The other highland development

[Brendan Ritter]

Hey guys, wanted to repeat the very sparse info I have on the development *next* to the one presented tonight.

I recently noticed that they have this banner on the property

This property is a smaller rectangle between 373 and 393 highland and it used to have an auto mechanic on it. 

I previously attended a meeting on this property before covid, at which point I believe there was planned to be built four stories with commercial on the ground floor. There was underground parking with the access onto highland. (However this info is the best I remember and could be out of date)

[Frank Mals]

Thanks Brendan.  That's a good clarification.  

[Brendan Ritter]

Some more information can be found here:
https://www.verani.com/ma-real-estate/somerville/371-highland-ave-mls-73436531
and
https://www.somervillema.gov/departments/planning-board/reports-and-decisions/pz-21-041

The official address is 371 Highland Ave, and it's being sold (?) by Verani Realty. So maybe they're looking to sell to a developer.
I confirmed some of the details I vaguely remembered:

• 4 stories,
  
• 1st story commercial
• Underground parking (13 parking spaces)
  
• The last public meeting was back in 2021
  
• The development proposal includes two (2) studio apartments, twelve (12) one bedroom units, five (5) one-bedroom plus study units and three (3) two-bedroom units  
• Here's an image of what its expected to look like:
  
  
  
  Its unclear to me what part of the process its in. maybe someone more familiar with such things can chime in.
  
  Brendan
  

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[rona twofisch.com]

It went on the market in June and was not sold. Another agent put it on the market again at the same price in September.

 

 

From: daviss...@googlegroups.com <daviss...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Brendan Ritter
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2025 6:55 PM
To: Frank Mals <malsb...@gmail.com>
Cc: Davis Square Neighborhood Council <daviss...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [DSNC] Re: The other highland development

 

Some more information can be found here:
https://www.verani.com/ma-real-estate/somerville/371-highland-ave-mls-73436531
and
https://www.somervillema.gov/departments/planning-board/reports-and-decisions/pz-21-041

The official address is 371 Highland Ave, and it's being sold (?) by Verani Realty. So maybe they're looking to sell to a developer.
I confirmed some of the details I vaguely remembered:

• 4 stories,
• 1st story commercial
• Underground parking (13 parking spaces)
• The last public meeting was back in 2021
• The development proposal includes two (2) studio apartments, twelve (12) one bedroom units, five (5) one-bedroom plus study units and three (3) two-bedroom units  

• Here's an image of what its expected to look like:
  
  

• 

• 
  
  Its unclear to me what part of the process its in. maybe someone more familiar with such things can chime in.
  
  Brendan

 

On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 1:35 PM Frank Mals <malsb...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Brendan.  That's a good clarification.  

On Monday, October 27, 2025 at 7:44:58 PM UTC-4 Brendan Ritter wrote:

Hey guys, wanted to repeat the very sparse info I have on the development *next* to the one presented tonight.

 

I recently noticed that they have this banner on the property

 

 

This property is a smaller rectangle between 373 and 393 highland and it used to have an auto mechanic on it. 

 

I previously attended a meeting on this property before covid, at which point I believe there was planned to be built four stories with commercial on the ground floor. There was underground parking with the access onto highland. (However this info is the best I remember and could be out of date)

 

 

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[mem...@gmail.com]

did I hear wrong? I thought the developers at the meeting last night said they offered to purchase it but they're not willing to pay the asking price. 

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[Christopher Beland]

On Tue, 2025-10-28 at 20:51 -0400, mem...@gmail.com wrote:
> did I hear wrong? I thought the developers at the meeting last night
> said they offered to purchase it but they're not willing to pay the
> asking price.

That's what I heard as well. Perhaps the 371 Highland redevelopment
would get unstuck if it were rezoned MR6 and thus becomes more
profitable? It doesn't make much sense to me to have six-story MR6 out
at Whipple Street, and then everything between there and the Red Line
be max four-story MR4. That what it is now, except the Republic Gym,
which is max four-story CC4 (no housing allowed on the upper floors)
and the Grove Street parking lot, which is CIV.

-B.

[Carol]

These look tiny and not very family friendly.

Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/MW4PR15MB4331E9D594F9B33C74C03DD0BCFDA%40MW4PR15MB4331.namprd15.prod.outlook.com

.

[David Booth]

On 10/28/25 21:09, 'Christopher Beland' via Davis Square Neighborhood
Council wrote:
> . . . It doesn't make much sense to me to have six-story MR6 out

> at Whipple Street, and then everything between there and the Red Line
> be max four-story MR4.

Agreed, it's basically developer-led spot-zoning, which in my view is
not the right way to do things. That whole area, so close to the Red
Line stop, should allow more height and greater density.

David Booth

[Aaron Weber]

The failure to have a comprehensive plan that specifies our actual city goals goes back years and years — recall that most of Davis Square's current 4-story limit was not chosen because 4 stories is a good height for the square, but because councilors believed the limit could be used as leverage to get concessions in exchange for permission to build to  more sensible heights. That's a poor way of doing business for both builders and the city, because it creates delay, high costs, and subjective permitting processes that are ripe for dispute, conflict, and even graft. 

Also, we should remember that the choice of Commercial Core (residential uses prohibited) instead of Midrise (residential uses allowed by special permit) was intended to discourage housing production. The city had not yet conducted its latest fiscal analysis, which shows that while commercial uses are more profitable for the city, residential uses are still a positive for the bottom line.  

But "what should we have done in 2015-2019" isn't really the question here, and this history is only useful as context. Let's ask ourselves this: Given that we don't have a sensible master plan for the neighborhood or for this parcel, what would make sense on this parcel now?

I don't really regard this as "developer-led spot zoning." We have a clear process for property owners to request map changes and variances, and that process exists for very good reasons. One of them is to address cases like this, where the map as it is drawn doesn't suit the economic facts, the business at hand, or the needs of the city as a whole.

Cheers,

Aaron Weber

Disclosure: I live in Prospect Hill, outside the DSNC catchment area.I am a board member of the Union Square Neighborhood Council and a steering committee member for Somerville YIMBY. I'm writing this on my own behalf, not speaking for either organization. 

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[Frank Mals]

Who are the councilors you are referring to? 

[Zev Pogrebin]

Hello,

I believe that councilor Davis has stated in some meetings that the 4-story limit was intended to be used as a 'starting point' whereby more height could be leveraged based on the project merits. Councillor Davis is on this Google Group, so I don't want to speak for him though.

I'm inclined to agree with David that more height should be allowed. I am glad that the developer is leading the process, though. If they weren't, nothing would be getting built. It doesn't seem like spot zoning to me, although I am interested in why the developer of 363 Highland didn't pursue 371 Highland in their petition (other than spite). It seems to me that it would be in the public interest to extend the MR6 zoning to 371 Highland Ave as well. It would encourage that property to be sold/developed, and it is currently highly underutilized. What do people think about including something about this in DSNC's letter in support of the zoning petition.

Best,
Zev

[PJ Santos]

No harm in mentioning the other property, but I wouldn't get my hopes up on them changing an additional parcel. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/7ba3388a-f5d3-4f4a-885c-1fd0f1c74754n%40googlegroups.com.

[Alex Dehnert]

> most of Davis Square's current 4-story limit was not chosen because 4
> stories is a good height for the square, but because councilors believed
> the limit could be used as leverage to get concessions in exchange for
> permission to build to  more sensible heights. That's a poor way of
> doing business for both builders and the city, because it creates delay,
> high costs, and subjective permitting processes that are ripe for
> dispute, conflict, and even graft. 

I've vaguely wondered if the frequency of special permits, variances, and
zoning changes were somehow downstream of Prop 2.5 or other state
legislation meaning that "okay, we'll give you an upzoning in exchange for
a CBA where you operate a community center" *is* legal, but "you can
normally build up to four stories here, but if you pay extra property
taxes for a decade you can do fifteen" isn't. (I suppose affordable
housing requirements are a thing we can clearly include, even if money for
various other community benefits may not be.) Naively it feels like
predictable zoning with more city money might be preferable to many CBA
benefits.

> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/7ba3388a-f5d3-4f4a-885c-1fd0f1c74754n%40googlegroups.com.
>
>

[PJ Santos]

New construction is actually exempt from prop 2.5!

My understanding is the preference for CBAs is that there are a bunch of things the city isn't allowed to ask for in exchange for a zoning change (such as a project labor agreement, I think). Developers can sign a contract with a third party without any restrictions, so that gives a workaround to getting certain community benefits. A lawyer friend told me he doubts this arrangement would survive a lawsuit, but both the city and the developer are happy with the outcome so nobody sues. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/alpine.DEB.2.21.2510291727490.27706%40novgorod.mit.edu.

[John Wilde]

At the risk of offering a nuanced view, the width of streets or public spaces should be carefully considered in deciding the “appropriateness” of height. 

