Article 10 for Fall Town Meeting

Article 10 would lower the amount of off-street parking required for multi-family residential development.  Below is some general background information on the Article, and you can follow the link below to download the full text and explanation.  Please feel free to write to me with any questions or comments.  I will be using this blog to post information and updates about the article as we approach Town Meeting, which begins Tuesday, November 16.

Passage of any zoning change requires a 2/3 majority vote in Town Meeting, which is a difficult threshold to meet. Therefore, it is important for anyone in favor of this measure to call or write your Town Meeting representatives.  Download a full listing of Town Meeting Member's contact information by clicking Town Meeting Members A-Z on the right. You can determine your Precinct here, if you don't know it by typing in your address.

It is also very important that supporters voice their support in person at the various review meetings that occur prior to Town Meeting.  This is the public's chance to express their thoughts.  Direct input from the public is very influential to those Committee members considering Town policy.  Please show your support for lower parking requirements by attending these upcoming meetings.

Upcoming meetings:

Zoning By-Law Committee
Monday, September 27, 2010
6:30 pm  Room 103  Brookline Town Hall

Notes:  The meeting begins at 6:30, but there are four other articles that will be discussed prior to Article 10, interested parties should arrive by 7:30, although it is possible the order may be changed.

Planning Board
Thursday, September 30, 2010
7:30 pm 6th Floor Selectman's Hearing Room Brookline Town Hall
Send Comments to Polly Selkoe.  Make sure you put Article 10 Comments for Planning Board in Subject line and ask her to distribute your comments.
Notes: The meeting begins at 7:30, but there are four other articles that will be presented prior to Article 10, interested parties should arrive by 8:30.

Advisory Committee/ Planning and Regulatory Sub-Committee
Monday, October 4, 2010
7:30 pm  Rm 103 Brookline Town Hall
Send Comments to Neil Wishinsky. Make sure you put Article 10 Comments in your Subject Line and ask him to distribute your comments to the Committee.

I'm proposing Article 10 for Fall Town Meeting.  My proposal would lower the off-street parking requirements for multi-family residential parking. Right now, Brookline's Zoning By-law requires 2 or 2.3 parking spaces for every multi-family dwelling unit built, even studio and one-bedroom units near transit. Each parking space requires 330 sq. ft. of space, so in the case of small units, the amount of space devoted to parking is close to the size of the unit!

My proposal would lower the minimum parking required to between 0.8 to 1.4 spaces per unit, depending on the size of the unit.  These rates are very similar to the parking requirements in Brookline's By-law from 1962 to 1986, namely 0.8 to 1.3. Prior to 1962, the only parking requirement was the one space per multi-family unit that has been required since 1922.

It was only recently that two substantial increases, one in 1987 and then another in 2000 brought our requirements to their current peak of 2 and 2.3 spaces per unit.  The new proposed rates have been crafted to reflect Brookline-specific auto-ownership and travel behavior for each dwelling unit type.

A full text of the Article and a detailed explanation (two separate files) can be downloaded from the Town of Brookline website here:

Town Meeting Warrant Articles and Explanations

Our existing requirements exceed those common in suburban locations, where the only way to get anywhere is to drive a car. Brookline is not like this, which is one of the reasons so many of us find it such a desirable place to live. We have options. We can walk or bike to our neighborhood stores, schools and parks and we can take public transit to employment, culture and recreation.

Our history as a streetcar suburb created the land use pattern we find so pleasingly human scaled.  Blocks are small, houses are close together, concentrated pedestrian commercial areas surrounded by leafy neighborhoods. Denser housing nearest the T lines. It all happened before the automobile became ubiquitous.  An auto-oriented development pattern would look quite different.  This is for one simple fact: automobiles take up a great deal of space.  They spend 95% of their time parked and for each car there exists approximately 4 parking spaces.

The negatives of requiring too much parking have become apparent, we:

1) Lose more of our limited green and open space to pavement for excess parking we don't need.

