Opinion: Hanneke/DeAngelis Zoning Proposal Only Benefits Developers
Photo: webuyhouses.com
The continuing effort by Town Councilors Mandi Jo Hanneke and Pat De Angelis to push through their unnecessary, damaging, and misguided zoning changes is perplexing. The guest editorial in the June 17 Daily Hampshire Gazette demonstrates that they are relentless in their drive to remake Amherst into a place that fits their private agendas and their view that their way is the only way regardless of such extensive opposition from so many directions, including the Amherst Town Planning Department.
This is nothing more than an attempt to sell a badly running 1978 Ford Pinto and claim it is a late model Mercedes that will change your life. They would be right about one thing – their proposal might change life in Amherst but it would not be for the better.
Their proposal would remove a layer of protection for the town while giving local developers and out-of-town investors even more freedom to do what they want without safeguards for the character of the town. There is not one provision that they propose that is not currently available to any homeowner or developer as long as the homeowner or developer goes through the currently reasonable process of applying.
The fast track they propose will sacrifice safeguards that are proven and needed. And to what end? The fast track will not reduce development costs, will not provide more affordable housing in an unregulated town where students snap up every rental at higher prices, and will not help Amherst to achieve a 12-month economy. Amherst may have already passed the tipping point to becoming a student housing town with limited appeal for families and adults. Why would we adopt something to further accelerate the slide downhill?
The issue of housing, especially affordable housing, is a complicated one that defies simple and quick fixes. Whatever the extent of a shortage of “missing middle housing”, this proposal will do nothing to fix it and is likely to make it worse. Does anyone honestly believe that a developer or homeowner will choose to build an affordable unit when they can make much more return on a unit to rent to students? Of course not. Where is the incentive to do that beyond altruism? The overriding problem with housing in Amherst is that the town has never taken a stand with UMass that requires the university to more responsibly provide housing. There is a sentiment in certain factions of town leadership that accepts that the town will solve the UMass housing shortage. This is irresponsible and detrimental to our town and there is no indication that it will change under the current leadership of Hanneke, De Angelis and their supporters.
Amherst is the Wild West of off-campus student apartments. The economics of converting single family homes to multi-unit student housing so heavily favors developers and out-of-town investors that it takes families out the market. Investors bid up the prices and families are shut out. A single-family home that is converted to house eight students can bring in $100,000 a year. That is a cash cow annuity made possible by a lack of regulation. The current Hanneke/De Angelis proposal will remove some of the already inadequate protection.
All of this still raises the question of the motivation behind this proposal. Given how unlikely it is to provide more affordable housing, what is behind the obsessive nature of this campaign? Could it be to enhance the already dominant positions of developers and investors? They don’t need more help, the quality of life in Amherst does.
David Sloviter is a resident of Amherst. He is an associate member of the Zoning Board of Appeals. His opinion is his own and does not represent those of the ZBA.
Thank you David. This zoning proposal is irresponsible and will only benefit developers.
Thank you, David.
As the Hanneke/DeAngelis zoning change proposal grinds into a second year, motives are still murky, but a few points are becoming clearer.
Hanneke and DeAngelis both think of zoning restrictions as impediments to development, but for different reasons. Instead of seeing zoning as a way to plan and manage growth, these councilors view zoning as an impediment to growth that should be bent, broken, and rewritten into minimalist gestures. DeAngelis frets about nimby-ism and what she sees as racist motives of homeowners seeking protection from tracts of subsidized housing going up in their neighborhoods, a viewpoint she specifically cited in voting to keep me off the ZBA. (I view zoning as a contract between a town and its residents, a contract to be amended or abridged only after careful deliberation including the views of abutters, and vehemently reject her aspersion.) Hanneke seems uninterested in this concern, focusing instead on unbridled development as a primary driver of the local economy, as if Amherst selling itself off to the highest bidders will solve the crises we face in housing and balancing the town budget. It is easier to sympathize with a PC desire for ‘affordable housing’ than with making developers richer, but it is hard to understand how these two rationals became amalgamated. That said, the repeated re-introduction of their proposal, each time with slight tweaks or rebranding, is a distraction for Town Council, and neither Hanneke nor DeAngelis has explained how the re-jiggering of Amherst’s zoning would ameliorate the pressure on the housing market that the failure of UMass to provide adequate housing for its expanding student population puts on a housing market already severely stressed by national trends.