This historically was a subject of design theory to determine ideal proportion - for example during Renaissance and Baroque European city planning.

I believe the planners of the current zoning map did take scale into consideration, and the designated heights are intentional. Appropriate height is of course subjective, (some prefer Manhattan over Florence), and the difference between a 45’ building and a 65’ building may not seem important, but some believe it really is.

The resulting impact from a building, whether it be 3,4,5 or 6 stories (hopefully not higher in Davis) on its particular street or public space from a design point of view should be carefully considered, i.e. how does it positively define the street or public space and fit into existing fabric, and how does it not negatively block natural light and accelerate wind.

John 

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 29, 2025, at 4:35 PM, PJ Santos <peej...@gmail.com> wrote:



No harm in mentioning the other property, but I wouldn't get my hopes up on them changing an additional parcel. 

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[David Booth]

On 10/29/25 15:52, Zev Pogrebin wrote:
> . . . It seems to me that it would be in the public interest to extend

> the MR6 zoning to 371 Highland Ave as well. It would encourage that
> property to be sold/developed, and it is currently highly underutilized.
> What do people think about including something about this in DSNC's
> letter in support of the zoning petition.

That sounds like a good idea to me. But it will require another vote
from DSNC members, because the vote taken already did not include that.

Thanks,
David Booth

[Christopher Beland]

On Wed, 2025-10-29 at 01:58 +0000, Carol Rego wrote:

These look tiny and not very family friendly.

Your comment got me thinking deeply and digging up data; unit size comes up a lot in local discussions of residential development.

I want families with multiple children to be able to live in Somerville, and I think the mix of studios and 1- and 2-bedrooms in this proposed building is compatible with that goal. Bigger apartments (3 or more bedrooms) don't fit very well into large buildings because every bedroom requires a window, unlike a kitchen or bathroom. We have smaller buildings going up with larger units where there is more exterior wall per apartment. The 4-story building next to Redbones, for example, is all 3-bedroom units. I'm not sure I'd call these units "tiny", especially for single people, but having smaller units seems beneficial when there's a housing shortage and space is at a premium. A lot of people will choose not to or not be able to pay for expensive nice-to-haves like a spare bedroom or spacious square footage, especially when just starting out in life.

Because renting one bedroom in a 3-bedroom apartment is about half the price of a typical studio (and less than half for a 1-bedroom), a lot of single people and couples have roommates and occupy larger apartments than they would otherwise prefer. Even with lower incomes, 3-6 employed people can often out-bid a family where 1-2 parents are working and their kids are an additional cost burden. Somerville has streets full of single-family homes, duplexes, and triple-deckers that have 2- to 4-bedroom living spaces. Building lots of studios and 1-bedroom apartments in bigger buildings would tend to de-crowd those smaller buildings and make more room for families that want to pay for a home office or multiple child bedrooms. (Not all families can afford that, or need that if they only have one child at the moment.)

Just to give you specific numbers and also illustrate why it's hard to find financially feasible housing of any size...according to Zillow the average monthly rents in Somerville tend to peak in late spring/early summer. In May 2025, they were:

• $2,450 - Studio
• $2,700 - 1-bedroom
• $3,500 - 2-bedroom
• $3,900 - 3-bedroom
• $6,820 - 4+ bedrooms

Right now in October, the number of rental units listed as available:

• 45 - Studio
• 209 - 1-bedroom
• 387 - 2-bedroom
• 408 - 3-bedroom
• 430 - 4+ bedrooms

I've heard from developers that 3-bedroom apartments and larger are slower to rent; I couldn't find any quantitative data on that, but that would be an indication that the market is imbalanced in favor of larger apartments. The above stats and high rents across the board seem to indicate a shortage of studio and 1-bedroom apartments compared to 2+ bedrooms. Given Somerville is a popular housing destination for graduate students and recent college graduates and other younger people doing funky things, it's logical we would have higher than average demand for smaller units, and need to build a lot of them. But the high prices indicate we need to build a lot of everything.

In general, I think it's the job of developers to figure out what size of units are most in demand based on the cost of manufacture vs. market rents, and letting them do that tends to result in a balanced supply. I read the book "Streetcar Suburbs" recently, and that's what happened in Boston when mass transit first became available after the invention of the street railway, before zoning laws. The urban area de-crowded and expanded progressively outward, with richer people getting single-family homes on infill streets and poorer people getting one apartment in a triple decker on the same streets. This allowed developers to make the same amount of money for a given size lot while providing naturally affordable housing for everyone on the newly accessible land as people no longer had to walk to work.

Zillow data is from: https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/somerville-ma/

According to Boston Pads, Somerville's vacancy rate has been below 1% almost the entire time since the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating a major shortage. 5% would indicate a healthier market where renters have ample choices and pricing power. It looks like median time on the rental market for Somerville units was 14 days in July 2025 and the 6-month average is currently only 7 days!

Boston Pads data: https://bostonpads.com/boston-rental-market/2025-somerville-apartment-rental-market-report/

-B.

[Mieke Citroen]

Thank you for that. Seeing some numbers like that is very helpful. 

--Mieke

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[Zev Pogrebin]

Hello Chris, all,

It's also very interesting to see these numbers. I'd point out that we should probably compare them to the demographics of Somerville, e.g. age, marital status, etc, to determine whether there is a shortage of housing stock. Qualitatively, I looked at some census data and found the following age demographics (ACS 2023):

0-9	6%
10-19	4%
20-29	33%
30-39	25%
40-49	10%
50-59	8%
60-69	8%
70-79	4%
80+	2%
Total	100.00%

I highlighted the 20-29 demographic, which is very large, and of which it can be assumed that a large portion may desire to live alone or with one partner. Those people are providing demand for the relatively small quantity of studio/1 bedroom apartments (according to Chris's email, that is around 17% of available listings). Combine that with the people in other age demographics who are seeking small apartments for a myriad of other reasons e.g. downsizing, living alone, aging in place, etc, and it leads me in the direction that small apartments are undersupplied in Somerville. However, this is a very qualitative and non-rigorous.

Best,

Zev

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[Brendan Ritter]

Wanted to add, I know of many people in this 20-29 demographic who have roommates in order to split the rent of a 3+ bedroom unit.

While yes, this does "take the unit away" from a possible family, it also makes the area still able to be lived in by those with lower incomes, in school, or who are just starting their careers.

So I'm not sure of the size <-> age correlation.

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[David Booth]

Other factors being equal, studio and one-bedroom apartments drive
housing costs up, because the cost per occupant decreases with more
bedrooms.

I would like to see more housing that is more *naturally* affordable --
especially near public transit centers. Forcing developers to sell a
few units at artificially low prices does not really solve the problem.
Every time I hear that a developer is setting aside 20% of units as
affordable, it means that 80% will be UNaffordable, which to my mind is
the opposite of what we need. We already have far too much UNaffordable
housing.

How can we make housing more naturally affordable? I'm thinking:
a. Make more quantity of it available, because increasing supply
lowers prices (Econ 101);
b. Make it less expensive to build, and less attractive to more
affluent buyers: fewer bathrooms and kitchens per occupant, smaller room
sizes, no parking, etc.
c. Increase density -- especially public transport centers -- to lower
land cost.

Developers of course need to make money, but if we can figure out
policies that would create more naturally affordable housing, I think it
would help a lot. What do others think?

Thanks,
David Booth
aka Sparkle's Dad

> * $2,450 - Studio
> * $2,700 - 1-bedroom
> * $3,500 - 2-bedroom
> * $3,900 - 3-bedroom
> * $6,820 - 4+ bedrooms

>
> Right now in October, the number of rental units listed as
> available:
>

> * 45 - Studio
> * 209 - 1-bedroom
> * 387 - 2-bedroom
> * 408 - 3-bedroom
> * 430 - 4+ bedrooms

>
> I've heard from developers that 3-bedroom apartments and
> larger are slower to rent; I couldn't find any quantitative
> data on that, but that would be an indication that the
> market is imbalanced in favor of larger apartments. The
> above stats and high rents across the board seem to indicate
> a shortage of studio and 1-bedroom apartments compared to 2+
> bedrooms. Given Somerville is a popular housing destination
> for graduate students and recent college graduates and other
> younger people doing funky things, it's logical we would
> have higher than average demand for smaller units, and need
> to build a lot of them. But the high prices indicate we need

> to build a lot of /everything/.

