Planning Board Chair to Housing Trust: Relax Zoning to Create More Housing

16 thoughts on “Planning Board Chair to Housing Trust: Relax Zoning to Create More Housing”

1. Umass should have a seat at this table . What are they going to do, to help with the demand for Student Housing ?
   Umass has been quiet on their support . Student housing is not the Town of Amherst’s primary responsibility, when it comes to housing .

2. Why are abutters the last group to be consulted after town departments and citizen boards have made immutable decisions for what never goes in their sideyards?

3. Relaxing zoning laws is often framed as a simple way to create more housing, but the reality is more complicated. Upzoning can increase development potential and land values, yet it does not automatically produce affordability or equitable outcomes. Without careful planning, the primary beneficiaries are often developers rather than the community.

   Zoning is also meant to provide stability. Residents make long-term decisions, purchasing homes, investing in property, and building neighborhoods, based on the expectations created by existing zoning rules. Those expectations should not be dismissed lightly or without significant input from the abutters and neighborhood.

   In North Amherst, these issues are especially relevant given wetlands, limited infrastructure, and established neighborhoods already facing traffic and infrastructure challenges. Housing solutions matter, but growth should occur through thoughtful planning that respects both community needs and the commitments people have made based on existing zoning.

4. I wish Robin’s comment could be posted among the comments to several other articles as well, since it is an eloquent and reasonable path to accommodating two seemingly antagonistic town priorities: more housing and historic preservation. (See Jason Dorney’s comment on Hetty Startup’s article about creating an East Amherst Historical District in particular.). Robin mention’s a third priority which certainly belongs in the discussion as well: commitment to current property owners who have invested in their neighborhood based upon certain unstated assumptions about its stability.

   Growth and change are important; density and infill may be reasonable ways to accomplish desirable growth and change, although the Town’s record since 2018 does not invite confidence in its understanding of how to accomplish this. When the Chair of the Planning Board urges loosening of zoning regulations, and the Town Manager says correctly that we have built a lot of housing, what neither of them says is that loosening of zoning regulations and the recent housing, especially downtown, have created the problem, not alleviated it.

   The housing we need needs to be affordable and attractive to families with children who intend to make a long-term commitment to the Town. The Zoning Bylaw indeed needs a great deal of work and change – including greater flexibility – but until the limits of density and infill are clearly specified, these terms – as well as “housing” – serve to obfuscate, not clarify, the direction we need to take.

5. Yes, do so! But why is it ALWAYS North Amherst? It’s never anywhere else. Downtown needs buildings to be taller. South Amherst is empty.

6. Michael,
   What do you mean when you say “Growth and change are important; density and infill may be reasonable ways to accomplish desirable growth and change, although the Town’s record since 2018 does not invite confidence in its understanding of how to accomplish this.” What is complaint about the growth that has occurred since 2018? What problem has the apartments built downtown created? Housing for families is incredibly important, but just as important is housing for students, options for senior who wish to downsize, income restricted housing, etc.
   Setting artificial limits on density and infill will only continue to increase our housing shortage. We will never solve this problem with a top down “zoning” approach. We must allow for the creation of housing that is needed, not continue to impede housing by clinging to outdated notions of what a town “should” look like. Places grow and change constantly and using “zoning” as an effort to prevent change always ends up the same, exclusionary, wealthy, mostly white, retirees, and squeezing out everyone else. That is what has happened here. Look at our roads, our schools, our DPW building, our fire station, our bleeding budget, all of these problems exist because of a lack of housing growth, which has resulted in a lack of tax base growth, over the last 40 years.

   Claiming that a few new apartment buildings in the downtown has created any problems is ridiculous. Not building enough housing to meet demand over the past 40 years is the problem. No wish casting, blaming developers, UMASS, Amherst College, or any other straw man negates that fact. Look at the Housing Production Plan and the number of units built since 1980 versus the population growth.

7. As noted before, the inclusion of “student housing” in Amherst’s housing needs muddies the waters completely.
   Staff should be prioritizing the development of family, senior, workforce, and low-income housing for year-round residents. That’s where the crisis is. The student housing crisis belongs to UMass and they should be working to house students on campus. Amherst already houses 9000 off-campus students. Staff should not be spending time on this issue. The revenue needed for buildings can be made by building for our prioritized groups. Creating housing for 9000 MORE undergrad students in town is not a trade-off worth making.

   And if we continue building more downtown dorms, it will ruin what remains of our downtown for year-round residents by flattening out the business and cultural offerings for anyone above the age of 25. Few adults over 25 come to Amherst to browse the downtown anymore, as they do in Northampton.

   Rezoning Main Street is not necessary.

8. Jason,
   My position is not ridiculous, neither is yours. But they are very far apart. I tried to inch a step or so closer to yours by acknowledging that density and infill (with limits) are reasonable means of considering Amherst’s growth and development. Can you take a step closer to mine by acknowledging that character and aesthetics (landscape, streetscape, skyscape) are also reasonable goals for the Planning Board as it considers a Zoning Bylaw for our town’s future?