2) Threaten Historic Structures.  Re-use or expansion of existing buildings becomes impossible with the high parking requirements, thereby incentivizing the tearing down of historic buildings.

3) Degrade building design. First floors become parking. Facades become garage fronts and side yards are driveways.  Buildings become taller and bigger to recoup the cost of the parking and to accommodate the sq. footage desired on the same lot.

4) Decrease Housing Diversity.  The extra costs of the parking are added onto the cost of housing, smaller units are not built and the continuing maintenance costs are born by residents.  Occupants are not given the opportunity to save household transportation expenditures from opting out of purchasing excess parking.

5) Incentivize Auto Use and Degrade Pedestrian Environment.  Mandating excess parking encourages excess auto ownership, shifting individuals away from other modes.  More autos, driveways, curb cuts and garages makes it harder  and less pleasant to walk.

Over-Building Brookline: One "Preservation" at a Time

or Extreme Building: The New Normal? In my previous post, I wrote about the threat to our historic homes from development interests looking to tear down homes in order to extract maximum value from the high cost housing market in Brookline. An older home is found and purchased often in a distressed or stressed sale condition, which can then be replaced by a multi-unit building. In a recent Boston Globe article entitled "Neighbors Decry Development of Historic Sites", Jeffrey Feuerman is quoted as saying, "You can get a bigger project with more units with a demolition".  He went on to say that, "...Keeping the historic elements of such properties is not prohibitively more expensive than tearing them down and starting fresh, it takes longer, often included expensive surprises, is harder to build and is less attractive to buyers". (This coming from the same individual who was listing his preservation award winning, three bedroom unit in a renovated 1855 carriage house on Harvard Avenue for more than 1.5 million.) I don't know about you, but I know plenty of buyers who place a premium on authentic historic architecture and character.

As a further point in favor of demolition, Feuerman went on to say that "single family homes on such sites means much lower tax collections than a new multi-unit building. A quality condominium complex will also translate into higher property values for nearby properties.  A single-family is not the highest and best functional use of the property." Spoken like a true developer. However, his claims about value are questionable. When the adjoining property's views, light, air and trees are removed to make way for these new condos, it clearly diminishes that property's value. When the street scape is harmed by the loss of front yards, historic homes and trees, some of the publics' collective ownership value is taken. There will come a point when Brookline will lose enough of these things that the "quality of life" premium that property owners in Brookline enjoy will be gone. "Highest and best use" means only that use that will make the most money for the individual property owner or developer. It fails to account for what is most valuable or best for the Community. Further, while tax collections may be a bit higher for condominiums rather than a single family house, there are increased costs to the town associated with additional residential development too, which may or may not be off set by the increased tax revenue, such as Schools, police, fire, open space and recreation, libraries, trash, roads, etc. It is not a clear "win" for the Town fiscally, and clearly not a win for abutters, whose property values are in fact more likely to decline.

My point here is not to say that all new development is bad. But it is to say that we need to think critically when we hear these "truisms", like "highest and best use" bandied about. But more importantly, we need to recognize, protect, and build upon the amazing assets we do have. The historic landscapes and neighborhoods, planned and designed by some of the most brilliant and talented designers to have walked on the planet. These are our assets, and if we lose these, or degrade them beyond recognition, we will have lost the beauty and soul of what makes this place so desirable to begin with.

In response to the community's distress about losing some truly priceless pieces of historic architecture, (many of which play a key role in defining our community character), a new "model" has been proposed. In the same Boston Globe article cited above, Scott Gladstone is quoted as saying, "the hope was to start a trend in Brookline where old houses are preserved, and Jeff Levine, Brookline's Planning Director proposed using 99 Winchester St. as a model". Let's look at 99 Winchester St. from above, to give us a sense of site design and scale.

99 Winchester is in the center of the image, the reddish building with the turret. As you can see, the renovated house has a large addition on the back, which seems to be built extremely close to the property line, completely filling up all available space on the lot. (Lot lines are in yellow). While this scenario may be lucrative for the developer, it clearly comes at a price to the community, in terms of declining values to surrounding properties,  due to the loss of open space, loss of light, air, sky views and trees.