>
> In general, I think it's the job of developers to figure out
> what size of units are most in demand based on the cost of
> manufacture vs. market rents, and letting them do that tends
> to result in a balanced supply. I read the book "Streetcar
> Suburbs" recently, and that's what happened in Boston when
> mass transit first became available after the invention of
> the street railway, before zoning laws. The urban area
> de-crowded and expanded progressively outward, with richer
> people getting single-family homes on infill streets and
> poorer people getting one apartment in a triple decker on
> the same streets. This allowed developers to make the same
> amount of money for a given size lot while providing
> naturally affordable housing for everyone on the newly
> accessible land as people no longer had to walk to work.
>
> Zillow data is from:

> https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/somerville-ma/ <https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/somerville-ma/>

>
> According to Boston Pads, Somerville's vacancy rate has been
> below 1% almost the entire time since the COVID-19 pandemic,
> indicating a major shortage. 5% would indicate a healthier
> market where renters have ample choices and pricing power.
> It looks like median time on the rental market for
> Somerville units was 14 days in July 2025 and the 6-month
> average is currently only 7 days!
>
> Boston Pads data:

> https://bostonpads.com/boston-rental-market/2025-somerville-apartment-rental-market-report/ <https://bostonpads.com/boston-rental-market/2025-somerville-apartment-rental-market-report/>

>
> -B.
>
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[PJ Santos]

On naturally affordable housing:

This is usually housing that's old, the same as used cars are cheaper than new cars. Unfortunately, unless you've got a time machine in your basement, the only way to make more old houses is to build new ones and wait.

Additionally, housing is sort of fungible. A lot of our affordable family housing is occupied by graduate students / young people who pack 6 at a time into a 3 bedroom apartment (source: personal experience). More small apartments tends to free up bigger ones for families.

Finally, a challenge with naturally affordable housing is that it's also affordable to the wealthy, who can buy them and renovate. That reminds me of the joke about two campers who encounter a bear in the woods, we don't need new housing to outrun the bear of high costs, we just need to outrun doing a gut renovation in order to protect our naturally affordable units. 

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[David Booth]

On 11/1/25 12:38, PJ Santos wrote:
> On naturally affordable housing:
> This is usually housing that's old, the same as used cars are cheaper
> than new cars. Unfortunately, unless you've got a time machine in your
> basement, the only way to make more old houses is to build new ones and
> wait.
>
> Additionally, housing is sort of fungible. A lot of our affordable
> family housing is occupied by graduate students / young people who pack
> 6 at a time into a 3 bedroom apartment (source: personal experience).
> More small apartments tends to free up bigger ones for families.
>
> Finally, a challenge with naturally affordable housing is that it's also
> affordable to the wealthy, who can buy them and renovate.

Great point. Although it might be possible to mitigate that last
problem by placing permanent restrictions on the units, like maximum
room sizes, maximum number of bathrooms, no in-unit laundry -- thanks to
Zev for that idea -- and no parking. I like Boston's idea of not
allowing street parking permits for residents of units that were
specifically designated as not having parking.

Thanks,
David Booth

> > <mailto:zpogre...@gmail.com <mailto:zpogre...@gmail.com>>>

> >     <mailto:mie...@gmail.com <mailto:mie...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
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[PJ Santos]

Somerville actually already does that! New buildings within a 1/2 mile of a T stop are ineligible for street parking passes: https://online.encodeplus.com/regs/somerville-ma/doc-viewer.aspx#secid-787 

A related request that I'd like to see is preventing parking spots from being "bundled" with units. If you're forced to pay for a parking spot because it comes with your place to live, you'll likely buy or bring a car. If it is a separate purchase, that'll hopefully encourage more people to live without one. 

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[Marilyn]

I love that folks are passionate about stuff. I also think we should let landlords rent any parking spaces in their buildings the way that works best for them. 

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[Carol]

Not everyone can live without a car.

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[Mieke Citroen]

On Sun, Nov 2, 2025, 13:27 'Carol'  wrote:

Not everyone can live without a car.

And your point?

Not everyone needs a car.

Not everyone can live without a car.

The sky is blue.

--Mieke.

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[PJ Santos]

Approximately 1/4 of households don't have a car, including a bunch of people I know with kids.

Obviously, we shouldn't ban cars from the city, but it also seems silly to make car ownership mandatory. 

Personally, if my family could afford to live a little closer to the T we would have preferred to go without a car, but there weren't any options in our budget. 

People want all sorts of different lifestyles, and I think we should let them choose what's right for them! 

[Alex Epstein]

Hey PJ, 

Good point, and parking is also required to be unbundled (i.e., charged separately and optionally to tenants) in new commercial development and in residential buildings of 20+ units. https://online.encodeplus.com/regs/somerville-ma/doc-viewer.aspx#secid-802

I'm puzzled and can't remember why the City decided to exempt new buildings with under 20 units, though. As an owner-occupant landlord with a single rental unit, I still make a point to unbundle parking for our tenant so that we don't nudge them to bring cars with them to Somerville--and give them the chance to pay less for housing. 

Alex

[mem...@gmail.com]

PJ,

Carol can correct me if I've misunderstood, but I don't think her comment "Not everyone can live without a car." means that she thinks car ownership should be mandatory. I'm puzzled why you'd leap to that. 

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[mem...@gmail.com]

Reading the comments in this group, one might conclude that Carol is the only one in Somerville that consistently mentions that there are people who use cars as she consistently receives multiple responses to the contrary. Since PJ's data indicates that 75% of households have cars, I think it's beneficial for all of us to be reminded of this. Otherwise, the small number of people who share their opinions risk living in an echo chamber.

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[PJ Santos]

Not suggesting that at all! My point is we should build places that do and do not allow for car ownership, and let people pick what they want. It's true that not everyone can live without a car, but not every building needs to be for everyone. 

In my own experience, it seems like there is a shortage of "no car" options available, and building more of them would be beneficial. 

[Carol]

Thank you 

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[Michael Chiu]

I'm with Carol on this.

I take the train, walk or bike to work but still need a car for many other reasons.  I also expect to get to an age when cycling or walking won't work well for me and hope to remain in the city.   Until recently, my 90+ y/o mother lived with us and she struggled to pedal a bike while holding her walker... :-)

I know that nobody is suggesting that we get rid of cars and I am a huge supporter of a walkable city with bike lanes.  But I also worry about the potential echo-chamber and the likelihood that older residents (this probably includes me) may not spend as much time, or may not be as comfortable expressing their views online.  This may result in an under-representation of these perspectives and a failure of DSNC to achieve its goal of representing the entire Davis Square community.

Not complaining; I'm quite pleased by the progress and engagement to date, just pointing out that a bunch of people agreeing in an online discussion does not mean that there is actual agreement in the community.  I think most of us know this but a reminder never hurts!

Michael

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[rona twofisch.com]

I agree with Mary Ellen and Carol about the echo chamber effect whenever we talk about allowing people to use their cars in Somerville. People who need cars need them! Making driving more expensive and inconvenient is not an equitable strategy.

1. People get accessible parking tags if they cannot walk 200 feet without assistance. Closing off Elm Street will make some people unable to access dentists, doctors, and PT services in the Square.
2. The people who work lower-paying jobs are often the people who need to drive to their work sites (think house cleaners, contractors, visiting nurses…)
3. There is a huge hole in our public transportation system. Both mayoral candidates say the support a local shuttle bus system. We should keep the new mayor on track to do that.
4. The number of cars registered in the city is not a good indicator of success in lowering the petrochemical pollution here. A better measure would be how much gasoline is being used; average miles per year could be figured out, if someone was motivated to poll resident drivers.
5. Idling cars pollute much more than moving cars. Road changes that cause traffic jams also cause spikes in air pollution. Making intentional traffic jams goes against the goal of fighting air pollution.

All that said, unbundling parking fee from rent is a good idea. Studies I looked at said unbundling attracted people who don’t drive and also people with one car (instead of two) per household.

The inner circle of Davis Square (and ½ mile from all T stops) can have apartments without parking, as long as street permits are not offered to residents there. The street permit ban is already baked into the City codes.

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[Zev Pogrebin]

A few points to add:

1. Our road network only has so much capacity: adding substantial new residential parking will create new traffic jams and reduce access to parking at businesses. The first conversation that I had with Carol was about how hard it was to find parking at local businesses. Asking for more residential parking will only make that harder. Building a large amount of new parking capacity will create more traffic and lead to localized pollution, emissions, delays, etc. This is the original reason why the city was originally down-zoned and the indirect cause of the American housing crises. High vehicle ownership rates are not super compatible with density. If you drive to destinations in Somerville, it is against your interest to encourage excess residential parking production. You will soon be fighting with those drivers for road capacity in Davis and parking spaces elsewhere in the region. For Rona: each point that you brought up is a point against building new residential parking capacity in the square.
2. Building parking drastically increases building costs. Excavation of parking garages or construction of above ground garage space is very expensive and surface parking lots are a blight and impose a high land cost. That extra cost can only be recouped by one of the following: the developer can increase unit prices or the developer can reduce other construction costs by building more cheaply or imposing more height. In my opinion, I would rather a cheaper building get built. Those 
3. If more residential parking is produced in Davis, businesses will get less income from new residents. If I owned a car, I would likely patronize Davis Square less than those that don't own cars. If I drive to work, I would not pass shops on my way back from the T and may not have a spontaneous meal or shop. If I can compete with local businesses by driving to big-box stores, I will more likely do that more often.
4. When we say "some people need to drive," we are implicitly stating "not everyone needs to drive." I think people need to acknowledge that there is some degree of superficial, unnecessary car driving and ownership which only exists because car ownership and driving has been so subsidized. Residential parking is already oversupplied in Somerville, and it is so subsidized that it is practically free. Nearly every single street is full of permitted resident parking on both sides, and nearly every house has some degree of parking, which is usually rolled into the price of the residential unit. Reducing the amount of new-build residential parking will encourage more people to decide whether they actually need to own a car and reduce the implicit subsidy (one which we pay with higher residential prices, that the community provides for residential parking.

