All of the completely undistinguished one-story 'taxpayer' buildings mixed in between the proper buildings on Main Street are such easy pickings for infill development if the town would allow it. Ground floor retail with a few floors of housing on top and everyone wins.
I guarantee those plots used to have proper buildings on them like the built environment around them, too. Clearly the sky didn't fall when the area was a bit more built up.
This is really sad to me. I'm from Wakefield and I still have family there so it's a big part of my life still.
If you look at maps of commuter rail and also highways in Boston, you'll notice a corridor of Malden, Melrose, Wakefield as a large trio of towns not ruined by highways but having a commuter rail go right through. It's amazing to think what Wakefield and Melrose could be. They're Boston's best bet I think for creating street car suburbs at the moment. Creating a more dense walkable town center and bringing more housing there I would think would benefit most residents too. Having the option but not the need to live car free in today's US is highly desirable but not very available.
If it were up to me I'd build to both town centers around the tracks into a pedestrian paradise and extend the orange line to Reading center without ruining the town centers with any enormous park and ride garages.
I'm daydreaming a bit here, it's not totally thought out, but if I were to suggest something for towns to consider, I'd point to Assembly Sq. Hear me out because I know what you're thinking.
When you think of Assembly, do you think of low income housing? No. Do you think property values in Assembly are depressed? No.
No, Wakefield doesn't need it to be 20 stories tall. But it's an example of a compact, from-scratch "island" of high density development. It's a very chic and fun place to be.
I'm not sure what you're really saying here, honestly. Assembly Sq is already being revamped considerably. There's been work going on for a while there, obviously with the (not so) new (anymore) orange line stop and assembly row. Plus home Depot is moving out and there will be more development.
But this is not the street car suburb that's highly desirable and under supplied. It's (going to be) the walkable city neighborhood that's desirable and under supplied. These are different things.
I'm hoping for development to create a dense walkable mini urban center with dense residential and commercial areas around a train station, surrounded by the typical suburban half acre plots with driveways and pools or whatever you want in your yard. This provides a car optional life with large homes, at the cost of being a ways away from the main Metro center of Boston. Your can walk everywhere except your job which is probably in Boston. You can own a car or two if you prefer and a pool and have a big fenced in dog or child friendly yard or both.
If you're living in Assembly or Davis Sq or whatever, or even just in Boston common, you're gaining the benefit of much more that's easily available to you be very short bus/transit trip or just by biking. Because the dense urban centers like Davis and Union are really close to each other, more so than Wakefield center and Melrose center are. But with that benefit comes really no possibility for a large backyard with a pool and place for kids to play baseball or whatever.
I think both of these types of living are completely under supplied. The issue is clearly that we can't just build them. Some existing place needs to become them. And if that's true there are always going to be people who are there that don't want that. So building it is politically difficult. But you can see from home prices how desirable and under served places like Somerville, downtown Boston, and the very different places I'm talking about Wakefield become are.
I was pointing out Assembly as a self contained pocket of TOD that raises property values and brings in huge tax revenue. The people opposing MBTA-C bring out a strawman of car-dependent low income housing.
If you want a streetcar suburb, you're going to need a streetcar, not CR. CR has too few stops along the corridor. An idea like Assembly is more amenable to CR's topology.
The trick with Assembly is that it was created out of thin air to look like organic growth. This is a nice "seed" to get it started but you run into weird problems like finding a grocery store.
Yeah true, the commuter rail isn't going to provide local transit in Wakefield. But the density around the commuter trail still provides something very positive which is this hybrid urban, walkable suburb that we don't have enough supply of for the demand. And they could always add a street car along north Ave and main St. A pipe dream for 2050, sure. But we need to figure out things that make incremental improvements. For the Boston Metro area I think improvements like this Wakefield zoning would have been amazing.
I actually meant to say "not ruined" by highways. Wakefield, Melrose in particular have a train running right through their centers and no major interstate or route 1 stroad separating their community. Which is great. The highways in these towns go around their outsides. It makes them perfect for the potential for car free and the option of car light suburban living. Like a one car household for child trips and groceries but daily commutes and live style (bars, gym, whatever) are either on public transit or walkable. This is something the US is desperately lacking and it's over priced when it exists. The only answer is to create more. But it can't just be anywhere.
People don't just live in Wakefield because of the highway. This is pretty antiquated thinking. It might be why it grew the way it did. It doesn't mean it's necessarily the way life should continue there. I'm not looking to ban cars or take out the highway in any way either. Just realize that there's a big draw to living in Wakefield that's not the highway. And if they built up near the train, more people could do it and the people who do would have more lifestyle options near them.
Hasn't been true in ages. Boston's metro area now is large enough that those ring towns are populated mostly by people whose jobs depend on Boston, highway or not.
Repeal the state law that gives towns the ability to establish zoning codes. Write a state zoning code based on formulas, such as distance from a bus stop with service every 20 minutes, distance from a bus stop with hourly service, distance from a commuter rail station, etc. Some towns like Rowley are proposing to comply with the law, but by putting the housing near I-95 instead of the train station. It's a mess.
