart will not solve the central issue that Boston and Massachusetts faces: Not enough housing has been built in the city and the region over the last several decades. Greater Boston is hundreds of thousands of housing units short, and the last large-scale housing developments in Boston were constructed by the agency that Wu is now aiming to dismantle: the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which today is known as the Boston Planning and Development Authority.

Until Mayor Wu is honest with the public that more housing needs to be built, whether or not a few Bostonians think that more units will not fit with their neighborhood’s character or that they will cast shadows on their yard, no amount of blue ribbon commissions or well-attended speeches can fix the housing crisis.”

https://www.dotnews.com/2023/wu-s-plan-doesn-t-fix-real-cause-housing-crisis-nimbys

 

[Charlie_mta]

Commentary | Wu’s plan doesn’t fix the real cause of the housing crisis: NIMBYs



The reason that abolishing the BRA is so difficult was left between the lines in the speech: Blowing up the development agency will not solve the problems that are causing the city’s housing crisis. One of the few concrete goals Wu laid out in the address was getting Boston’s population back up to 800,000 residents. Accommodating those new Bostonians would likely require a 20 percent increase in the number of housing units in the city, meaning about 55,000 new ones being built, which would bring Boston’s total number of housing units to almost 300,000.

Wu has long pointed to the BRA as the reason for Boston’s housing crisis, but the agency is not an impediment to construction in the city. Responsibility instead lies with the city’s many NIMBY — Not In My Backyard — residents who dominate Boston’s neighborhood groups, civic associations, and community development processes. They are responsible for tens, or even hundreds of thousands of missing units in the city, and the resulting lack of supply keeps relentlessly pushing up the costs of renting and buying.

The coverage of the fight to build an apartment building at the Shawmut T station shows how the city continues to miss out on adding housing units. The developer acquired the property in 2016 and proposed 100 units. Over the last six years, that number has been lowered and it now stands at 79. Neighbors who oppose the project want just 27.

The residents at Shawmut are exercising the same privilege that their peers have used in contesting hundreds of projects over the last several decades. In Boston and across Massachusetts, objectors are allowed to delay, even derail, housing developments that need to be built to meet the demand for housing that is causing our housing crisis.

Yet, how to deal with the Shawmut neighbors and their peers was not addressed in Wu’s State of the City speech.

Changing processes, renaming agencies, and moving staff around a reporting chart will not solve the central issue that Boston and Massachusetts faces: Not enough housing has been built in the city and the region over the last several decades. Greater Boston is hundreds of thousands of housing units short, and the last large-scale housing developments in Boston were constructed by the agency that Wu is now aiming to dismantle: the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which today is known as the Boston Planning and Development Authority.

Until Mayor Wu is honest with the public that more housing needs to be built, whether or not a few Bostonians think that more units will not fit with their neighborhood’s character or that they will cast shadows on their yard, no amount of blue ribbon commissions or well-attended speeches can fix the housing crisis.

https://www.dotnews.com/2023/wu-s-plan-doesn-t-fix-real-cause-housing-crisis-nimbys

You hit the nail on the head. The robust development of low-income public housing projects in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville during the 1930s thru the1950s, and then the second wave in Boston's 1960s urban renewal projects, would been on a much smaller scale with today's NIMBYs.

 

[stick n move]

Massachusetts is home to the fastest-growing startup city. It’s not Boston.

“
The venture capital market may have cooled off in 2022, with Massachusetts startups raising around $19.5 billion compared to $35.7 billion in 2021, but some cities across the country — and here in the Bay State — still saw rapid growth.

Somerville was the U.S. city that saw the most rapid growth in startup funding, according to New Hampshire-based investment firm York IE. The new “fastest-growing startup city” beat out contenders like Irvine, Houston and Boulder…”

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/...shington-somerville-fastest-growing-city.html

 

[JohnAKeith]

You hit the nail on the head. The robust development of low-income public housing projects in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville during the 1930s thru the1950s, and then the second wave in Boston's 1960s urban renewal projects, would been on a much smaller scale with today's NIMBYs.

Well she gave Boston more bike lanes so isn't that enough?

 

[DZH22]

BPDA approves hike on housing fees for lab and commercial buildings

BPDA approves hike on housing fees for lab and commercial buildings - The Boston Globe

The city’s planning and development arm board on Thursday approved a measure to double the fees developers of life science projects pay towards affordable housing and workforce development.

www.bostonglobe.com

 

[Blackbird]

Commentary | Wu’s plan doesn’t fix the real cause of the housing crisis: NIMBYs



“The reason that abolishing the BRA is so difficult was left between the lines in the speech: Blowing up the development agency will not solve the problems that are causing the city’s housing crisis. One of the few concrete goals Wu laid out in the address was getting Boston’s population back up to 800,000 residents. Accommodating those new Bostonians would likely require a 20 percent increase in the number of housing units in the city, meaning about 55,000 new ones being built, which would bring Boston’s total number of housing units to almost 300,000.