In my personal opinion, low quantities of residential parking (ideally less than 0.25 spaces per residential unit) are the only way to add more residents to Davis square without imposing negative externalities. Please let me know if I am "echo chambering." I would far rather be building more parking for people visiting businesses than residential spaces.

Best,

Zev

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[rona twofisch.com]

In Somerville, about ¾ of households have cars. Many car owners also use mass transit, bicycle, and walking. If we are going to work as a coalition, DSNC needs to find the ground that we can all stand on. Frequently, the car-bicycle conversations devolve into “drivers should pay more” “bicyclist are the future, get used to it” or “bicyclist are agist and don’t care about disabled people”. All of that needs to get flushed down the toilet where it belongs.

 

Counting local car registration numbers is the wrong data.

Manhattan has a very low number of registered cars (22%) but is affected by the outer borough car owners (45% citywide ownership rate) and even more so by the suburban car rates (Nassau county 81.9%, New Jersey 88.7%). No one thinks Manhattan does not have a traffic problem. Somerville is more like Brooklyn, so if we aim to lower car use, we are looking at around 50% of households. That might be reasonable, if mass transit were better.

 

The nudges that would help are:

1. Having mass transit shuttle buses to improve the access in town.
2. Making driving efficient so there are not idling cars in traffic-jam locations. This would be a significant improvement in air quality.

Rona

 

 

From: daviss...@googlegroups.com <daviss...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of PJ Santos
Sent: Sunday, November 2, 2025 3:11 PM
To: Carol <crego...@aol.com>
Cc: David Booth <da...@dbooth.org>; Davis Square Neighborhood Council <daviss...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [DSNC] More affordable housing [was: The other highland development (with rental market data)]

 

Approximately 1/4 of households don't have a car, including a bunch of people I know with kids.

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[Zev Pogrebin]

Hello Paul,

Good question: as to why my main concern is minimizing residential parking specifically. 

We already have residents with cars in the neighborhood who need to drive and who want to access some businesses with their car and spend their money. While I am personally rather anti-car, I don't want to make life more difficult for those residents who already have homes and live here, or change their lifestyle. Building more residential parking only hurts those residents and leads them to be against new development (think about comments such as: "what about parking and traffic impacts"). In my opinion, building apartment buildings with limited or no parking is really the only way to sustainably densify a city.

On the other hand, I think we are "good" when it comes to residential parking. While there are some localized issues with parking access for residents, there generally seems to be more than enough open residential parking spaces throughout the city. In multiple places where I lived in Somerville, I had to pay the bundled cost of 'free' residential parking space despite not using it.

When we are building new housing, that housing could be there for >100 years. It will affect the community in the 4 negative ways that I mentioned in my previous comment for many generations. Over time, the new residents who move in with cars, alongside existing residents may be frustrated by the traffic and lack of commercial parking access in the city. This will create demand to expand roads, add more commercial parking, and re-kick off the destructive car-dependency loop that killed many American cities. If you think this is a fantasy, look at the mayors of Canadian cities like Toronto.

In contrast, building more housing without parking, will allow for greater density and vibrancy without significant negative impacts, and, in the far future, lead more people to live car-free or car-lite lives.

While I wouldn't be in favor of adding more commercial parking, I would far prefer it to making more residential parking for the reasons outlined above.

Best,

Zev

On Mon, Nov 3, 2025 at 3:34 PM bubbaduzz <bubb...@aol.com> wrote:

Thanks Zev

I appreciate your viewpoints, but your points seem to argue against building parking, while at the end you finish with "I would far rather be building more parking for businesses". How/where would you achieve this?

Paul

Sent from Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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[Christopher Beland]

I agree with lots that's been written...north-south shuttles in Somerville and unbundled parking and no-parking residential options and solutions that accommodate a lot of different modes and demographics.

Accessibility on Elm Street, both currently and if it were to be pedestrianized, is one of the major issues we're trying to research. Pretty much all pedestrianized streets allow some vehicles, certainly emergency vehicles, but often delivery vehicles in the morning. Pedestrianized streets I've seen in downtown Boston and Helsinki allow taxis; there's no reason we couldn't design some exceptions for Elm Street that fit community needs. For example, we could have a small number of accessible parking spots near key destinations, and allow paratransit vehicles and ride shares with mobility-impaired passengers to use the street whenever needed. That wouldn't generate enough traffic to cause vehicles to dominate over pedestrians, and they'd be forced to move slowly and relatively safely.

Illegal standing and parking in accessible spots is a major problem right now; we might actually be able to reduce that problem by banning cars that aren't using those spots from the street entirely. (And if they decide to park illegally, there'd be more room to do so without creating an accessibility barrier.) There are other design choices that might improve accessibility, such as putting accessible parking spots at the end of side streets that dead-end onto the pedestrianized Elm Street, or more strategic use of automated enforcement (either with the current street or a future redesign).

A completely different way to provide mobility for people who can't walk for more than 200 feet without assistance is the same way Walmart and Costco do it - free electric mobility scooters. One idea is to have people park at the edge of the pedestrian zone and transition to a courtesy mobility scooter if needed, allowing them to visit multiple stores (which would be a challenge now if they couldn't get a parking spot in front of each one). I'm curious to get feedback on if that would work well, and what the best design would be. Obviously another design challenge is finding a way to keep the needed number of general parking spots available for businesses within a short walking distance, but there are a number of options.

Electric mobility scooters can also actually be a car alternative at the city level. In Amsterdam, for instance, the protected bike lane network is ubiquitous, and people in electric mobility scooters use them to get everywhere. Somerville is building out its own bike network, and once that reaches enough places, it will also be possible to use a mobility scooter to live car-free or car-sometimes in Somerville with mobility challenges, and run errands without needing parking at the destination.

I agree in the medium term, idling and traffic jams cause pollution, and every mile driven in a gas car contributes a wee bit to climate change and local pollution. I think maybe 30-50 years from now we'll be electrified enough that automobile pollution will be negligible (except maybe tire particulates?), and the reasons to fix traffic jams will be wasted life-hours, economic productivity, and emergency vehicle access. So the long-term goal doesn't need to be zero cars, but instead I would think about where cars increase quality of life with convenience or accessibility or utility, or decrease quality of life when they take up too much space or are unsafe (if humans are still driving them) or are too expensive compared to lighter vehicles.

-B.

[Christopher Beland]

On Thu, 2025-10-30 at 19:52 -0400, David Booth wrote:

Other factors being equal, studio and one-bedroom apartments drive housing costs up, because the cost per occupant decreases with more bedrooms.

If the idea is to proportionally limit future construction of studios and one-bedrooms to bring per-person rent lower than it otherwise would be, I can see how that would happen in an extreme case, but in current market conditions it could make things worse by driving up (or not lowering) the price of a popular size. Even if successful on that specific goal, such an approach could also displace more people from Somerville and make more people unhappy about having to get roommates if they want to live here.

Imagine a city that had only 10 one-bedroom apartments and the rest was filled by enough 3-bedroom apartments to satisfy demand. The rent for 3-bedrooms should be close to the cost of land and construction and maintenance, but the rent for 1-bedrooms would be close to the 3-bedroom rent. Some people who only need one bedroom but don't want roommates would be able to afford to rent an entire 3-bedroom for themselves, leaving empty bedrooms - displacing people who could otherwise use that space if it had been built as smaller apartments. It also means some 3-bedroom renters overpay because they have to buy more than they need. People who don't want roommates but can't quite afford a 3-bedroom then bid up the rent on the very small number of 1-bedrooms, which is why there's little price difference. Some people might also not live in the city at all because they both can't afford a 3-bedroom and don't want roommates. A lot of people who don't want roommates would have to get them because they couldn't afford not to but have to live here. Because very few people would be paying the high 1-bedroom rent and so many are saving by splitting 3-bedroom rent 3-ways, the average rent per capita could actually be lower than a city with balanced housing stock, but a lot of people would be very unhappy, and space would not be used efficiently. Looking at the difference between cost and price, the very high profit margin for building the next 1-bedroom (if that were allowed) is a market signal that says the economy should be making more 1-bedrooms, and the low profit margin on 3-bedrooms says to stop making more of those.