   In April 2021 I wrote an Indy piece imagining the visit of Mr. Density and Mr. Infill to. Amherst.

   https://www.amherstindy.org/2021/04/23/opinion-mr-density-and-mr-infill/

   My position hasn’t changed since I wrote that; indeed the downtown we have and the downtown imagined in the artist’s rendition in this morning’s Indy reinforce it. Can we create an Amherst that families want to live in and can afford to live in? That should be the question before the Planning Board and the Business. Improvement District right now.

9. Michael,
   I wanted to circle back to the questions I asked. What is the complaint about the growth that has occurred since 2018? What problems have the apartments built downtown created?

   I read your piece and while I understand your sarcasm, I don’t understand why it seems that every time I, or seemingly anyone else, advocates for more density in the downtown and village centers, the knee-jerk reaction is to talk about five story buildings. Yes, larger multi-family units are part of the density recipe, but they are not the only ingredient. Nobody seems to be listening, or as I suspect may be true, nobody cares to listen.

   We need housing of all types. Not just for students, but for seniors, income restricted housing, disability restricted housing, family housing, starter homes, and more. I am a very big advocate for row homes, zero lot line, fee simple ownership row homes (NO HOAs). A basement and three floors. 3-4 bedrooms with 2-3 bathrooms. 15-20 feet wide and 40-60 feet long. A detached garage with a small yard in the back and big porch in the front. We could build dozens of these (or some version of them) on subdivided lots downtown, and in the village centers. However, we would need zoning reform to allow for a lot size that would accommodate them. We should be building duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes, cottage courtyards and more. There are many other avenues to achieving density and in-fill. NOT JUST LARGE APARTMENT BUILDINGS!! If we want to attract families we need to act like it and allow for family friendly homes to be built. I don’t know when the last time you looked at home prices in Amherst was, but there are not any homes that are affordable for most normal families, let alone any starter homes. We cannot ignore this reality. We cannot wait to build more housing. this problem is only going to get worse, and the condition of our towns finances we only get worse.

   Regarding your question or whether I can inch closer to your point of view, I can’t get behind any argument for “character” because I’ve never heard anyone actually define what it means. It has been used as a tactic for preventing any new building, or attempting to. It is a vague concept that changes based on who you ask. What is the character of the town? What is the character of the downtown? I also am not a fan of trying to set aesthetics in stone. People’s notions of beauty change. This is one reason I am against the proposed LHD for East Amherst. I love old buildings and old architecture, but I also like new ones. Preserve important buildings on their own merit, one at a time. Don’t force people to have to replicate certain styles. Those buildings never look good. They are false attempts at creating something with “character” that just fall flat. I understand the desire of people to try and preserve their ideas of what a place should be. Maybe it is a place from their childhood, maybe where they went to college, or their first home, or the place where they raised their kids, but all of those places change with time. We are in the midst of a housing and a financial crisis. How many more positions can we cut in our schools before every parent says, “forget about the public schools, I’ll just choice into Hadley, or send my kids to a charter school.”? I’ve known several families that did that, for various reasons. How many families will be attracted to our town then? How many DPW employees can we hire, invest time and money in their training, only to watch them leave for greener pastures because we can’t afford to pay them a living wage, and they can’t afford to live in the town they work in? How many firefighters and EMTs are we unable to hire for the same reasons?

   Revising our zoning, planning, and economic development are vital to not only the growth, but the survival of our town. If we continue down the same path that we’ve been on for the last 40 years we will lose so much more.

10. There are many residents who think similarly to you, Jason. They believe that building for people in different life stages makes for a more balanced town, and that a range of architectural styles can be healthy. Some also worry that appeals to “character” can mask racism, yet still feel that zoning should be carefully planned for the long term, as a promise of some security in most people’s largest investment.

    The reason so many people resist five-story private dorms downtown is not hostility to students, but a sense that a college town is still a town, not an extension of campus. More dorms are needed on campus. Amherst is the second-smallest town in the country that hosts a flagship state university, after Orono, Maine, so claims about the percentage of students housed on campus are not comparable to big-city schools like those in Boston. And not everyone who works in a town is expected to live there. Likewise, UMass students should not assume that off-campus Amherst can or should absorb them to the point that even our Planning Board casually refers to some neighborhoods as “student slums.”

    If you read a lot of what has appeared in the Indy, you might notice that many people, including Michael Greenebaum, share large areas of agreement. The call to say “no more five-story dorms downtown” is actually aligned with your point: other things are needed in the mix. I applaud one developer who received a permit for a five-story building but now seems poised to build something more modest, attractive, and likely more durable, judging from how quickly the existing private dorms are aging. I also applaud another developer with a large vision who has already said publicly they will not build five or six stories.

    We are the town where only the H is silent. On this issue, we might all benefit from being a bit more silent ourselves—long enough to listen for the areas where our perspectives already overlap, and where genuine progress is possible.