The idea behind the Winchester model is that the preservation of the house is such a great benefit to the community that it justifies extreme violation of our zoning by-law, thereby allowing for the granting of special permits, etc. The proposal pictured above, 70 Sewall, requires 9 special permits/variances. It is not to object to special permits per se that I raise my concerns. It was expected that some "wiggle room" was needed to make an adaptive re-use project work. But it has gone far beyond "wiggle room". While no one wishes to see these historic structures destroyed, I believe the developers proposing these scenarios, are in fact going beyond any reasonable standard with their proposals, taking advantage of the Town's desire to preserve the house and using the threat of demolition to go to extremes. Convincing us that they are making a sacrifice by preserving the house. When in fact, the proposed development becomes extremely valuable. The historic structure is saved, adding beauty, character and quality that no new construction could ever achieve and a super-sized addition is allowed, even though it violates all minimum standards of sound building and planning practices. Because we are so afraid of demolition, we fail to realize the truth of the fact that even with demolition, a new full build FAR building would not fit on this lot either. In fact, in the case of the 70 Sewall proposal, (above) a building of only 1.14 FAR (not the full 1.5 allowed) would fit, and even then this assumes underground parking and a height variance.

A look at the site plan for the 70 Sewall project reveals the full extent of the site design violations.

Side yards are reduced to 4', at the smallest point the rear setback is 36". These miniscule setbacks are insufficient to allow adequate light, sky views, and freedom from shadows for the abutters. They will not function in terms of safely accommodating circulation of persons or machinery. There is not sufficient space to support plant life to aid in buffering the building from neighbors.

The historic house is moved forward on the lot 15 ft. Fundamentally changing the setting of the house, alters one's view and experience of the house from the sidewalk and street. It is no longer the same house. The 36” oak tree at the front of the property is unlikely to survive the movement of the house. In addition, four other 10”- 12” trees are slated for removal from the property. New trees that are proposed would in fact grow onto adjoining property, would be difficult if not impossible to maintain and would also so severely limit circulation on the site due to the close proximity to the building that they seem impractical. Given the extremely dense development in the area, the value of these trees as softening, humanizing elements cannot be overstated. Key historic elements are being altered or eliminated from the house. Only 245 sq. ft. of usable open space remain on the property. The scale and mass of the addition overwhelmes and dwarfs the original structure, the beautiful 1889 Schweinfurth designed Queen Anne house.

Our Town boards and staff have forgotten that the maximum size (or Floor Area Ratio) allowed in a given zone is just that, a maximum, not a de facto right, and that at least basic standards of safety, functionality and protection of abutters must be maintained. These are the core functions and purpose of zoning.

The question then becomes, does the partial "preservation" of this house justify the extreme violation of our Zoning By-law and by extension the rights and privileges of the citizen's of Brookline? Has Extreme Building become the New Normal?

It seems to be catching on. Jeffrey Feuerman has submitted his plans for a project at 59 Green St. Here we see a two family home being turned into one giant condominium and another giant condominium being added onto the back, resulting in a long narrow housing development stuck into the back yard, next to homes with open back yards.  This too was a case where demolition was threatened before the Preservation Commission stepped in.

Both of these proposals will be discussed at the upcoming Planning Board meeting next Thursday,  July 15 in room 111 at Brookline Town Hall, starting at approximately 8:00 pm.

Demolishing Brookline one House at a Time

As I react to the flurry of demolition requests in and around my neighborhood, I think, this must be what it feels like to be on a volunteer fire department. You try to get on with your everyday life, yet your antennae is up, ready to receive the alarm at any moment. You and your comrades run to the scene of impending devastation and you do what you can. Once in a while you are victorious, at least to some degree, and the dreaded devastation is kept to a minimum. When this happens, you acknowledge that luck had something to do with it. Your tools are inadequate, your frustration and sense of failure great. A sad heaviness clutches your heart.