Now imagine this city had developed without an artificial constraint on the number of 1-bedroom units. They cost more per resident to build (because of the kitchen and bathroom), and thus cost more per resident to rent if supply is allowed to match demand. But many people are willing to pay a higher per-resident cost not to have roommates. What would happen at free-market equilibrium is that everyone who values not having roommates more than the per-resident cost differential (plus a small profit margin) between a 1-bedroom vs. a room in a 3-bedroom would get a 1-bedroom, and that would roughly determine how many 1-bedroom units are built. Per-capita rent in the city overall would be higher, but there would be no empty bedrooms, and more people would be happier because the minimum cost of a no-roommate apartment would be a lot lower.

In real life, different housing units have different values (due to age and amenities and location) and housing supply is currently constrained below its equilibrium quantity by zoning and other forces, so profit margins are high. Still, not putting constraints on unit size means that developers will tend to build the most profitable unit sizes, and those should be, roughly speaking, the ones where the supply shortage is worst compared to demand. (As I mentioned before, different building shapes favor different unit sizes, and if supply isn't already too unbalanced, we should see all unit sizes being built every year.) For the part of the market where people have enough money to afford housing, that should give the most people what they actually want. That can happen at the same time that we (as you suggest) open up more supply and transit-oriented development and deal with cost drivers to lower average rents. The government will also always have to intervene in the market to a greater or lesser degree to make sure lower-income people can afford housing; people with vouchers can also be well-served by market-driven unit-size choices, because they shape demand just like other consumers. Government-built housing would need to be more carefully planned to balance unit sizes with resident needs.

I've also heard the argument that we should artificially constrain larger apartments to save space and fit more people in the city, and there's probably a whole different set of problems if we were to analyze that.

-B.

[Carol]

1 bedroom apartments are not family friendly and all the smaller apartments are driving out families. Where is the balance if we only build 1 bedroom and then we have a lot of young single people who may only be transient.

Carol

Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS

-B.

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[PJ Santos]

Young single people need a place to live too.

Per the data Chris posted, small apartments are the most undersupplied catagory. The fact that we don't build apartments for young single people doesn't keep them from moving here, they just live in family housing with roommates.

If you want more families to live here, smaller apartments make room for families in bigger ones. 

Freeing up our existing family sized apartments is probably better than building new ones, since the existing ones are older and cheaper 

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[Mieke Citroen]

One person says 1/4 households have cars, another says 3/4. We need to at least start with the same facts.

1. Where do you get these guesses, or can you cite sources?

2. How do we count? Car owners? Car users? Miles driven?

--Mieke 

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[Mieke Citroen]

Are you seriously trying to discriminate against single people by not providing housing?  We deserve to live in Somerville too, just like families.

--Mother

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[rona twofisch.com]

¼ do not have cars, ¾ do. If ¼ of residents had cars, it would be a victory for the environmental health of Somerville.

 

It is counted by how many cars are registered in Somerville, divided by the total number of dwelling units.  There is not a reasonable way to count miles driven, although there are some ways to estimate it. Example: do a survey of drivers and ask how many have the low milage discount on their insurance.

 

I hope that helps.

 

 

From: Mieke Citroen <mie...@gmail.com>

Sent: Tuesday, November 4, 2025 9:26 AM
To: rona twofisch.com <ro...@twofisch.com>

[PJ Santos]

Hi Mieke,

The census tracks this, and I remember it being roughly 1/4 households don't have cars.

Unfortunately, I think because of the government shutdown, I can't confirm my memory. I believe some city planning documents also list similar numbers, slide 25 of this presentation has a helpful table. (https://ehq-production-us-california.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/9d70053928e15163464b40e3af5178670c9f939e/original/1636997240/a2feabfe15b4d86254f24216b3405aa2_Somerville_PublicMeeting1_Session2_Slides.pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA4KKNQAKIJHZMYNPA%2F20251104%2Fus-west-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20251104T145231Z&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=35c3a567307c163eaabf1d79646d75d051e10cf65b6a1b3c67fe58cb69c8e1cb) 

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[Maria Taranov]

I have a toddler so I'm all for supporting families. 

That said - I'm a bit far off from this, but in a couple decades my (now) toddler will probably want to live on her own, and it would be great if she at least had the option to do so near us. I'm sure many other families with teens are having similar thoughts. 

Also, as an anecdote, my family of 4 lived in a small 1BR apartment until I was nine! We didn't move into a 2BR condo until I was about to start middle school. I've talked to other young parents in Somerville and I've met at least a handful who continued to live in a 1BR until their first child was 1 or 2yo, due to affordability concerns. 

It is a very privileged assumption that families can consistently afford "appropriately" sized housing. And even if families eventually size up, they often start in smaller apartments to establish themselves in an area and save up for larger spaces.

Somerville needs housing of multiple varieties and I am very strongly in favor of building 1BR apartments. 

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[Mieke Citroen]

Sorry - autocorrect changed my name out from under me. 

-- Mieke

[Jeff Byrnes]

Appreciate folks pointing out that singles & couples need homes, too. I lived in a 1 BR in Fenway for 7 years while finding my footing as a young professional, and it was an amazing thing to have my own place.

If you look at what folks on the Affordable Housing waiting lists need, it’s overwhelmingly studios & 1 BR homes.

Then, as mentioned, look at how many 3+ bedroom homes are rented by roommate households.

When you put those together, there is a lot of unsatisfied demand for small homes.

We’d help a lot of folks out across incomes & household size by addressing that demand.

-- 
Jeff Byrnes
he/him

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[Brendan Ritter]

I believe strongly that we as an organization should not attempt to restrict the unit distribution of new developments. Presumably the developers understand the economics of this and I trust them to produce a building that gets an acceptable return on its investment (which is what's needed if we want more units added to the housing supply in a long term manner).
Many of the knock-on effects of unit distribution are solved by simply building more housing in general.
In other words, the problem isn't that development X only has studios. The problem is that development X is the only thing being built because the restrictions and process for development are so onerous. 

By defining through zoning and (perhaps CBAs) what's acceptable to the community, and consistently applying this criteria we can ensure that developers are satisfied with assuming the risk of building and that more housing is built for everyone. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/3c200f1c-112a-48ee-81b6-352a7c91f143%40Spark.

[Kenda Mutongi]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/04/metro/davis-square-somerville-homeless/

__________

Kenda Mutongi

Ford International Professor of History

MIT History Faculty, E51-296d

77 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02139

 

From: daviss...@googlegroups.com <daviss...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of PJ Santos <peej...@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2025 at 9:58 AM
To: Mieke Citroen <mie...@gmail.com>

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[Christopher Beland]

On Tue, 2025-11-04 at 09:25 -0500, Mieke Citroen wrote:
> One person says 1/4 households have cars, another says 3/4. We need
> to at least start with the same facts.
> 1. Where do you get these guesses, or can you cite sources?
> 2. How do we count? Car owners? Car users? Miles driven?

"3/4 have cars" may have been a typo or misread of "3/4 don't have
cars"? Back in May, I posted data on this from the US Census, and you
even commented on that thread saying you use a bicycle and a
motorcycle. To repeat, the Census estimated 23% of households (not
people) in Somerville did NOT have access to an automobile in 2023,
±4%. They had a breakdown by number of vehicles per household and over
time:

Somerville 2023:
Households 37,108 ±1,872
No vehicle 8,603 ±1,451 23%
1 vehicle 18,125 ±2,158 49%
2 vehicles 9,221 ±1,467 25%
3+ vehicles 1,159 ±478 3%

Somerville 2010:
Households 30,468 ±1,684
No vehicle 6,820 ±1,220 25%
1 vehicle 14,588 ±1.767 48%
2 vehicles 7,557 ±1385 25%
3+ vehicles 1,503 ±566 7%

https://data.census.gov/table?q=DP04&g=060XX00US2501762535&y=2010

(which is currently broken by a message about the government shutdown)

-B.

[Christopher Beland]

On Tue, 2025-11-04 at 12:41 +0000, Carol Rego wrote:

1 bedroom apartments are not family friendly and all the smaller
apartments are driving out families. Where is the balance if we only
build 1 bedroom and then we have a lot of young single people who may
only be transient.

As I get more data about where larger units are getting built, it seems small apartment buildings really do favor them, and allowing more of those might be the solution to keeping the city in balance. I just read that the new apartment building at 115 Thurston Street is adding larger units, built where there used to be a triple-decker and a parking lot. (The new building has no parking.) It will have 2 one-bedrooms, 3 two-bedrooms (up from 1), and 4 three-bedrooms (up from 2). That's in addition to the approved 3-unit building at 53 Chester we already knew about, which is all 3-bedrooms.

