Opinion: Faulty Logic In Amherst’s Proposed Zoning Changes 

If you have not taken time to wade through the sweeping changes to Amherst’s zoning regulations (see also here and here and here), put forward by “Amherst Forward” Councilors Mandi Jo Hanneke and Pat DeAngelis, you should.  You can be forgiven if you get bogged down by the acronyms, abbreviations, and tables.  It is tempting to speculate that the length and verbiage of the document intentionally dissuades people from paying attention. Instead of trying to untangle the legalese and deciphering inscrutable tables, let’s confine ourselves to looking at the opening passage, its premises and logic (or lack and/or contradictions thereof)……  Below are the opening bullet points of the document, in bold type, with some observations and questions:   

GOALS AND DEFINING PRINCIPLES 

Equity in Housing:  Eliminate exclusionary zoning policy: allow more residential dwellings to be permitted through non-hearing, building commissioner building permit issuance 

Zoning is supposed to be ‘exclusionary’.  Its purpose is to proscribe development in ways that guide investors, individual businesses, and property owners through clear rules.  Zoning regulations should not be just ‘zoning suggestions’.  Zoning regulations are essentially a contract between a town and its residents, defining who can do what and where, guiding and protecting investments.  As such, zoning regulations must be clear, and amendments to regulations must be undertaken in a public manner that allows for democratic input to the process, especially by abutters.  Zoning changes should not be up to the whims of any one individual, undertaken out of sight of the public and abutters who would most directly be affected.  And if they are to be up to one person, what sort of appeal process will there be?  Or will the town be in constant litigation with abutters of approved projects? 

Treat owner-occupied duplexes the same as single-family homes 
In what regards?  Parking?  Frontage and setback requirements?  What is the logic?  How is housing currently tracked as to whether a given house is a duplex or triplex, and what are the numbers?  Does the town have any idea how many potential conversions to duplexes and triplexes might be involved?  If a duplex is sold, or the owner moves out, who monitors compliance with the provision that it remains ‘owner occupied’?  Will this be another situation where cranky neighbors are the town’s primary enforcement mechanism? 

Help eliminate economic and social segregation 
How is the town currently tracking ‘economic and social segregation’, and which properties are currently student-occupied?  How will the proposed changes affect this?  How do the proposed changes differentiate between ‘affordable housing’ and ‘student rentals’?  Students will always be competing with people of modest means for rental housing, and the cost of rentals in Amherst is going to be heavily influenced by the fees UMass charges for housing.  How do these proposed changes ameliorate that dynamic, and how will the changes affect specific Amherst neighborhoods?     

Create multiple places for home-ownership opportunities 
What does this mean?  How will these changes ease single family – to – student-rental conversions and the resultant loss of single-family housing, one of the primary drivers of Amherst’s housing crisis?  Does this create housing for people of low or moderate income in Amherst’s upscale areas?  Does it encourage the affluent to move into ‘affordable’ apartment complexes?  Does this predominantly create ‘home ownership opportunities’ for low- and middle- income residents, or more opportunities for investors who have, for years, been out-bidding individuals seeking to enter the Amherst housing market? 

Neighborhoods that aren’t solely apartments or solely single-family homes – a mix of housing types promotes a mix of incomes 
Please cite examples of how and where this works in other communities.  When neighborhoods start drifting toward duplexes. triplexes, apartments and multi-family units, do they ever drift back without wholesale gentrification?  Are these changes going to promote a mix of housing throughout Amherst, or primarily in the neighborhoods that are currently predominantly work-force housing?  

Improve Sustainability:  Multi-family dwellings are more sustainable than single-family dwellings – encouraging conversions improves sustainability 
Dormitories are even more ‘sustainable’ than apartments.  Why not encourage them?  Realistically: how many people make living in an apartment building their choice based on sustainability?   Are we going to see owners in upscale neighborhoods carve their large homes into duplexes or triplexes to promote sustainability, or will this be primarily confined to areas of labor force housing that are already ‘written off’?   

Address Housing Crisis – doing nothing won’t change anything 
Change does not necessarily equal ‘improve’.  Amherst’s housing crisis isn’t due to a lack of change, it’s due to changes happening in unchecked ways, like the expansion of the UMass enrollment without a concomitant expansion of dorm space and the resultant flood of investors buying up properties to convert to student rentals. 

Encourage more housing opportunities through zoning changes 
Opening the floodgates encourages more flooding…. 

Current Duplex, Converted Dwelling, and Town House permit pathways not encouraging building these types of housing – most of recent development has been mixed-use and apartments 
So, returning to the point on ‘sustainability’, why encourage duplex and triplex conversions and construction, when erecting more apartments would be more ‘sustainable’?  Better still, why not encourage more dormitory housing, either public (UMass) or private, where bathrooms, laundry facilities, common areas and dinning spaces are shared, and therefor of lower environmental impact?  

Address demand by adding supply – housing costs may decrease 
A mash-up of supply-side economics and wishful thinking…  Is there any example of a community outside the Rust Belt where housing prices have decreased recently? 

Logic in the Use Table for Permitting Requirements:  A more intense use should not have a less strict permitting requirement 

Over all, it would seem that what is proposed is literally a more intense use of town real estate (more construction and conversions), with less regulation, so it seems their ‘logic’ is faulty.  

Pursuing social justice and promoting labor force housing are laudable goals.  Unrealistic social engineering expectations and granting favors to Amherst’s elite and investors are not the path forward. 

Finally, speaking of more intense use while deregulating permitting… Has the town done any hydrologic study of how the Lawrence Swamp area is potentially affected by the current housing in Amherst Woods (let alone more houses), and by leachates from the old Town dump?  Amherst might take a look at what is happening on the Cape, where decades of housing expansion and light industrial and military use has hopelessly contaminated parts of the aquifer, and this will only get worse, as there is a long lag time for pollutants to flow throw subterranean channels.  Looking at housing density or sewer hook-ups alone seems a lackadaisical way to guard our major water supply, and permitting more housing, sewer hook-ups or not, to encroach on this area without a thorough understanding of the hydrology of it is a terrible idea. 

John Varner is a resident of Amherst.