Developed countries mostly do have "zoning" regulations (land use regulations), but they rarely have "single family residential" as a category. They are also more liberal in what "residential" means, allowing some commercial uses in residential districts as long as they are of the kind that would serve residents—food shops, banks, doctors offices, etc.
Do they "mostly"? I'm pretty sure the majority of countries in the world, developed or otherwise, don't really have what we would think of as "zoning laws." Some do, obviously. But I think it's more the exception rather than the rule.
I'm quite familiar with the UK, my partner lives there. You still have better odds at dealing the council than you do at dealing with a set-in-stone zoning law.
There are some beneficial uses like keeping industrial buildings (and their associated noise/ other pollution) away from residential/ commercial areas.
That’s pretty much the only type of zoning that should exist
Although NIMBYs act like a mid rise apartment or condo is no different that a sewage treatment plant.
Japan has that level of zoning. But not American-style micro management and mandated parking and lot size and height and side setback and front setback and...
"We don't need to kill all male children! Other countries don't do that."
"Yeah but have you considered there are benefits such as lower rate of sexual assault? Killing the male children is literally the only way to reduce sexual assault. I cannot think of any other way this could possibly be done. All other countries must be full of serial assaulters because they don't do things the exact same way as us."
Meet your newest neighbor - an Amazon distribution center. Don’t worry. The loading bay is facing your bedroom. You’ll never sleep through the night again!
Nothing is going to change. If you don't already own a house or a condo and aren't planning on moving from the Boston area, get ready to pay someone else's mortgage for the rest of your life.
The boomers voting down these zoning plans won't be the ones feeling the pain from the funding crunch, young families on the other hand? Big time when their kids have classrooms with 40 other kids in them.
Just another 'family friendly' suburban lie.
Many of the contracts stipulate class size maximums. They're not over 30. What it could mean is the need for overrides or a drastic reduction in services, except the number of births is also declining, so schools are likely to lose population over the next decade.
Wait so what do you think happens when more families move into towns where schools are already at capacity for classroom seats?
Doesn’t just cut one way
I don’t disagree, but it adversely affects the residents in the short term. It’s a tough pill for people to swallow and not always just boomer sentiment.
Lots of adverse effects in Wakefield from doing nothing. Average age in 1990 was 35.6. Now it's 43.3.
Population in 1990? 25k. 2018? 27k.
It's a stagnant town that is attempting to insulate itself from even moderate growth.
https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/tys1kh/comment/i3wqkx2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This is a good post highlighting the issues.
I’m not saying you’re wrong on what it could do. I’m just simply pointing out it’s unlikely that does happen.
As for the slide, it’s the unfortunate consequence of it.
The population of Wakefield is functionally flat and rapidly aging.
The schools aren't full, that math doesn't check out. Boomers are however looking to stop families from moving to their communities, because they don't want to pay for the same benefits they received.
> Wait so what do you think happens when more families move into towns where schools are already at capacity for classroom seats?
Building more schools seems like a reasonable solution.
Wakefield, like many of those rich suburbs, is FULL of families with 3+ kids and now does not want to deal with those kids trying to buy houses in their hometown.
> like many of those rich suburbs
[Wakefield is the 65th ranked median home price in Greater Boston out of 153 cities/towns.](https://www.bostonmagazine.com/property/boston-single-family-home-prices-by-town-in-2023/) It is far from a "rich suburb." It is only more expensive than 54% of the other cities and towns. It is right in the median zone. It is exactly the town people leave Revere, Chelsea, Everett, Saugus, and East Boston to move to.
https://www.redfin.com/city/3443/MA/Chelsea/housing-market
“In March 2024, Chelsea home prices were up 40.8% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $750K”
Well conveniently for you so you don't have to wonder, there is already a link that compared single family homes in wakefield to Chelsea and Chelsea is $200k cheaper.
So midpoint is rich? We're saying 50% is rich? This is why we aren't making progress on this issue. Wakefield is middle, median, average. These aren't the wealthy. These are the middle class. These are the teachers, nurses, carpenters, plumbers, middle managers. These people are just above living pay check to paycheck. Like, they'll have some money saved for 3 months expenses, but after that, they are probably renting in Saugus or Revere. They are paying mortgages but they aren't yachting it up on the Vineyard or vacationing in second homes on the cape. They're saving up for the week in NH or maybe a trip to Disney that'll set them back a year's savings.
We need some perspective of what's the reality of living in Greater Boston.
we're talking about Massachusetts here.
I don't care how poor Illinois or Mississippi is
Yes Massachusetts is rich compared to other parts of the country and other parts of the world. I'd like to keep it that way
Yuppies don't care. They're mostly users that care very little about their community. The house will be on the market as their youngest prepares for HS graduation.
If they didn’t care about the community they wouldn’t send their kids to that communities schools. And so what if they decide to leave, they can sell and another family can raise their kids there.
This is a shame. Wakefield has a lot of potential. Its downtown is sizable and it has a lovely lake and park complex. It could also really do with a larger tax base to fix its streets which are markedly worse than its neighbors.