Somerville YIMBY will be probably in January be bringing a proposal to the city council to allow apartment buildings on all residential lots in Somerville. Currently in the NR zone (most of the city's residential streets), only up to 3 units are allowed per building. The proposed change would probably allow the construction of a large number of 3-bedroom apartments, both close to and farther from rapid transit.

BTW, it was interesting to hear the experiences of families living in small apartments; personally, I had to live in a studio for a while even after getting married.

-B.

[Christopher Beland]

On Wed, 2025-10-29 at 17:36 -0400, Alex Dehnert wrote:

I've vaguely wondered if the frequency of special permits, variances, and
zoning changes were somehow downstream of Prop 2.5 or other state
legislation meaning that "okay, we'll give you an upzoning in exchange for
a CBA where you operate a community center" is legal, but "you can
normally build up to four stories here, but if you pay extra property
taxes for a decade you can do fifteen" isn't.

I think you may be right that the reason cities don't make deals to e.g. raise a height limit in return for paying higher taxes for a while (above what the added value would be taxed) is that this is illegal under state law. I believe municipalities can only vary property taxes in the ways explicitly authorized, and this is not one of them. If you look in MGL chapters 59 and 40, you'll see authorizations around a bunch of specific things like tax increment financing, volunteers, seniors, historic properties, and watersheds, in addition to the complex Proposition 2 1/2 formulas.

(I suppose affordable housing requirements are a thing we can clearly include, even if money for various other community benefits may not be.)

I see that municipal affordable housing trust funds are explicitly authorized in MGL chapter 44, section 55C, but I'm not sure what law authorizes cities to set minimum percentages for affordable units or generally restricts the scope of zoning powers. MGL chapter 40A, section 9 does lower the voting threshold for planning boards when they appove special permits for multi-family housing near transit and commercial centers where there's a minumum 10% of affordable units; so it seems that's expected to be legal.

-B.

[Christopher Beland]

On Sat, 2025-11-01 at 20:15 -0400, David Booth wrote:

Although it might be possible to mitigate that last
problem by placing permanent restrictions on the units, like maximum
room sizes, maximum number of bathrooms, no in-unit laundry -- thanks to
Zev for that idea -- and no parking.

I think we've gone seriously off the rails if our solution to making housing affordable is making it undesirable, instead of simply building enough to keep up with employment and population growth. Having experienced the New England winter, I feel like if anything, in-unit laundry should be treated like a human right, on par with the freedom to dunk our donuts.

-B.

[David Booth]

On 11/12/25 12:16, rona twofisch.com wrote:

> . . . We need other strings to our bows, if we are going to get
> to house people who don't earn $150,000+ a year.

Exactly. We need multiple strategies. And in that vein . . .

On 11/12/25 03:54, Christopher Beland wrote:
> On Sat, 2025-11-01 at 20:15 -0400, David Booth wrote:
>> Although it might be possible to mitigate that last
>> problem by placing permanent restrictions on the units, like maximum
>> room sizes, maximum number of bathrooms, no in-unit laundry --
>> thanks to Zev for that idea -- and no parking.
>
> I think we've gone seriously off the rails if our solution to making
> housing affordable is making it undesirable, instead of simply
> building enough to keep up with employment and population growth.

Hang on, I did not suggest making less desirable housing *instead* of
building more *total* housing. We certainly need more *total* housing.
But if we want to create more naturally affordable housing, it would be
folly to ignore the idea of adding housing that is both *less* expensive
to build and *less* desirable for more affluent buyers -- as one
component of a multi-faceted strategy.

> I feel like if anything, in-unit

> laundry should be treated like a human right . . . .

I believe you are talking about on-site laundry -- *not* in-unit
laundry. I agree that on-site laundry is important, but each unit does
not need it's own private laundry. On-site laundry that is shared by 2+
units can both reduce cost *and* decrease desirability to affluent
buyers -- both of which should help make it more naturally affordable.

On Wed, 2025-11-05 at 14:06 -0500, Michael Chiu wrote:
> ...the better it gets, the more desirable it becomes, and more
> desirable means higher rents and less affordability

True, UNLESS supply increases to compensate. And we can only achieve
that by changing zoning regulations that for decades have forced prices
up by artificially limiting supply. Mostly they have done that by
limiting density.

Somerville loses its vibrancy when artists and musicians are priced out
by having to spend too much of their time working to pay rent instead of
working on their art. It becomes just another boring rich neighborhood,
and that makes me sad.

Thanks,
David Booth

[Christopher Beland]

On Wed, 2025-11-12 at 16:48 -0500, David Booth wrote:

Hang on, I did not suggest making less desirable housing instead of building more total housing.  We certainly need more total housing. But if we want to create more naturally affordable housing, it would be folly to ignore the idea of adding housing that is both less expensive to build and less desirable for more affluent buyers -- as one component of a multi-faceted strategy.

I don't think any amount of building undesirable housing is a good strategy if there are other available alternatives (like building more housing), especially if the government is deciding what makes an apartment undesirable and forcing that on people. If housing supply is eventually going to catch up with demand, then we'll be left with a bunch of units that are intentionally making people sad for no reason. In the meantime, we'll be suffering from irrational allocation of resources.

I believe you are talking about on-site laundry...

Yes, I was thinking of the difference between in-building laundry, not just in-unit laundry, and going outside to a laundromat. I'm not sure how the city would prevent me from moving a washer-dryer into my own apartment after the major renovation was finished. In my experience, pretty much any local plumber is happy to work without pulling permits, and you have to ask if you want things inspected by the city. The idea of having my laundry in the hallway instead of the laundry room because of a government rule...most people would think that's just government being stupid. The idea that we can't have the number of bathrooms that I or my tenants find adequate seems cruel. It has a kind of Soviet central planning vibe of "you should be ashamed of having nice things" and making everyone equal by making everyone sad.

It's unclear that the make-housing-undesirable strategy would actually work. As long as there's a housing shortage, wealthy people might buy or rent the same dilapidated units despite these restrictions if it's more important to be close to the subway or work than to not have these restrictions.

When we bought our fixer-upper triple-decker, getting off-street parking was a primary benefit, and I had the driveway repaved, but banning me from using that isn't going to lower rents for the upper floors; they can't use it anyway. If the city wants to ban parking in the driveway to prevent me from buying the building because I'm too wealthy...what happens to that space under a different owner? It's not like new construction where we could have put in a bigger building, so making it not-parking isn't saving a ton of money or making space for more housing that could subsidize lower rents. It just becomes wasted space, and the city has to somehow prevent anyone from parking on it. Would they force the owner to build a shed and keep it there for 30 years? Put in a brick wall? It's not like turning it into a lawn would prevent people from parking on it, especially if they've just moved here from New Hampshire.

The number of bathrooms does seem like it has a detectable consistent effect on market price, but minor amenities like whether you do laundry in the kitchen or the hallway, and whether you park on the street or in a driveway might not. I have a unit with a nice top-floor porch that gets morning sun, an amenity that you'd think adds value. I'm not sure I've actually seen anyone use it; I infer banning porches doesn't make the rent here cheaper. Some people actually do use their porches, and if they value them that means if porches are scarce, the few units that have them will actually have higher rents so that they won't be wasted on non-porch-lovers. That's the danger of creating artificial scarcity through government squashing of supply - it means fewer people get what they want, at higher prices.

Post-reno rent control would at least be guaranteed effective at the stated goal, and it would let landlords and tenants decide where they want to spend a smaller amount of money to make residents the happiest. Though it could also just divert investment away from Somerville toward renovating dilapidated housing in neighboring cities, meaning lower- and medium-income people would be displaced from elsewhere and come to Somerville to bid up unrenovated lower-end housing costs here anyway.

-B.

[Zev Pogrebin]

Hello,

To me, there are a few things at play here. I agree with Chris that there's not a reason to make less desirable housing for no reason. However, I think that the community would have a good reason to ask developers to do some of these things (not necessarily through government regulation, but through negotiation).

My main concern is encouraging developers to achieve their profits through having more units vs having more amenities. I have no problem with people having in-unit laundry. What I have a problem with is that developers often will build in 16-20 sq ft rooms for in-unit laundry. This is highly inefficient from the perspective of housing unit production. It reduces the number of units that can be placed within a given floor plan, and compensates by causing the units to be more expensive. There are other factors regarding the layouts, and whether that space would be useful for other things, but overall, I think that the placement of in-unit laundry can reduce the total units by a few percentage points within a given envelope. I would rather the developer build more units and achieve profits through volume rather than building fewer luxury units. The same goes for bathrooms. The average bathroom is 40 sq ft. If each apartment has an extra bathroom and a room for in-unit laundry, that's looking at an extra 60 sq ft per unit. Consider a building like Copper Mill which might have 500 units, that's a 30,000 sq ft differential or around 40x 750 sq ft apartments. In other words, by building more apartments with fewer amenities the developer could theoretically achieve the same revenue by offering each unit at 8% less.