Across the country, the costs of construction and loans are skyrocketing, and investors are flooding the market, buying housing as investments in a trend that is making vassals out of renters. Here in Amherst, we have the additional problem of an institution that is drawing more students than the town has permanent residents, while its leadership relies on ‘the market’ to sort out the problem. If the market moved as quickly as UMass has expanded its enrollment, this might be realistic. But ‘the market’ is too slow and too distorted to remedy this problem, and it desperately needs to be fixed. The Hanneke/DeAngelis proposal doesn’t do that. What it does do is threaten to permanently change the town, and not for the better.
Thank you, John, for a coherent and logical analysis of the continued growth mania sought by some in Amherst and some profit seekers from away. Our water supply is vulnerable to continual increases in demand. Traffic congestion and and road conditions can only worsen with more growth. You are right that the University should increase on campus housing if needed.
UMass also needs to take the lead in helping people get to and from Amherst without using a personal vehicle.
The rest of the civilized world has much better local and especially long-distance public transportation. The lack here is a national embarrassment!
Without reasonably frequent high-speed rail connectiions with the Boston and New York areas, we’ll be doomed to ever more congestion and “need” for parking infrastructure — a race to the bottom (or the road to h311?)!
Oh, the irony. During the last few years of Town Meeting several of us members from across the aisle (no pun intended) could not avoid the antics of Ms. Hanneke. She often asked to “call the question” to shut down discussion on an issue.
The amount of time and energy many have spent on what our professional staff and committee members have now voted against borders on the ridiculous.
Now I ask with respect (something I find at times missing in the behavior of both Ms. Hanneke and Ms. DeAngelis), can we please “call the question” regarding their zoning proposals?
The Community Resources Committee “called the question” and voted a split decision on 6/22: 2-yes; 2-no to send the proposal as discussed to Council. The No’s were Taub and Rooney. Not surprisingly, the yeses were the two sponsors, DeAngelis and Hanneke. Simply having that vote enables the item to proceed to the next step, a discussion (and yet another presentation by Hanneke?) to Council. Since their initial floodgate of suggested changes to our zoning bylaw was proposed, MUCH of the original proposal has been retracted. To the benefit of the R-G district surrounding the Town Center, Taub and Rooney inserted a modification of zoning bylaw Table 3’s Footnote (m) – it will require 4000 SF/ additional Dwelling Unit for a Triplex, as it now does for Town houses and apartments. Even so, 4000 SF/ additional Dwelling Unit allows 9-10 Dwellings per acre, similar to Tan Brook condos. Dense enough for the R-G!
I think it’s time to start collecting signatures to return to democratic government by the people. Unfortunately I doubt we could convince the voters to pass a charter as I fear that, except for us Indy readers, the public is disengaged. This view is supported by the very small proportion of our registered voters, even after discounting the student voters, who participated in the school bond debt exclusion election.
In a well=ordered system of governance, the decisive Planning Board vote would have taken this proposal off the table and the CRC would have nothing to vote on. The CRC is an impediment to good government.
10 dwellings per acre = 4000 sq foot per dwelling – that was the size of many Queens and Brooklyn lots of the Archie & Edith Bunker variety, also my aunt Sally and aunt Rose and uncles Lou and Pete. Those were / are 40×100, a pretty small plot with a starter home and a tiny yard. You would not want more than 4 unrelated people in such a small area, if you don’t believe me, ask all my cousins that grew up in those very cozy neighborhoods!
I would suggest, in order to prove the wisdom, necessity, and benefits of their proposal, that Councilors DeAngelis and Hanneke be given a waiver to develop their own properties according to what they have proposed in this bylaw. They could thus show that their ideas are feasible for those who are not out-of-town, deep-pocketed developers, that affordable units are possible, and that their own immediate neighbors have nothing to fear from such change. And perhaps best of all, they could have full bragging YIMBY rights and put all the town’s NIMBYs to shame.
You all don’t have very convincing arguments to say you’re not just a bunch of white homeowners who bought their house for a pennyfarthing attempting to restrict higher density for your own purposes. “Town character” and a “contract between citizens”? Several of you benefit directly from student housing conversions. A true Democratic response would be that the students register to vote and block you out. How’s that sound? Suburban zoning in the US has always been a code to block low-income and minorities from homeownership in your Pleasantville.
Joe Fattorusso