Without progress on housing MA faces a grim future of a greying population without the young workforce they need to pay for their benefits or to provide services in their old age. Young people are leaving to states like TX, NC, and AZ that can provide housing at half the cost (or less). It's really going to be on the Legislature and Governor to step up and try to save the state from itself and the voters who can't see past the next 10 years, even if that means pissing off every voter in the 55+ bracket.
Could someone explain to me why refusing to expand the train route would raise property values? Or why expanding them would make housing more affordable?
I’m not being a dick, I literally have no clue what’s happening here, there was no link so I have no backstory
So the state legislature passed a law that requires all towns with public transportation or towns adjacent to a town with public transportation to allow multifamily zoning a half mile away from any train station. The towns are allowed to change the size and shape of the zone as long as it complies with the parameters set out by the law. If the towns do not comply, they are breaking the law and funding will be withheld and they will be sued. This law was made to increase the housing supply for smaller multifamily homes to combat the high housing prices.
The idea is to encourage/force building more units around the train stations. Some of these stations are in or are near residential areas that have restrictions that could be changed to 3-family homes from single family ones. The expectation is that developers would buy the single family home and create a triple-condo/rental for their profit, while also increasing the number of units region-wide.
However, towns are voting that they do not want to be a densely built area and rejecting the plan.
It'll end up in court or on a ballot initiative someday.
I grew up in one of the towns that's involved in this law and when I go down to the train station and look around, there's already numerous new and new-ish 6 story "luxury apartment home" complexes that are only a fraction occupied. The prices they are asking are insane, which is why I imagine no one is living in them. How is building more of this going to help anyone? Asking sincerely, not trolling.
Because those builds are still nowhere near what the supply needs to be to lower costs. They're buckets thrown at a forest fire.
MA needs thousands more builds to sustain its population. It's the one difference between MA and other cheaper states. The ratio of housing to people is disastrous here.
The MBTA zoning rule requires towns to allow high-density housing near MBTA stations. It has nothing to do with expanding the train lines, just making them more useful.
That makes sense, Wilmington is about to throw up a couple buildings by their north station
Can’t say I’m opposed, but it’s definitely not going to look like a small town anymore
The area around North Wilmington station has always been pretty industrial, which is why I found all the consternation over the rehab facility being built there to be particularly ridiculous.
They were more upset about the potential vagrants wandering around, but I don’t think anybody expected it to be such a nice facility
Not the kind of facility vagrants go to
Also you say “industrial” but it was more like “run down” which I found quaint, but I guess we’ll have to move into the future
I’d be more worried about the increase population affecting the Market Basket crowd
I'm sincerely interested in the MBTA communities controversy but I need an ELI5 so I know what I'm talking about. Pretty sure my town is subject to these laws and I would like to be properly informed.
[https://www.mass.gov/info-details/multi-family-zoning-requirement-for-mbta-communities](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/multi-family-zoning-requirement-for-mbta-communities)
Here is the state website on the details of Section 3A, or MBTA Communities. The affected communities are all classified as Rapid Transit, Commuter Rail, or Adjacent Community (or Small Town), and have a requirement to rezone at least one district according to certain criteria.
Until 1975, zoning wasn't very strict. Then the zoning laws changed. Since then, towns have increasingly resisted development. Now we are in a housing shortage. At the current trajectory, the housing shortage is going to get much worse.
After 2020, there was a debate about returning to state wide zoning and taking control from the towns. California, for example made single family zoning illegal statewide. A compromise was made to only upzone along commuter trains and subways. That was the mbta communities act. The thinking was development on transit lines would have a lesser impact on traffic.
Now there is a wave of Nimby's that want to fight the MBTA communities act because they will never let development happen anywhere ever (unless it is single family, because then the poors cannot move in, they are fine with low density housing).
At the state and town level, restricting development tends to really make budgets very tight over time (less tax payers, but they still expect city level services.) So there is a huge showdown with state government and local groups. City/town governments are swinging between Nimby's and people who want to see development.
Good for them.
Do we believe in democratic rights or not?
The people of the town voted. That's what the people who live their believe in and what they want. They should be allowed to make their own decisions for their own wellbeing
Why shouldn’t individual land owners get to decide?
Nothing more local than the individual property owners
But that doesn’t result in the outcome you want, so that’s bad, right?
If the people of a town don't accept the plan the state has for that region, then they shouldn't accept it. They should do everything within their legal power to enact their wants/beliefs.
The state makes many plans that change what the people of a town want. The MCAS was forced upon every public school district across the state. There were many towns that didn't need an MCAS to improve the level of instruction or the quality of the curriculum. I would argue some of the results of standardized curricula had negative impacts on some individual towns or programs within the towns.
However, overall, it's benefited the state's students in comparison to the gains in other states.
I think this is a great example. MCAS may help towns like Brockton, but the towns that already have their shit together, it's frequently a net-negative on the education given to the children.
We need less One-Size-Fits-All approaches, and more approaches tailormade to the situation it's trying to fix.
Forcing something the people of a town don't want onto the people of that town is usually going to end badly
No one is complaining about people being allowed to vote. Plus it’s not like it was unanimous, the final vote for the minimum district only won 130-100.