David's point about room sizes plays on the same dynamic: big rooms result in fewer, more expensive units. The intent is not to punish the developer, because they can achieve plenty of profit off of the extra quantity. If our input can tip the scales towards having more, cheaper, apartments within a smaller building envelope, we should pursue that.

Regarding things like parking; I think the main issue there is in new-build construction. Encouraging developers to build parking will increase their building costs (no matter what), and reduce the unit count (if the parking is above ground). Asking developers to limit new residential parking would be beneficial. For example, the building next to Red Bones has 3 units and 3 parking spaces. Those parking spaces could have easily been another 2-3 bedroom unit, or two studio apartments. It is worth investigating whether it is possible for DSNC to request that developers pursue parking configurations that prioritize more housing and less parking. There are already parking maximums of 0.5 parking spaces per dwelling unit in MR and HR zones, which should do a bit to protect us from excessive parking such as in the case of that building next to Red Bones.

These are obviously very simplified examples and each case is highly dependent on the building layout. Additionally, construction costs may be impacted by the unit layout. In any case, my proposal is merely that we should push the developer to select a unit and amenity configuration that can create the most homes (or house the most people). So, overall, I don't think that this is soviet communism. We already have soviet levels of control (and soviet levels of supply crisis) in our zoning. I'm not suggesting any zoning changes; just that the neighborhood council should explore negotiating points that will encourage developers to build a higher quantity of new units.

Best,

Zev

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[Alex Dehnert]

I think one of the problems with banning "luxury" features, whatever
those features might be, is it makes it harder to understand why
builders are doing things. Right now, we can observe buildings going up
and see that they often have some feature that we think is societally
suboptimal -- larger units with larger bedrooms, smaller units with
fewer bedrooms, in-unit laundry, or whatever -- and then dig into *why*
that's happening.

Perhaps we discover that apartment buildings on small lots in UR aren't
*allowed* to have units under ~1500sqft[1]; or two-stair rules mean that
buildings need to be larger to be economical, and larger buildings mean
fewer bedrooms per unit; or what have you. Sometimes the problem is
going to be zoning or code, and we should fix those; sometimes the
builder is going to be wrong about what the market wants, and perhaps
they can be educated; sometimes what society "wants" isn't what
buyers/renters want (which opens up some thorny questions, but at least
we know to face it).

If we simply ban the "luxury" features, we won't get them, but it's hard
to tell how much impact the ban is having -- how many projects are going
unbuilt or built smaller because they don't pencil out with the ban, and
how many units are being built differently (hopefully better, if we
picked the right things to ban) because of the ban.

I realize you're not proposing government regulation, and that's good,
although I suspect if you ask a developer in a low-stakes way "hey, how
about you do X instead of Y", they're frequently going to think "that
would cut into our profit margin, which means we can't do other things
you want" -- hopefully they say it out loud with reasoning, and then we
can consider whether it's actually something we want to push them for,
although I suspect sometimes they'll just decide the project won't be
able to get approval or be less willing to make other concessions.



For laundry in particular, I suspect it's a mixture of ~table stakes and
difficulty using the space for other things.

Among my friends, I think a fair number have declared they're not going
to live somewhere without in-unit laundry. I suspect that's even more
true for folks with a higher rental budget, so I suspect builders may be
looking at "we could use 3% more space for laundry and cater to people
willing to pay $5K/mo, or build 3% more units to rent for $4K/mo each",
and preferring the higher-rent occupants. We could wish they wouldn't,
but if we just ban in-unit laundry, I suspect a bunch of those buildings
don't pencil out any more, and don't get built at all.

I also suspect layout is a very real factor -- in my triple decker, the
laundry room is tucked somewhere it couldn't obviously be used for much
else. In larger buildings, my impression is exterior walls are at a
premium (because bedrooms need windows), so laundry rooms and bathrooms
have the virtue they can be interior. You could repurpose that space for
kitchens or living rooms or bigger bedrooms, but not to put *more*
bedrooms into the building, which means you also can't get more units
out of them.

~~Alex

[1]
https://online.encodeplus.com/regs/somerville-ma/doc-viewer.aspx#secid-342

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>
>

[David Booth]

On 11/13/25 20:03, Alex Dehnert wrote:
> I think one of the problems with banning "luxury" features, . . .

AFAIK, nobody suggested banning luxury features.

On 11/13/25 07:42, Christopher Beland wrote:
> I don't think any amount of building undesirable housing is a good
> strategy if there are other available alternatives (like building more
> housing),

I disagree with characterizing it as "undesirable housing". It may seem
undesirable to you, if you are accustomed to more "luxury". But
minimally featured low-cost housing would be *very* desirable to those
who cannot afford anything else.

If a minimalist set of features has the overall effect of lowering the
rental price of an apartment, then that in-and-of-itself is a *very*
desirable feature for those who otherwise could not afford Somerville
housing at all.

> especially if the government is deciding what makes an
> apartment undesirable and forcing that on people.

The government is *already* deciding *many* things about how and where
housing can be built and "forcing that on people" -- minimum lot sizes,
minimum frontage, maximum height . . . even specifying minimum bedroom
sizes!

If the city were to specify a *maximum* bedroom size for a certain
percentage of low-end units -- as means of making that housing more
*naturally* affordable -- then I do not think that would be any more
intrusive on personal rights than other existing or proposed
regulations. To my mind it would be *far* less intrusive than rent
control, for example.

> If housing supply is
> eventually going to catch up with demand, then we'll be left with a
> bunch of units that are intentionally making people sad for no reason.

If we are lucky enough in the future to not need any such low-end
housing because nobody is homeless and everyone can afford more
"luxurious" housing, then that would be a great problem to have! In
that case those unneeded apartments could all be happily repurposed in
myriad ways. Somehow I don't foresee that happening in my lifetime.

> In the meantime, we'll be suffering from irrational allocation
> of resources.

I beg to differ. *All* of the suggestions so far in this thread for
what I'll call "minimalist affordable housing" would *both* reduce cost
*and* reduce desirability for those who can afford more. There is
nothing irrational about that, given the critical need for more
affordable housing.

Currently, so-called "affordable housing" that is built the same as
(unaffordable) market-rate housing is heavily *subsidized* in order to
be "affordable". I think that is a *much* less rational use of public
funds -- and ultimately less effective -- than finding creative ways to
make low-end housing more *naturally* affordable.

>> I believe you are talking about on-site laundry...
>>
> Yes, I was thinking of the difference between in-building laundry, not
> just in-unit laundry, and going outside to a laundromat. I'm not sure
> how the city would prevent me from moving a washer-dryer into my own
> apartment after the major renovation was finished. In my experience,
> pretty much any local plumber is happy to work without pulling permits,
> and you have to ask if you want things inspected by the city.

Sure, some might do that, *if* they can afford it, and *if* they can
find a place to put it, in their tiny low-end apartment. But I suspect
it would be very few, given that they would already have shared laundry
in the building.

> The idea
> of having my laundry in the hallway instead of the laundry room because
> of a government rule...most people would think that's just government
> being stupid. The idea that we can't have the number of bathrooms that I
> or my tenants find adequate seems cruel.

That does not make sense. That's like buying a Hyundai and then
complaining that you cannot fix it up to drive like a Ferrari. You knew
what you were getting when you bought it. If you don't want its
limitations then you should not buy it. Those low-end units are
intended for people who *cannot* afford more bathrooms and in-unit laundry.

I don't know exactly how much in-unit laundry adds to the price, but it
certainly adds something. This 2016 article claims it adds an average
of $50-$100/month to the rent.
https://www.fjsdistributors.com/2016/12/cost-payoff-adding-unit-laundry/

Craigslist currently shows the median price of a 2-bedroom 1-bath Boston
apartment with in-unit laundry or hookup to be $300/month (or about 10%)
higher than the same configuration with on-site or in-building laundry.
Some of that price difference is surely due to other factors for which I
could not control in my quick comparison. But even if in-unit laundry
only adds $100/month (over on-site laundry), that is still a significant
difference for a low income renter.

> It has a kind of Soviet central
> planning vibe of "you should be ashamed of having nice things" and
> making everyone equal by making everyone sad.

As opposed to a capitalist central planning vibe of forcing low density
sprawl, leading to unaffordable housing, which is what our zoning
regulations have been doing for decades?

Nobody has suggested forcing low-end housing on everyone. The point is
to increase its availability for those who *cannot* afford more. I have
witnessed good friends -- especially artists and musicians -- moving
away because they cannot afford Somerville's high housing prices. That
makes me sad. And this makes me even sadder:
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2024-08-06/boston-has-2nd-highest-homeless-rate-in-the-us-report-finds

> It's unclear that the make-housing-undesirable strategy would actually
> work.

It is not a "make-housing-undesirable strategy". It is a *minimalist*
strategy to reduces *both* cost *and* desirability for buyers who can
afford luxuries like in-unit laundry, off-street parking, bigger rooms
and lots of bathrooms.

