Category Archives: Placemaking and Zoning

The human cost of bad zoning: Meet Bryan Bryson

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Every day marks a step closer to the end of the 2018 legislative session on July 31. Over the next two weeks, we’ll be telling the stories of people across the Commonwealth who can’t wait for vibrant, affordable communities.

Help us broadcast their stories by sharing them with your friends, legislators, and local officials. Encourage them to help pass a Great Neighborhoods bill now. We’ll post one story each day–find them at www.great-neighborhoods.org and at #GreatNeighborhoodsMA.

Today, let me introduce you to Bryan.

“My name is Bryan Bryson, I’m a proud resident and community member of Dorchester.  I’m also an MIT Professor.

I’m here today to tell you the story of being priced out of my neighborhood in Cambridge where I lived for a number of years.  And to say that if this is happening to me, a professor making a very good salary, imagine how it’s impacting teachers, nurses, and other working families throughout our Commonwealth…”

Click here to read Bryan’s full story and share it on social media.

Much of our state’s zoning hasn’t been updated in decades. This is one of the reasons why our cities and towns haven’t been building the kinds of housing that would enable more young families and seniors to stay in their communities.

For example, Massachusetts needs more apartments. Boston alone has built more than a third of the state’s apartments in the last seven years, and just ten communities have built nearly two-thirds. That means that the remaining 341 cities and towns combined have built only one-third of the state’s apartments–nowhere near enough to maintain stable vacancy rates and prices.

A Great Neighborhoods bill will make it easier for communities to update their zoning, make development less contentious and expensive, and create more housing choices that will help stabilize prices in the region.

Learn more and take action at www.great-neighborhoods.org.

Somerville Reforms Zoning and Massachusetts Can Too

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In his Boston Globe column today, Paul McMorrow praises the updated and “sane” zoning laws the city of Somerville is set to roll out. The new laws will make it easier for everyday citizens to make modest changes to the triple-decker homes that have been emblematic of Somerville for generations. Somerville Director of Planning George Proakis tells McMorrow, “In residential neighborhoods, it’s a lower threshold to build a new eight-unit building than it is to finish a basement.” Our Great Neighborhoods team has supported the efforts of community partners like Somerville Community Corporation to participate in reforming zoning in Somerville and we applaud the Boston Globe for drawing attention to this important issue.

Somerville’s zoning laws are 20 years old. But our state’s zoning laws have gone nearly twice as long without substantive changes. In most areas of the Commonwealth, it’s easier to build a sprawling subdivision than it is to build vibrant, walkable communities like the much-lauded Assembly Square that McMorrow mentions in his column. That’s why we’re advocating for Zoning Reform legislation at the state level.

“An Act Promoting the Planning and Development of Sustainable Communities” (House Bill 1859) will modernize and streamline the zoning and permitting process across the Commonwealth. It also creates incentives for communities to plan ahead for growth in a way that will attract and retain the residents who will keep Massachusetts thriving for years to come. Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone has voiced his support for this bill, writing, “All of our communities could do much more with a strategic reform to our state’s development laws.”

Somerville didn’t wait for new investment, housing, and jobs to fall out of the sky. The City and its citizen activists embarked on a hard-fought course of smart planning and zoning years ago. But you can make it easier for cities and towns throughout the state to get better neighborhoods by passing House Bill 4065 right now. Learn more and email your legislators to voice your support for sensible reform.