Letter: A Multitude of Questions About Proposed Zoning Changes In Amherst
Photo: Hawaii State Public Library System. Creative commons
Inclusionary Zoning Is A Proven Means For Creating Affordable Housing. Why Has The Town Council Ruled It Out?
Editor’s note: This letter was sent to members of the Town Council on 1/30/21
First off, thank you and congratulations on passing the bond for the affordable housing project and for your recent motion on pursuing a permanent shelter site in Amherst. These are both commendable and needed initiatives. I’ve been following with interest your recent efforts to begin the process of rezoning Amherst. That is not an easy task to put it mildly.
After having a brief conversation with Mandi Jo Hanneke, I’d like to offer you my concerns and hopes for this endeavor. As you may know, I spent many hours researching and exploring the ins and outs of Inclusionary Zoning (IZ).
So far, I’ve seen three documents: a 55 page Comprehensive Housing Plan (CHP) draft, a shorter 13 page version (revision 9) and the motion recently passed by your body. I notice that the large draft and revision 9 contain many strategies for increasing affordable housing, while the motion recently passed has none, other than the implicit suggestion that the other strategies will promote affordable housing and diverse neighborhoods.
Thus it’s not clear what the relationship is between the two CHP’s and the recent motion, which has left me confused and which has possibly increased the rancor around your motion. You all know that IZ is one guaranteed way to create more affordable units through the creation of market rate units. And while I welcome the inclusion of so many affordable housing strategies in the CHP, the explanation given to me for not including even a placeholder for IZ in the motion is that the Planning Department believes IZ is too complicated to work on in- house and would require a consultant. It was also stated by a council member that Town Meeting passed a new IZ law in 2018, so it was the most recently worked on zoning. There are problems with these explanations.
1) Inclusionary zoning is indeed a complicated law to get right, as is all zoning. And the IZ “wheel” has already been invented and is being successfully employed in many communities in Massachusetts. There are numerous resources that can help the planning department and the planning board to improve our current, weak existing law
2) Town Meeting voted on zoning proposals in most sessions and therefore many aspects of zoning have also been dealt with most recently, not just IZ
3) all the documents go into great detail suggesting many ways to change zoning all over town.
These proposals contain many of the incentives, such as increased density, increased number of allowed units, increased building height, increased lot coverage, usually offered to developers to compensate them for a requirement (required affordable units with incentives being the standard for good IZ laws). As I see it, by postponing looking at IZ until after these incentives are given away for free means that when you finally take up IZ, there will be few if any incentives left to offer, it will be unlikely, possibly even illegal, to require affordable units to be built without real incentives, and might even threaten the current law’s efficacy completely . What is the rush to begin rezoning? I was told that it would be too hard to include IZ in the timeline that the council has agreed upon. Why is there a timeline that precludes such a critical tool in the creation of affordable housing, when I see from the CHP that it is considered a high priority strategy?
Aside from providing more in-town student housing, and a possible increase in the tax levy, (need I point out that an increase in the tax levy does not guarantee a decrease in property taxes), no other hoped for benefits are even close to guaranteed. I would pose that the following questions be answered before this rush to completely rezone Amherst:
1) How many units will need to be built in order to:
A) lower the cost of rentals?
B) lower the costs enough to provide for low income affordability as well as mid level and workforce affordability?;
C) lower property values enough to make home buying more affordable?;
D) effectively address the student housing problem?
2) Have any studies been done to answer those questions or to show that increasing market rate units leads to any kind of affordability improvement?
3) How do we know what the unwanted effects might be?
Have there been any studies done on the effects of creating so many new high end rentals on the overall cost of rentals in our town or any similar towns? How do we know it won’t or hasn’t already increased the price of all rentals? If the average price of a one bedroom rental was $800 (just a guess) before all the new apartment buildings came along, and then $1500 new rentals come along, then doesn’t it stand to reason that those $800 rentals will now go for $900 or $1000 and be seen as a bargain?
And at the risk of including too obvious a question: How do we know that building more units won’t result in students currently living in neighboring towns, deciding they want to live in Amherst once so many new units come online, thereby not getting ahead in the quest to offer more units to retirees, young professionals, town employees, and low income persons?
Are there studies available to show what unwanted effects might occur when zoning is opened up as suggested? Might we end up looking like other small towns with large Universities like Athens, Ohio (Ohio University) or Storrs Conn.(UConn)? I visited Athens a few years ago. For easily a mile all around the University, a vast area of blighted neighborhoods existed. it was almost a solid village of large and medium sized older houses lived in by many many students. The houses were poorly kept up; the lawns were a mess and I doubt there were many owner occupied homes among them.
What effect did that have on affordability in town and homeowner property values? What if this hasn’t actually increased property values away from the University where families would want to live? Or look at the sterile brick apartment buildings of Storrs, Conn. Could either scenario happen in Amherst? How will we feel if it does?
I have one last wish: Please don’t use the term Affordable Housing as a cudgel to keep people from asking questions or stating concerns about your proposals. The concerns people have are not about affordable housing, but about the issues I’ve raised above; proposals that will dramatically change the character of Amherst. The last protests came in the face of a motion that didn’t contain a single strategy to provide affordable housing, yet people were accused of opposing affordable housing. There were proposals to increase market rate housing everywhere in town, with the suggestion that those proposals will end up creating affordability in the rental and home buyer markets; which, absent the studies I’ve suggested above, sounds a lot like trickle down economics. We all know that rising tides don’t raise everyone’s boats equitably.