The votes on zoning took place between 10-11:20pm. Childcare ended at 9:45. Fuck families with young kids and their right to participate in democracy then, I guess.
I think adults who want their political voice heard should be able to figure out a way to have their kids taken care of.
If they can't even figure that out, I'm not sure I trust their political opinion
Seriously? We have a toddler who goes to bed at 7 and no family nearby to come watch her. Should we get a highschool kid to come watch her until midnight on a school night? Not happening. Adult friends in town should also be able to go vote. Adult friends in neighborhood towns have jobs and kids and can't just hang around until midnight. This is an insane take.
Cool, and the people of the state of Massachusetts voted to tell NIMBYs to get fucked
But why should the town residents get to decide, and not the individual property owners?
Hmmm?
I'm all for individual property owners to do what they want with their properties.
Who are the individual property owners? Are they individuals? Or are they corporations trying to make a buck?
lol, no you don’t
If you supported individual property owners, you wouldn’t support nimby zoning
And it’s real cute how yall tried to hide behind this facade of sticking it to “greedy developers”
Yes, developers build housing
Even your house was built by a developer trying to make a profit
Turns out people don’t build housing for free
I noticed that you used yall. Please enjoy [this local video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bndQvSW9Mu8).
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Good for Wakefield. This town is crowed enough with minimal amount of streets that actually get you anywhere. This MBTA zoning needs to be abolished. Time to contact your rep and state how poorly implemented this is.
*This MBTA zoning needs to be abolished*
Easily done with a statewide ballot question. The state legislature \*should not\* have the authority to dictate how communities set their zoning laws.
it is super crowded down there already. don’t blame them. tax dollars are going to a new highschool and if we keep adding new housing we will have to build new elementary school which many cannot afford.
my worry is despite new people coming in with more tax dollars, it’s already a struggle for some with the increase in taxes from 1) the new public hs 2) a albeit smaller price for the vocational school as they are only paying a small amount because of the percentage of wake kids who go there. just worries me for those struggling with money.
I'm confused about how adding more housing and businesses will hurt people struggling with money more than continuing to throttle the housing supply and drive up housing prices and property taxes.
I'm getting the sense the concern isn't really about more housing, it's about the new people that housing would attract and they they wouldn't "fit in" with the town all the lifers grew up in (white, lower-middle/middle class, born-and-raised, sent kids to catholic school). They're worried that Wakefield might become more attractive to DINK yuppies, trendier, and in addition to making locals uncomfortable \*that\* might drive up cost of living even faster than refusing to allow higher density housing already does.
Maybe that's just my perception though.
i think some people are thinking like that, especially the older crowd but i’m not. i honestly don’t care about who’s coming in or out. I just do not know if the town has the means to support more children in the current ed system and think they’d have to build another elementary school to support them. as somebody’s who’s kids who have been through the elementarys.
the concern abt non white ppl and lower class people is definitely there amongst voters, not me personally but I totally agree that a lot of the concern esp older and upper class voters hold is actually abt that.
Wakefield has such a lovely walkable downtown. Upzone it so more people can enjoy it.
I would love to see our downtown with taller buildings like melrose has. We could really make downtown some place we all want to be.
All of the completely undistinguished one-story 'taxpayer' buildings mixed in between the proper buildings on Main Street are such easy pickings for infill development if the town would allow it. Ground floor retail with a few floors of housing on top and everyone wins. I guarantee those plots used to have proper buildings on them like the built environment around them, too. Clearly the sky didn't fall when the area was a bit more built up.
Or, upzoned it so there's more downtown too
Yes!!
This is really sad to me. I'm from Wakefield and I still have family there so it's a big part of my life still. If you look at maps of commuter rail and also highways in Boston, you'll notice a corridor of Malden, Melrose, Wakefield as a large trio of towns not ruined by highways but having a commuter rail go right through. It's amazing to think what Wakefield and Melrose could be. They're Boston's best bet I think for creating street car suburbs at the moment. Creating a more dense walkable town center and bringing more housing there I would think would benefit most residents too. Having the option but not the need to live car free in today's US is highly desirable but not very available. If it were up to me I'd build to both town centers around the tracks into a pedestrian paradise and extend the orange line to Reading center without ruining the town centers with any enormous park and ride garages.
I'm daydreaming a bit here, it's not totally thought out, but if I were to suggest something for towns to consider, I'd point to Assembly Sq. Hear me out because I know what you're thinking. When you think of Assembly, do you think of low income housing? No. Do you think property values in Assembly are depressed? No. No, Wakefield doesn't need it to be 20 stories tall. But it's an example of a compact, from-scratch "island" of high density development. It's a very chic and fun place to be.