Wu has long pointed to the BRA as the reason for Boston’s housing crisis, but the agency is not an impediment to construction in the city. Responsibility instead lies with the city’s many NIMBY — Not In My Backyard — residents who dominate Boston’s neighborhood groups, civic associations, and community development processes. They are responsible for tens, or even hundreds of thousands of missing units in the city, and the resulting lack of supply keeps relentlessly pushing up the costs of renting and buying.

The coverage of the fight to build an apartment building at the Shawmut T station shows how the city continues to miss out on adding housing units. The developer acquired the property in 2016 and proposed 100 units. Over the last six years, that number has been lowered and it now stands at 79. Neighbors who oppose the project want just 27.

The residents at Shawmut are exercising the same privilege that their peers have used in contesting hundreds of projects over the last several decades. In Boston and across Massachusetts, objectors are allowed to delay, even derail, housing developments that need to be built to meet the demand for housing that is causing our housing crisis.

Yet, how to deal with the Shawmut neighbors and their peers was not addressed in Wu’s State of the City speech.

Changing processes, renaming agencies, and moving staff around a reporting chart will not solve the central issue that Boston and Massachusetts faces: Not enough housing has been built in the city and the region over the last several decades. Greater Boston is hundreds of thousands of housing units short, and the last large-scale housing developments in Boston were constructed by the agency that Wu is now aiming to dismantle: the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which today is known as the Boston Planning and Development Authority.

Until Mayor Wu is honest with the public that more housing needs to be built, whether or not a few Bostonians think that more units will not fit with their neighborhood’s character or that they will cast shadows on their yard, no amount of blue ribbon commissions or well-attended speeches can fix the housing crisis.”

https://www.dotnews.com/2023/wu-s-plan-doesn-t-fix-real-cause-housing-crisis-nimbys

I'm a bit confused about how the BRA relates (if at all) to re-zoning the city. Like NIMBYs get most of their power from the ZBA, and the ZBA in turn gets its power from the city's restrictive zoning laws. When I've heard Wu speak about re-zoning the city (presumably to remove power from the ZBA and NIMBYs) she always does so in the same sentence as dissolving the BRA/BPDA. Are the two things really so unrelated?

 

[stick n move]

Boston makes outdoor dining permanent — but the North End will have different rules

“On-street outdoor dining created additional revenue opportunities for restaurants in the North End but the neighborhood's density has made for particular challenges.”

“Boston is making its outdoor dining program permanent, but is continuing to apply different rules in the North End, where restaurateurs, neighbors and city officials have been at odds on how to have outdoor dining in such a dense neighborhood…”

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/...akes-outdoor-dining-permanent-but-the-no.html

 

[Java King]

I found this very interesting. Maybe we have even more Lab Buildings than Dunkin Donuts? LOL

Boston is the World’s Largest Biotech Hub | EPM Scientific

Boston is now the largest Biotech hub in the world. Find out more about the growth of Biotech in Boston.

www.epmscientific.com

 

[Hubman]

FYI Google Earth updated their imagery again. Not as many interesting developments from last time, but you can see Cambridge, Assembly and the Seaport filling out as well as the new towers being finished up downtown. The most impressive thing is probably how you can now get an aerial view of how absolutely giant the new USQ buildings are compared to their surroundings.

 

[ritchiew]

Hey, I've been working on a pet project some might be interested in -- a wall sized map of the Boston area. I have no background in this, and probably took on too big a project for a first try, but it was fun.
My good-enough version (which I'm waiting to get from the printer) is 60x68 inches. At 4 inches to the mile, it covers from the top of the Orange line to the bottom of the Red. From George's Island in the east to the start of Waltham in the west. And it includes city borders, neighborhoods, train lines, universities, museums, theaters, and other landmarks.

Here is a super-scaled down version and some 1x1 mile snippets. I'm happy to share the whole thing with anyone interested, but the files are really enormous.

 

[DZH22]

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Boston City Council approves rent control proposal, BPDA restructuring - The Boston Globe

Mayor Michelle Wu notched a pair of important victories, but both policy changes require sign-off from the state Legislature and governor before they go into effect.

www.bostonglobe.com