Three months into 2010 and there have been 8 demolition requests for houses in Brookline. Five of these requests have been delayed by the Preservation Commission because the house has been found to be historically significant. These five homes are 70 Sewall, 64 Naples, 163 Kent, 19 Hilltop and 59 Green. Usually, this action simply delays the inevitable, but as our preservation staff has said, "sometimes miracles happen".

 70 Sewall Ave. 1898 Home of Charles Flagg, Architect, Julius A. Schweinfurth

It's worth asking the question, why is this happening? It is of course difficult to generalize to all cases, but it is fair to say that for those tear downs that are most disconcerting, i.e. those where significant historic architecture is lost and neighborhood fabric is torn asunder, there are a confluence of particular circumstances. First of course is the high value of land and the high price to be had for housing in Brookline. (i.e. money to be made). Next, is the reality that our zoning allows the construction of  buildings much larger than those commonly found in the surrounding neighborhood and, adding to the mismatch with context, the required setbacks do not necessarily match those of neighboring structures. Third, then, if you are a developer, you simply wait for an existing house to lose some of its value through age and neglect, perhaps a death or divorce in the family, (i.e. eager seller) and you have a recipe for a successful tear down and build scenario. Sadly, the result is often the loss of a unique, finely made home that contributed to the beauty and fit the context of the neighborhood. In its place, often comes modern cookie-cutter construction, built to maximum size with minimum amenities. There are no regulatory protections in place to prevent this scenario from happening over and over again throughout our neighborhoods. The higher the density of the underlying zoning, the greater the pressure, or allure, from the developers' point of view.

Each time this scenario is about to play out, neighbors rally, acutely aware of what's at stake. In vain they look to our Town planning staff and volunteer boards for assistance. They begin to wonder why the potential for this occurrence wasn't anticipated. Why is there such seeming indifference towards protecting what they know to be the key assets of our community? They are told that they can participate in "design review" of the new project,  but as this process proceeds they find their influence often limited to superficial aspects of the design of the new building, such as colors or siding materials. The major decisions seem to have already been made by others, elsewhere. These decisions were in fact dictated by rules and regulations already in place, financial considerations and a deference to the rights of the land owner to maximize profit with minimal effort. 

Finding themselves in this situation, citizens often realize that the one remaining regulatory mechanism available to them is the establishment of a Local Historic District. In the best of circumstances, an LHD would be created organically, with plenty of time and care, based on a realization by homeowners and preservation officials of the value of protecting worthwhile properties. This has not been the case in Brookline, where LHD's have become the de facto planning mechanism for neighborhoods who can muster the organization and will to save themselves. We are now hearing from our preservation and planning staff that they are overburdened, they cannot handle another LHD. This is extremely ironic, given the fact that the plethora of LHD's is a symptom of the lack of proactive planning to begin with. Spontaneous, neighborhood lead LHD organizing efforts represent a grass-roots movement to deflect the rapacious churning under of our cultural and built heritage, and yet we do not seem able to commit the necessary resources to facilitate this effort. What does this say about the Town's ability to be stewards of our community?

What we are seeing played out in this drama is the classic conflict between use value and exchange value. It is really helpful to understand this distinction, for it colors every decision we make about planning and zoning. Our culture and laws seeks a precarious middle road between the two and depending on your perspective you likely value one over the other. The use value of real estate is what everyone who owns a home and lives in it enjoys. They choose their home because of the particulars of the structure as well as purchasing a share in a neighborhood, town, community, school district, etc. with a certain set of assumptions about what that means. They love the look and feel of the street they live on, the park across the street, access to Brookline schools, or their proximity to the T, etc. All of these things factor into the value of their home, both to them and to any one else looking for a place to live. If the park across the street were suddenly paved for a parking lot, their property would lose value. Their homes' value remains anchored to its current use as a home.

The exchange value of a property however is something else all together, and because of the disparity between the size, scale and form of existing structures and the generous and general standards in our current zoning ordinance, the exchange value of a property is inflated significantly. This gives the owner who does not value the use value, (i.e. they don't live there) a strong incentive to want to tear down and build big. Now, buying the land, tearing down and building new is not cheap, so the developer feels they must max out the sites' potential to get a decent return.