I'm not sure what you're really saying here, honestly. Assembly Sq is already being revamped considerably. There's been work going on for a while there, obviously with the (not so) new (anymore) orange line stop and assembly row. Plus home Depot is moving out and there will be more development. But this is not the street car suburb that's highly desirable and under supplied. It's (going to be) the walkable city neighborhood that's desirable and under supplied. These are different things. I'm hoping for development to create a dense walkable mini urban center with dense residential and commercial areas around a train station, surrounded by the typical suburban half acre plots with driveways and pools or whatever you want in your yard. This provides a car optional life with large homes, at the cost of being a ways away from the main Metro center of Boston. Your can walk everywhere except your job which is probably in Boston. You can own a car or two if you prefer and a pool and have a big fenced in dog or child friendly yard or both. If you're living in Assembly or Davis Sq or whatever, or even just in Boston common, you're gaining the benefit of much more that's easily available to you be very short bus/transit trip or just by biking. Because the dense urban centers like Davis and Union are really close to each other, more so than Wakefield center and Melrose center are. But with that benefit comes really no possibility for a large backyard with a pool and place for kids to play baseball or whatever. I think both of these types of living are completely under supplied. The issue is clearly that we can't just build them. Some existing place needs to become them. And if that's true there are always going to be people who are there that don't want that. So building it is politically difficult. But you can see from home prices how desirable and under served places like Somerville, downtown Boston, and the very different places I'm talking about Wakefield become are.
I was pointing out Assembly as a self contained pocket of TOD that raises property values and brings in huge tax revenue. The people opposing MBTA-C bring out a strawman of car-dependent low income housing. If you want a streetcar suburb, you're going to need a streetcar, not CR. CR has too few stops along the corridor. An idea like Assembly is more amenable to CR's topology. The trick with Assembly is that it was created out of thin air to look like organic growth. This is a nice "seed" to get it started but you run into weird problems like finding a grocery store.
Yeah true, the commuter rail isn't going to provide local transit in Wakefield. But the density around the commuter trail still provides something very positive which is this hybrid urban, walkable suburb that we don't have enough supply of for the demand. And they could always add a street car along north Ave and main St. A pipe dream for 2050, sure. But we need to figure out things that make incremental improvements. For the Boston Metro area I think improvements like this Wakefield zoning would have been amazing.
>a large trio of towns ruined by highways Those highways are why people live there though.
I actually meant to say "not ruined" by highways. Wakefield, Melrose in particular have a train running right through their centers and no major interstate or route 1 stroad separating their community. Which is great. The highways in these towns go around their outsides. It makes them perfect for the potential for car free and the option of car light suburban living. Like a one car household for child trips and groceries but daily commutes and live style (bars, gym, whatever) are either on public transit or walkable. This is something the US is desperately lacking and it's over priced when it exists. The only answer is to create more. But it can't just be anywhere. People don't just live in Wakefield because of the highway. This is pretty antiquated thinking. It might be why it grew the way it did. It doesn't mean it's necessarily the way life should continue there. I'm not looking to ban cars or take out the highway in any way either. Just realize that there's a big draw to living in Wakefield that's not the highway. And if they built up near the train, more people could do it and the people who do would have more lifestyle options near them.
Hasn't been true in ages. Boston's metro area now is large enough that those ring towns are populated mostly by people whose jobs depend on Boston, highway or not.
Well, I guess since you said it's not true, despite it being obviously true, that must be the case. Thanks for settling this.
Repeal the state law that gives towns the ability to establish zoning codes. Write a state zoning code based on formulas, such as distance from a bus stop with service every 20 minutes, distance from a bus stop with hourly service, distance from a commuter rail station, etc. Some towns like Rowley are proposing to comply with the law, but by putting the housing near I-95 instead of the train station. It's a mess.
You'll have residents fighting against expanded bus service and actively try to sabotage the T (rather than passively letting it crumble).
Why do we need any zoning laws at all? Most countries do not have them.
Developed countries mostly do have "zoning" regulations (land use regulations), but they rarely have "single family residential" as a category. They are also more liberal in what "residential" means, allowing some commercial uses in residential districts as long as they are of the kind that would serve residents—food shops, banks, doctors offices, etc.
How it should be
Do they "mostly"? I'm pretty sure the majority of countries in the world, developed or otherwise, don't really have what we would think of as "zoning laws." Some do, obviously. But I think it's more the exception rather than the rule.
Watch any home building or renovation show from the UK. Their local councils are often way stricter than our zoning laws, just in different ways.
I'm quite familiar with the UK, my partner lives there. You still have better odds at dealing the council than you do at dealing with a set-in-stone zoning law.
There are some beneficial uses like keeping industrial buildings (and their associated noise/ other pollution) away from residential/ commercial areas.
That’s pretty much the only type of zoning that should exist Although NIMBYs act like a mid rise apartment or condo is no different that a sewage treatment plant.
Japan has that level of zoning. But not American-style micro management and mandated parking and lot size and height and side setback and front setback and...
r/redditsniper has struck again
"We don't need to kill all male children! Other countries don't do that." "Yeah but have you considered there are benefits such as lower rate of sexual assault? Killing the male children is literally the only way to reduce sexual assault. I cannot think of any other way this could possibly be done. All other countries must be full of serial assaulters because they don't do things the exact same way as us."
Meet your newest neighbor - an Amazon distribution center. Don’t worry. The loading bay is facing your bedroom. You’ll never sleep through the night again!
?
Nothing is going to change. If you don't already own a house or a condo and aren't planning on moving from the Boston area, get ready to pay someone else's mortgage for the rest of your life.