Addendum (2/3/21)
After watching last night’s joint Planning Board/Community Resources Committee meeting, I have a suggestion that I believe will increase your transparency and hopefully will lead to less rancor in town. Without that transparency, people are left wondering what it’s all about.
As Chris and Rob went through the list of priorities you voted to send to the Town Manager, I noticed that there were very few reasons given for those priorities. I did hear one, that the current rules for demolition were not working and thus needed to be improved. Otherwise, it was a technical list of tasks for the Planning Department.
Please, please, for each item, provide an explanation of why you want the change to be made and what your goals are for making such a change. I would also like you to describe your understanding of why the law is currently there, i.e, why is footnote “m” in the RG? What was the purpose of putting it there? Why does it need to be removed? What do you hope will happen with it’s removal? What are the downsides of removing it? Why is footnote “a” not in BL? Was that an oversight, or is there a good reason for it not being there? Why do you want to add it? What are the benefits and possible negative consequences? You get the idea of what I’m saying. This should be done with every change you want to make, after you state, as I’ve suggested in my previous letter, what your overarching goals are and why you believe you can accomplish those goals with your proposed changes.
One last note today. I want to thank the Planning Department for wisely putting back IZ into the initial planning process. This is a critical addition if you intend to include IZ in your efforts to increase affordable housing.
Gerry Weiss
Gerry Weiss is President of the Board of Directors of Craigs Doors Shelter and a former member of the Amherst Selectboard
As usual, Gerry Weiss provides a clear and persuasive analysis of a complicated problem. Good for him – and for others who are interested in this issue.
As a former member of the Planing Board, I have spent more than a few hours pondering this issue. I would underline and agree with his notion that the CRC’s pressure to produce changes in the zoning by-law without first considering Inclusionary Zoning is misguided. It is classic cart before the horse. In addition, the CRC has created a draconian time-line for the Planning Department to bring forward recommendations for Bylaw revisions, thus demanding that the Planning Department and the Planning Board do its work before having the facts and before allowing the public to comment.
What’s the rush?
Well, quick passage of Zoning Bylaw revisions will allow Council members to claim they did something about zoning when they stand for re-election this fall. Maybe they think it doesn’t matter what they do, as long as they do something (anything?). Sure, if they follow the CRC’s lead (and timeline), they will have done something, but they will have done it wrong. Then the voters will have their say.
I do not understand how the CRC plan avoids the debacles that have come to pass in other college towns that have embraced unfettered densification. Not just the ones Gerry mentions in his informative letter but also Ames Iowa , which overbuilt a downtown full of buildings like One East Pleasant Street, and ended up with a vacancy crisis and a degraded commercial center. Or Ann Arbor Michigan whose campus and downtown have come to be surrounded by a band of ill-kept student housing , housing that was largely occupied by families when I attended back in the 70’s . Add in Storrs, CT and Athens, GA and we begin to see a pattern. So I would like to know, whether the CRC even considered the dismal experiences of other college towns and what they plan to do to ensure that they will not replicate those experiences.
Gerry’s analysis and suggestions are greatly appreciated, particularly his request that the goals or purposes of any changes be articulated. As those of us who have participated in government have learned, it’s very difficult to create entirely new laws or budgets. Instead, laws and budgets typically change “at the margins,” so it’s important to understand what these changes aim to do, and to attempt some critical analysis of “unanticipated” consequences.
[As a practical matter, it would helpful if the text of the legislation included hyperlinks to goals/purposes/critical analyses at each proposed change.]
I appreciate both responses from Michael and Art. I’d like to add a follow up letter I sent to the Planning Board and Town Council:
Addendum to my last letter:
After watching last night’s joint PB/CRC meeting, I have a suggestion that I believe will increase your transparency and hopefully will lead to less rancor in town. Without that transparency, people are left wondering what it’s all about.
As Chris and Rob went through the list of priorities you voted to send to the Town Manager, I noticed that there were very few reasons given for those priorities. I did hear one, that the current rules for demolition were not working and thus needed to be improved. Otherwise, it was a technical list of tasks for the Planning Department.
Please, please, for each item, provide an explanation of why you want the change to be made and what your goals are for making such a change. I would also like you to describe your understanding of why the law is currently there, i.e, why is footnote “m” in the RG? What was the purpose of putting it there? Why does it need to be removed? What do you hope will happen with it’s removal? What are the downsides of removing it? Why is footnote “a” not in BL? Was that an oversight, or is there a good reason for it not being there? Why do you want to add it? What are the benefits and possible negative consequences? You get the idea of what I’m saying. This should be done with every change you want to make, after you state, as I’ve suggested in my previous letter, what your overarching goals are and why you believe you can accomplish those goals with your proposed changes.
One last note today. I want to thank the Planning Department for wisely putting back IZ into the initial planning process. This is a critical addition if you intend to include IZ in your efforts to increase affordable housing.
PS. Rob K’s as well. Somehow that one came in after I posted my last one. No offense intended!
Thank you for the thoughtful and thorough analysis and compendium of questions. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that recently built units have driven up the cost of many existing rental units and lowered the cost of none. It is the responsibility of anyone claiming that building more expensive housing units will help with affordability to provide data to support that claim. More than anything else, there is the need for a balanced diversity of voices working on planning and zoning issues. It is easy to argue that there has been a intentional exclusion of differing points of view. This is exactly what many feared would happen if too much power is put into the hands of too few people. Again and again, at all levels of government, we see the negative effect this has on our common wealth and the reduction of our collective wisdom. Bob Greeney