The problem with all this is that an essential conflict of interests has been created. Maximizing the exchange value by one individual reduces the use value of the remaining properties on the block or in the wider community. That "look and feel" of the street that you bought into when you purchased your home is no longer there.  If you believe that that the beautiful historic architecture contributes to the desirability of Brookline as a place to live, then its destruction diminishes the value of housing in Brookline. The private actions and gains of a single land owner has caused negative impacts to ripple out into the community. Zoning is meant to prevent this. Planning boards are meant to act on behalf of the public to protect their interests, to help balance the equation between the maximizing of exchange value and maintenance of use value.  It is entirely possible to have regulations in place that would be fair to both parties while giving better guidance on form, size, scale, setback, on-site amenities, etc. generating better results.

Beyond the "out of scale" etc. issues there is of course the sad fact of tearing down one-of-a-kind craftsmanship and solid, beautiful structures. It is just not possible to build such quality today. Why would it make sense to send it to the landfill? Just look closely at some of the new construction around town and ask yourself if it looks like it will still be viable in 100 + years? We cannot afford to waste these precious resources. It doesn't make sense. Not from an energy point of view, not from a resource and materials point of view, not from a cultural heritage point of view. This level of craftsmanship will never be created again, why throw it away as if it is of no value? And yet, we have no way of "internalizing" this external cost. This thing of great value, (the exquisite craftsmanship and beauty of the historic home's interior and exterior features) has no value in the equation. Unless the developer has sufficient vision and understanding to realize that potential buyers will value and therefore pay a premium for this quality, they are likely to choose quantity over quality for their building plans.

The LHD mechanism may be, in some cases a clumsy and ill suited "planning" mechanism.  Adaptive re-use is a positive. Large single family houses may not be practical for many of today's smaller families and adding additional housing units without tearing down existing structures seems like a good idea. Shifting demographics will create the need for a range of housing alternatives, such as assisted living, co-housing, group living structures,  live/work spaces, commercial space, etc. Proactive planning for better neighborhood design need not preclude these options.

In the meanwhile, I hope you will let your voice be heard if you value these homes and their contribution to our community. Speak out about what their destruction will mean to you and your neighbors.

The Affordable Housing Question

Affordable housing has been in the local news again, raising many questions with few clear answers. There seems to be only a general consensus that there is a lack of affordable housing and that we should try to do something about that. However there is no clear agreement about how to go about this, or what would be considered affordable and for whom. Several approaches have been either pursued or suggested, each with their own potential results both intended and unintended.

The State's answer (40B) was to encourage developers to build affordable housing by granting subsidies and allowing them to ride roughshod over local land use ordinances. Locals often invariably object and with good reason. Inserting out-of-scale, extremely dense buildings into existing neighborhoods is a direct assault on the quality-of-life of a residential area. The local zoning code was developed with preservation of appropriate scale and density in mind. The principle problem with the 40B approach is that it does not allow for the appropriate placement of large scale dense development. Only through vigorous opposition did the neighborhood manage to scale back the St. Aiden's proposal enough to save the historic church structure, the on-site heritage tree, and achieve a density more in line with the neighborhood. Still, this was at a steep cost to town in real dollars and now many are questioning the wisdom of the undertaking in light of the fact that the beneficiaries of the low cost housing will not be middle income working families but rather those who qualify for subsidized housing. The range of housing options therefore has not been broadened, only the quantity of existing options at the top and bottom of the affordability scale augmented. Do we as a community have a moral obligation to provide this housing? Is this the most effective way to spend those funds we do choose to spend towards bridging the affordability gap? While it may achieve some of our goals, I have to think there must be other more creative ways to address this issue, such as subsidizing mortgages for first time buyers, allowing more "infill" within existing housing stock to address the growing need for smaller units for singles and smaller households.