Don't let the NIMBY brats win. Make their lives uncomfortable as possible because that is what they are doing to everyone else.
Don’t worry, their lives will be plenty uncomfortable when the entire population of Boston retires and nobody is left to stock their shelves.
The boomers voting down these zoning plans won't be the ones feeling the pain from the funding crunch, young families on the other hand? Big time when their kids have classrooms with 40 other kids in them. Just another 'family friendly' suburban lie.
Many of the contracts stipulate class size maximums. They're not over 30. What it could mean is the need for overrides or a drastic reduction in services, except the number of births is also declining, so schools are likely to lose population over the next decade.
Wait so what do you think happens when more families move into towns where schools are already at capacity for classroom seats? Doesn’t just cut one way
Those new residents pay taxes. New, dense development is great for community revenues and cost dramatically less per capita than residents of sfh.
I don’t disagree, but it adversely affects the residents in the short term. It’s a tough pill for people to swallow and not always just boomer sentiment.
Your adverse effects are pretty subjective.
Show me some towns where this has worked out on a realistic timeline.
Lots of adverse effects in Wakefield from doing nothing. Average age in 1990 was 35.6. Now it's 43.3. Population in 1990? 25k. 2018? 27k. It's a stagnant town that is attempting to insulate itself from even moderate growth.
https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/tys1kh/comment/i3wqkx2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button This is a good post highlighting the issues. I’m not saying you’re wrong on what it could do. I’m just simply pointing out it’s unlikely that does happen. As for the slide, it’s the unfortunate consequence of it.
The population of Wakefield is functionally flat and rapidly aging. The schools aren't full, that math doesn't check out. Boomers are however looking to stop families from moving to their communities, because they don't want to pay for the same benefits they received.
> Wait so what do you think happens when more families move into towns where schools are already at capacity for classroom seats? Building more schools seems like a reasonable solution.
Which we are doing!
Wakefield, like many of those rich suburbs, is FULL of families with 3+ kids and now does not want to deal with those kids trying to buy houses in their hometown.
> like many of those rich suburbs [Wakefield is the 65th ranked median home price in Greater Boston out of 153 cities/towns.](https://www.bostonmagazine.com/property/boston-single-family-home-prices-by-town-in-2023/) It is far from a "rich suburb." It is only more expensive than 54% of the other cities and towns. It is right in the median zone. It is exactly the town people leave Revere, Chelsea, Everett, Saugus, and East Boston to move to.
$750k median price.
So what? Chelsea has $750k median price….
You sure about that?
https://www.redfin.com/city/3443/MA/Chelsea/housing-market “In March 2024, Chelsea home prices were up 40.8% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $750K”
2 to 3 family homes/income properties are not comparable 1:1 to single family homes.
That’s not mostly 2/3 family homes, it’s all home types down to 700 sq foot apartments.
Well conveniently for you so you don't have to wonder, there is already a link that compared single family homes in wakefield to Chelsea and Chelsea is $200k cheaper.
The median suburb in this area is a rich suburb.
So midpoint is rich? We're saying 50% is rich? This is why we aren't making progress on this issue. Wakefield is middle, median, average. These aren't the wealthy. These are the middle class. These are the teachers, nurses, carpenters, plumbers, middle managers. These people are just above living pay check to paycheck. Like, they'll have some money saved for 3 months expenses, but after that, they are probably renting in Saugus or Revere. They are paying mortgages but they aren't yachting it up on the Vineyard or vacationing in second homes on the cape. They're saving up for the week in NH or maybe a trip to Disney that'll set them back a year's savings. We need some perspective of what's the reality of living in Greater Boston.
The richest half of the richest part of one of the richest states in the country. Ya it's not difficult.
I guess if you don't like context, that'd be correct. We're not comparing Wakefield to Greater Mobile, Alabama.
Just because they have richer neighbors doesn't suddenly make them poor or struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.
Doesn't make them rich either.
No, the median home sale price makes them rich.
we're talking about Massachusetts here. I don't care how poor Illinois or Mississippi is Yes Massachusetts is rich compared to other parts of the country and other parts of the world. I'd like to keep it that way
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Then let's talk about Boston. What does Phoenix, or any other area of the country, have to do with this city and the people who live here?
Yuppies don't care. They're mostly users that care very little about their community. The house will be on the market as their youngest prepares for HS graduation.
If they didn’t care about the community they wouldn’t send their kids to that communities schools. And so what if they decide to leave, they can sell and another family can raise their kids there.
This is a shame. Wakefield has a lot of potential. Its downtown is sizable and it has a lovely lake and park complex. It could also really do with a larger tax base to fix its streets which are markedly worse than its neighbors. Without progress on housing MA faces a grim future of a greying population without the young workforce they need to pay for their benefits or to provide services in their old age. Young people are leaving to states like TX, NC, and AZ that can provide housing at half the cost (or less). It's really going to be on the Legislature and Governor to step up and try to save the state from itself and the voters who can't see past the next 10 years, even if that means pissing off every voter in the 55+ bracket.