11. May I add some facts to this debate? Amherst has dense zoning already. My zoning district, R-N or Neighborhood Residential), allows 4 units per acre, RG allow for 7 units per acre. And now an ADU or two can be added to each lot. RG allows for much greater density, pretty much as many units that can be stuffed in a buildings so long as the builder provides for some commercial space in the building and meets minimum state code for sq feet per occupant. And the ZBA or PB can add floors and waive many dimensions on the Dimensional Table because of footnote a. (Also the PB sees Special Permits as a way to waive quite a few other requirements.) Add to this that virtually the only housing being built is aimed at the top of the market. Most builders of single family homes build really expensive homes in the $800k to million dollar range. There is a market for these homes and much profit to be made. Same is true for the mixed use buildings. Almost all the new units are very expensive, matching Boston area prices. (Google UMass Off Campus Housing and see what your family or young working people can rent. ) The market also is not building townhouses and condos that people can buy and build equity and security. Who wants to pay high and escalating rents year after year. We can all talk about the need for affordable worker and family housing but that housing is not being built. Amherst seems to have a K-shaped housing market–expensive homes and legally defined affordable housing required by the Zoning Bylaw. NOw for some questions….How will moderate housing ever get built? Does housing for 9,000 off-campus UMASS students need to be built, possibly slaking demand, before prices for apartments and houses comes down? What if UMASS stepped up and built 5,000 dorm beds?

12. “ How will moderate housing ever get built? ”

    Nothing is going to change until some sort of restrictions are put on residential neighborhood rentals (maybe distance between them) and UMass doing more to house their students. There are drawbacks to what is currently taking place. When a house is gobbled up in a neighborhood because the price is right, (you don’t see student rentals in Amherst Woods) and there are supposed to be four students renting that house, the reality is there are four, six and even nine living there, (it’s a fact because I see it) with that many cars added to the neighborhood. If a family rents or preferably owns that house, there are one, possibly two cars added with potential for children going to our schools. If UMass houses more of their students, there is potential that cars aren’t even brought to campus and town. I don’t anticipate anything changing though.

13. Jason, thank you for circling back. I agree with much of what you have written. I won’t write a long comment here but I do want to emphasize one important distinction between your approach and mine. You say “downtown and village centers” in one breath as though they should be treated similarly. So did the consultants hired by the town and so, I surmise, does our current Planning Department. But I am making a distinction. I have never said or written a word against development in our village centers because I think that is where it can most usefully occur. North Amherst, my former home, has developed well. My currrent home is in a “row house” in Echo Hill and I am pleased with the development taking place in East Amherst. And I gladly support your plea for more – and more diverse – housing throughout the town.

    But not downtown. Downtown is different; it belongs to all of us – or it should. You are right: I am not at all happy with downtown’s development. It clearly has not addressed the town’s revenue needs, it has strangled the small retail establishments that brought the general population downtown where we could meet and talk to one another, It has deliberately created the urban “character” that has failed to provide a nucleus for the whole town. The list could go on: thea upon parking, the inability of the large buildings to attract and keep commercial enterprises on their ground floors, and – my favorite metaphor – the shadows they throw on our streets.

    When my grandchildren were little and came to visit, their favorite place to go was not Groff Park or Mill River Park but Sweetser Park. The shape invited running and the bushes invited hiding and there was just enough seating so that we old folks could enjoy the sight and sound of the fountain. This was and still is the perfect downtown space.

14. I agree, Jeff. And we can’t do anything to protect the neighborhoods until student housing is defined, which the planning board and town council have resisted doing. Maybe we have the votes for it with our new council.

    And if the town provided an incentive for the 40 or so Amherst residents who own 5 or more student rental houses to rent to families instead, we’d have more than 200 additional houses available.

15. Need I remind you that 60 years ago town policy was to buy the development rights to the east side of town, the agricultural fields between North and South East street and the Pelham Hills as well as Bay Road along the Holyoke range. No sewers going through South Amherst Common were built to save the area from multi-family housing. Sewers were installed when septic systems began to fail years later. Sewer lines were built in the 1960s that extend from Ball lane/Montague rd to south amherst on the west side which determined our growth pattern.

    That policy continuing to be in place, WHEN can we decide that Amherst is already built out? When will people understand that we need small infill projects of the type Darcy mentions. Our governor has determined we need middle income and starter housing as in the range of 5-35 units. She says that we have concentrated on new low and high income development.

    How much can the median tax payer afford to subsidize more development when the cost of schooling one child is approaching $30,000 or roughly three times the median tax bill? Hadley has no apartments but their policy is to build senior housing: it brings in taxes way above the cost of services.

16. The downtown and village centers get treated the same because that is where zoning currently allows for the most density. My push for more density always was aimed at downtown and the village centers. These places are prime for creating dense, walkable, bike able transit oriented neighborhoods which will also include commercial space.

    What has happened downtown that makes you feel that it doesn’t belong to everyone?

    You put “row homes” in quotation marks. I want to clarify that when I say row homes, I am not talking about townhouses developments with HOAs. If you lived in a true row home you would own the lot as well as the structure and not be forced to pay high HOA fees. Row homes are one of the easiest ways we can build missing middle housing and allow people to become home owners but we have to do some hard things first. We have to eliminate minimum lots sizes as an example, so that we can actually build true row homes without requiring them to be built as “cluster developments”, or any other name. We can’t build any more Echo Hills, or Amherst Woods, or any other large subdivision, but we can build apartment buildings, row homes, and subdivide lots.

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