Others (see Leonard Bernstein's letter to the editor in the July 5 Brookline TAB) have suggested that the problem lies with restrictive height and density limits, which he feels should be raised and that by so doing we would see an increase in affordable housing in Brookline. I am afraid this would not at all be the outcome of "upzoning". Mr. Bernstein suggests that the area around Coolidge Corner would be a suitable location for this increased density and that in fact those who have worked to "conserve" his Coolidge Corner neighborhood are to blame for the lack of affordable housing and should be ashamed of ourselves.

The most recent zoning changes proposed in the Coolidge Corner Planning district consisted of changing the zoning for some existing three family dwellings from a multi-family zone to a three-family zone. This was done to remove the financial incentive for tearing down the existing three family building in order to build a bigger more lucrative building. A developer has every incentive to build housing at the top of the market value, to gain the highest rate of return for their investment. The resulting new housing would therefore be more expensive than those units they replaced and the new building would be out of scale and context with its neighbors. It was this incentive for developers to build at the top of the market that the State's Chapter 40B seeks to counteract.

When the three-family zone was coming up for its first vote, Brookline voters became the recipients of a very targeted negative letter campaign that claimed that such a change would cause property taxes to rise. The source of these letters turned out to be a national organization representing small land lords. Perhaps there was an affected property owner who wanted to sell for top dollar.

As Americans we are in fact very conflicted and confused about property rights and development. We often don't think much about it or have a strong opinion until something impacts us personally. Most people do not have any grasp of the processes involved in getting something built and probably assume that there are far more checks and balances, long-term strategizing and thoughtful consideration given to development decisions than there really are. Attempting to achieve a public benefit (in this case affordable housing) within a market driven system requires direct government intervention of some sort. Finding an effective mechanism remains illusive.

The Future of Public Service in Brookline

I'm disappointed. The trust we have put in our town government has been violated. With no real explanation, a talented and dedicated volunteer has been canned, and the cause of historic preservation has been dealt a blow. I am speaking about Dennis DeWitt, an architectural historian who selflessly gave his time to serve the town by volunteering on the Preservation Commission. In a recent vote the Board of Selectmen demoted him to the position of non-voting alternate.

Through the years the Town of Brookline has recognized the need to protect our vital historic legacy, and the voters have repeatedly endorsed the legal framework created to carry out this mission. Like the zoning board and numerous other boards and commissions, the Selectmen appoint suitable members to these boards. Candidates are chosen (we hope) based on their expertise, skill and willingness to serve and charged with enforcing rules and regulations and advancing the mission of the board. Sometimes difficult decisions are made, and sometimes petitioners are disappointed or down right incensed. This fact makes me all the more grateful and indebted to those individuals who take up the task and accept appointment to these boards.

No one has accused Dennis DeWitt of failing to execute the duties of the Preservation Commission. In fact, it seems that everyone who has ever been before the Commission or worked with Dennis speaks of his knowledge, expertise, and considered fairness. What more could you want? And yet, he gets demoted. Why? Because someone doesn't want the Commission to do its job. But the people of Brookline do. It was his talent that made Dennis a target for those who do not support historic preservation. But the people of Brookline do. And this is where the violation of our trust comes in.

Removing a board member in this fashion is an abuse of power, and we have all learned a hard lesson in the process. That our system is vulnerable to this type of action. That despite what we vote on and declare as the will of the people, we are dependent on those in office to carry out this mandate. Our only recourse may be to simply vote those Selectmen who were party to this action out of office.

A wet blanket has been thrown over all those dedicated citizens who selflessly take up the call to public service by serving on our boards and commissions. They are the troops who get the job done and we need them, and owe them thanks and gratitude, and yet because of Dennis's fate, others must now fear that, regardless of how scrupulously they administer their boards mission, someone may not like that and therefore they could be out tomorrow. How's that for an incentive.

With such a proud history of impassioned involvement in local affairs in Brookline we need to honor and encourage those who serve in order to continue reaping the benefits of their talents and passion. Attracting those individuals whose integrity and dedication to civic life lead them to public service requires our government to be both accountable and transparent. These two attributes seem to be missing in this case.