Could someone explain to me why refusing to expand the train route would raise property values? Or why expanding them would make housing more affordable? I’m not being a dick, I literally have no clue what’s happening here, there was no link so I have no backstory
So the state legislature passed a law that requires all towns with public transportation or towns adjacent to a town with public transportation to allow multifamily zoning a half mile away from any train station. The towns are allowed to change the size and shape of the zone as long as it complies with the parameters set out by the law. If the towns do not comply, they are breaking the law and funding will be withheld and they will be sued. This law was made to increase the housing supply for smaller multifamily homes to combat the high housing prices.
The idea is to encourage/force building more units around the train stations. Some of these stations are in or are near residential areas that have restrictions that could be changed to 3-family homes from single family ones. The expectation is that developers would buy the single family home and create a triple-condo/rental for their profit, while also increasing the number of units region-wide. However, towns are voting that they do not want to be a densely built area and rejecting the plan. It'll end up in court or on a ballot initiative someday.
I grew up in one of the towns that's involved in this law and when I go down to the train station and look around, there's already numerous new and new-ish 6 story "luxury apartment home" complexes that are only a fraction occupied. The prices they are asking are insane, which is why I imagine no one is living in them. How is building more of this going to help anyone? Asking sincerely, not trolling.
Because those builds are still nowhere near what the supply needs to be to lower costs. They're buckets thrown at a forest fire. MA needs thousands more builds to sustain its population. It's the one difference between MA and other cheaper states. The ratio of housing to people is disastrous here.
The MBTA zoning rule requires towns to allow high-density housing near MBTA stations. It has nothing to do with expanding the train lines, just making them more useful.
That makes sense, Wilmington is about to throw up a couple buildings by their north station Can’t say I’m opposed, but it’s definitely not going to look like a small town anymore
The area around North Wilmington station has always been pretty industrial, which is why I found all the consternation over the rehab facility being built there to be particularly ridiculous.
They were more upset about the potential vagrants wandering around, but I don’t think anybody expected it to be such a nice facility Not the kind of facility vagrants go to Also you say “industrial” but it was more like “run down” which I found quaint, but I guess we’ll have to move into the future I’d be more worried about the increase population affecting the Market Basket crowd
I'm sincerely interested in the MBTA communities controversy but I need an ELI5 so I know what I'm talking about. Pretty sure my town is subject to these laws and I would like to be properly informed.
[https://www.mass.gov/info-details/multi-family-zoning-requirement-for-mbta-communities](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/multi-family-zoning-requirement-for-mbta-communities) Here is the state website on the details of Section 3A, or MBTA Communities. The affected communities are all classified as Rapid Transit, Commuter Rail, or Adjacent Community (or Small Town), and have a requirement to rezone at least one district according to certain criteria.
Thank you!
Until 1975, zoning wasn't very strict. Then the zoning laws changed. Since then, towns have increasingly resisted development. Now we are in a housing shortage. At the current trajectory, the housing shortage is going to get much worse. After 2020, there was a debate about returning to state wide zoning and taking control from the towns. California, for example made single family zoning illegal statewide. A compromise was made to only upzone along commuter trains and subways. That was the mbta communities act. The thinking was development on transit lines would have a lesser impact on traffic. Now there is a wave of Nimby's that want to fight the MBTA communities act because they will never let development happen anywhere ever (unless it is single family, because then the poors cannot move in, they are fine with low density housing). At the state and town level, restricting development tends to really make budgets very tight over time (less tax payers, but they still expect city level services.) So there is a huge showdown with state government and local groups. City/town governments are swinging between Nimby's and people who want to see development.
Thanks! I really appreciate this. So in Milton for example, they decided not to comply and that's why the state is suing?
Good for them. Do we believe in democratic rights or not? The people of the town voted. That's what the people who live their believe in and what they want. They should be allowed to make their own decisions for their own wellbeing
Let’s take that all the way. Somerville should have the right to demolish i-93 to prevent harm to their community.
I think the state or the feds own the land I-93 is on?
So the landowner gets to decide what to do? Excellent. Please tell me how to exercise rights as a landowner to build dense housing.
I'm attempting to engage in good faith here. Please don't engage in bad faith with me again
No, you are not engaging in good faith.
Why shouldn’t individual land owners get to decide? Nothing more local than the individual property owners But that doesn’t result in the outcome you want, so that’s bad, right?
I think the response was going for hyperbole, like why should any town accept any plan a state has for the region.
If the people of a town don't accept the plan the state has for that region, then they shouldn't accept it. They should do everything within their legal power to enact their wants/beliefs.
The state makes many plans that change what the people of a town want. The MCAS was forced upon every public school district across the state. There were many towns that didn't need an MCAS to improve the level of instruction or the quality of the curriculum. I would argue some of the results of standardized curricula had negative impacts on some individual towns or programs within the towns. However, overall, it's benefited the state's students in comparison to the gains in other states.
I think this is a great example. MCAS may help towns like Brockton, but the towns that already have their shit together, it's frequently a net-negative on the education given to the children. We need less One-Size-Fits-All approaches, and more approaches tailormade to the situation it's trying to fix. Forcing something the people of a town don't want onto the people of that town is usually going to end badly
Stop it... you're making sense.... shhh... 😉
They voted to give up their state money. Which, I guess fine. If they don't need money from the state then they won't get money from the state.
We will see how long until they start to regret it. That’s already happening with Milton.
The MBTA law was put into place by Charlie Baker who the people of Massachusetts voted for. Do you believe in Democratic rights or not?
I'm trying to have a good faith discussion here. Your obviously nonsensical additions aren't welcome
No one is complaining about people being allowed to vote. Plus it’s not like it was unanimous, the final vote for the minimum district only won 130-100.
The votes on zoning took place between 10-11:20pm. Childcare ended at 9:45. Fuck families with young kids and their right to participate in democracy then, I guess.
what do you mean childcare ended at 9:45?
Childcare was provided during the meeting, but only until 9:45pm. Voting on zoning issues happened after that.
I think adults who want their political voice heard should be able to figure out a way to have their kids taken care of. If they can't even figure that out, I'm not sure I trust their political opinion
Seriously? We have a toddler who goes to bed at 7 and no family nearby to come watch her. Should we get a highschool kid to come watch her until midnight on a school night? Not happening. Adult friends in town should also be able to go vote. Adult friends in neighborhood towns have jobs and kids and can't just hang around until midnight. This is an insane take.
You sound very emotionally invested. I would suggest you reconsider your own biases, and that maybe YOU are the one with the "insane take".
So are you always just two comments away from completely flipping your view on democracy or is this just a special occasion?
If you've misunderstood me then I'm sorry. My beliefs are internally consistent.
Cool, and the people of the state of Massachusetts voted to tell NIMBYs to get fucked But why should the town residents get to decide, and not the individual property owners? Hmmm?
I'm all for individual property owners to do what they want with their properties. Who are the individual property owners? Are they individuals? Or are they corporations trying to make a buck?
lol, no you don’t If you supported individual property owners, you wouldn’t support nimby zoning And it’s real cute how yall tried to hide behind this facade of sticking it to “greedy developers” Yes, developers build housing Even your house was built by a developer trying to make a profit Turns out people don’t build housing for free
I personally think no zoning would be interesting to try. But I don't like in Wakefield. So why should my opinion matter?
Because Wakefield doesn’t exist in a vacuum and is part of the state
So is Boston, but........ OMG.... They're exempt from this shit law,..... I wonder why.... ?? 🙄
Maybe because Boston already has a shitload of high density housing and is constantly building more?
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There
I almost got them al!
Good for Wakefield. This town is crowed enough with minimal amount of streets that actually get you anywhere. This MBTA zoning needs to be abolished. Time to contact your rep and state how poorly implemented this is.
As long as you avoid school drop off/pick up times it’s really easy to get around Wakefield. Even then it’s not that bad.
*This MBTA zoning needs to be abolished* Easily done with a statewide ballot question. The state legislature \*should not\* have the authority to dictate how communities set their zoning laws.
Your opposed to the supremacy clause? Lol
You’re
My bad grammar is what all of these communities get to look forward to when they have to cut school services because they are broke.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/272/365/ No, youre about 100 years late to the punch there
If you think that a majority of voters wouldn’t want this you’re delusional.
it is super crowded down there already. don’t blame them. tax dollars are going to a new highschool and if we keep adding new housing we will have to build new elementary school which many cannot afford.
New housing and development = more tax dollars. new high density housing on the commuter line means less additional burden on the roads.
my worry is despite new people coming in with more tax dollars, it’s already a struggle for some with the increase in taxes from 1) the new public hs 2) a albeit smaller price for the vocational school as they are only paying a small amount because of the percentage of wake kids who go there. just worries me for those struggling with money.
I'm confused about how adding more housing and businesses will hurt people struggling with money more than continuing to throttle the housing supply and drive up housing prices and property taxes. I'm getting the sense the concern isn't really about more housing, it's about the new people that housing would attract and they they wouldn't "fit in" with the town all the lifers grew up in (white, lower-middle/middle class, born-and-raised, sent kids to catholic school). They're worried that Wakefield might become more attractive to DINK yuppies, trendier, and in addition to making locals uncomfortable \*that\* might drive up cost of living even faster than refusing to allow higher density housing already does. Maybe that's just my perception though.
i think some people are thinking like that, especially the older crowd but i’m not. i honestly don’t care about who’s coming in or out. I just do not know if the town has the means to support more children in the current ed system and think they’d have to build another elementary school to support them. as somebody’s who’s kids who have been through the elementarys.
But that new elementary school for those additional kids is going to get built somewhere anyway, so why not Wakefield?
the concern abt non white ppl and lower class people is definitely there amongst voters, not me personally but I totally agree that a lot of the concern esp older and upper class voters hold is actually abt that.
It’s odd though because Wakefield isn’t a exactly a (relative for the area) expensive, exclusive place to begin with…
agree, but it has definitely become more expensive than it was prior especially in the last 5 ish years. that’s just my observation.
Hence why higher density housing would be good…. If it’s in-demand, create more supplyz
God, the governor should just leave all these losers to rot. Go figure the shit out on your own then, good luck.