.From an economics perspective, it is a form of market segmentation,
similar to the way a refrigerator company will sell different models at
different prices. Availability of the higher-end model reduces demand
for the low-end model, because those who can afford the higher-end model
will buy that one. And that helps hold down the price of the low-end model.

Note that for this to work, *both* the higher-end model *and* the
low-end model must be available. But builders do not want to make the
low-end models of housing, because there is more profit margin in the
higher-end models. That's where City policy can come into play: to
somehow encourage or require the creation of more low-end housing.

> As long as there's a housing shortage, wealthy people might buy or
> rent the same dilapidated units despite these restrictions if it's more
> important to be close to the subway or work than to not have these
> restrictions.

Yes of course. Nobody is suggesting that we *only* have low-end housing.

> When we bought our fixer-upper triple-decker, getting off-street parking
> was a primary benefit, and I had the driveway repaved, but banning me

> from using that isn't going to lower rents for the upper floors; . . .

Nobody is suggesting that you be banned from using the off-street
parking that you bought.

The two suggestions about parking that I heard were: 1. that newly
constructed minimalist affordable housing could have no parking, as one
way to reduce cost and increase natural affordability; and 2. that the
City could require off-street parking to be unbundled from apartment
sales or rentals, to help keep prices down, to reduce the incentive to
own a car, and to make more parking available for people visiting local
businesses.

According to a quick look on craigslist, the median price of off-street
parking is about $200/month. That is a *significant* chunk of someone's
rent.
https://boston.craigslist.org/search/prk?query=somerville&rent_period=3

> . . . That's the danger of creating artificial scarcity

> through government squashing of supply - it means fewer people get what
> they want, at higher prices.

AFAIK, nobody on this list has suggested that the government squash
supply. The whole point is the opposite: to *increase* supply, to
achieve more naturally affordable housing. And as you (I believe)
pointed out earlier, it is needed at *all* price points. But the supply
of low-end housing needs more help than higher-end housing, because
builders naturally gravitate toward the higher profit margins of
higher-end housing. I believe we can and should investigate ways to
encourage them to build more naturally affordable low-end housing.

Thanks,
David Booth

[Alex Dehnert]

On 11/14/25 00:45, David Booth wrote:
> On 11/13/25 20:03, Alex Dehnert wrote:
> > I think one of the problems with banning "luxury" features, . . .
>
> AFAIK, nobody suggested banning luxury features.

I think that's a reasonable summary of "it might be possible to mitigate

that last problem by placing permanent restrictions on the units, like
maximum room sizes, maximum number of bathrooms, no in-unit laundry"

(from 11/1/25 20:15). (I guess maybe you're drawing a distinction
between a ban for all housing vs. some? That's a distinction I wasn't
particularly thinking of.) In any case, that was partially a preemptive
hypothetical, which is why I said "[...] I realize you're not proposing
government regulation".

> The government is *already* deciding *many* things about how and
> where housing can be built and "forcing that on people" -- minimum
> lot sizes, minimum frontage, maximum height . . . even specifying
> minimum bedroom sizes!
>
> If the city were to specify a *maximum* bedroom size for a certain
> percentage of low-end units -- as means of making that housing more
> *naturally* affordable -- then I do not think that would be any more
> intrusive on personal rights than other existing or proposed
> regulations. To my mind it would be *far* less intrusive than rent
> control, for example.

I think the experience with zoning has been that a bunch of those
restrictions don't work well, so I'm not finding that a convincing
argument in favor of adding (e.g.) a max bedroom size...



I think the Pew article from earlier
(https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2025/07/31/new-housing-slows-rent-growth-most-for-older-more-affordable-units)
also suggests ~"just add market units, don't try to shape them" has a
lot of potential to improve the situation, including lower on the income
scale:
- "Pew’s analysis of the 1,654 ZIP codes tracked by Zillow throughout
U.S. metropolitan areas suggests that every 10% increase in a market’s
housing supply (using American Community Survey data) from 2017 to 2023
correlated with rents growing 5% less from 2017 to 2024, controlling for
a variety of factors."
- "In each metropolitan area, the steepest rent declines were for Class
C apartments—those in older and less expensive buildings" (there's
quantitative data in figure 2)
- "The new residents of those homes tend to move in from high-income
neighborhoods, but the people who move into the homes they vacate come
from slightly less affluent neighborhoods, and so on. The chains quickly
reach communities with below-average incomes, freeing up as many as 70
homes there for each 100 market-rate (unsubsidized) homes built in
high-income neighborhoods, according to Mast’s research."

That last suggests to me that if we have a choice of
* upzone and produce 1000 units of whatever developers want to build
(because lots of projects pencil out), or
* shape housing production (e.g., through lower density for
developer-choice housing) and get 600 below-average pricing units,
we'd actually free up *more* below-average price units by letting
developers build whatever and using moving chains. (Also, assuming the
same 20% inclusionary requirement for both, we'd also get 200
"affordable"/subsidized units from the former vs. 120 from the latter.)

(Presumably if we don't provide some carrots or sticks, developers will
just keep building expensive units, at least until that submarket
saturates.)

Obviously, depending on the policies being compared, the exact ratios
might be different, but it's a sign we should be careful about this sort
of policy, because if we limit expensive units too much, we might
actually get fewer lower-market units too.

~~Alex

[Don Meglio]

and get 600 below-average pricing units, we'd actually free up *more* below-average price units by letting
developers build whatever and using moving chains. (Also, assuming the same 20% inclusionary requirement for both,

we'd also get 200 "affordable"/subsidized units from the former vs. 120 from the latter.)>>>>

Alex, David, et al.....

Thank you  for sharing. have found this a very interesting conversation. Could you say a little bit more regarding what I highlighted above? 

Thanks. Greatly appreciated.

Don Meglio 

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[Aaron Weber]

It's worth remembering here that an actual "minimalist" housing approach, privately-operated dormitory style apartments, was already proposed for Davis Square, and it was so controversial that the company planning it gave up and left town.

I have a great fondness for the 320-square-foot studio I lived in before I met my wife (so easy to clean!), but today Somerville has density maximums designed specifically to limit small apartments, and community groups routinely demand fewer studios in any given proposal.

Before we demand or require minimalist style or efficiency style apartments, perhaps we could merely legalize them? 

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[PJ Santos]

I think Alex is talking about the "moving chains" research, which is really cool. 

Here's a short summary on some of the US based results: 

The Effect of New Market-Rate Housing Construction on the Low-Inc.pdf https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=up_policybriefs

From what I understand, the data is clearest in Helsinki, because the government does a great job collecting it:

JUE-Insight_-City-wide-effects-of-new-housing-supply_-Evidence-from-moving-chains.pdf https://hendricksfamilyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/JUE-Insight_-City-wide-effects-of-new-housing-supply_-Evidence-from-moving-chains.pdf

The implication is that creating a class A unit has the effect of creating a fraction of a low income unit due to people moving around. The exact fraction depends on local factors, but ball park it's somewhere between 1/10 to 1/3

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[PJ Santos]

Thanks for that input Daniela, do you think if we built housing with really poor airflow our housing prices would go down? 

On Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 1:11 PM Daniela Parker <danielap...@gmail.com> wrote:

Group Discount For Air Ducts and Vents Cleaning 

Hi Neighbors! I’ve been dealing with dust and poor airflow at home, so I’m getting my ducts and vents professionally cleaned. A friend recommended a great service, and I managed to negotiate a group discount — just $159 per home!

If a few of us sign up, we all get the discounted rate. Scheduling is flexible based on your availability.

Interested? Just send me your address and phone number, and I’ll pass it along to the cleaner to coordinate or directly contact him at 682-353-7345

Thanks!

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[David Booth]

On 11/14/25 12:24, Aaron Weber wrote:
> Before we demand or require minimalist style or efficiency style
> apartments, perhaps we could merely legalize them?

+1 to that!

On 11/14/25 01:57, Alex Dehnert wrote:
> On 11/14/25 00:45, David Booth wrote:
> > On 11/13/25 20:03, Alex Dehnert wrote:
> >  > I think one of the problems with banning "luxury" features, . . .
> >
> > AFAIK, nobody suggested banning luxury features.
>
> I think that's a reasonable summary of "it might be possible to mitigate
> that last problem by placing permanent restrictions on the units, like
> maximum room sizes, maximum number of bathrooms, no in-unit laundry"
> (from 11/1/25 20:15). (I guess maybe you're drawing a distinction
> between a ban for all housing vs. some?

Correct. That quote was talking specifically about ensuring that
low-end housing stays affordable for those who need it -- i.e., to
prevent it from being gentrified and once again becoming UNaffordable.
It was *not* talking about placing any such restrictions on *all* housing.

Ultimately, we want to find the most cost-effective way to make more
affordable housing. I think it is important to explore any creative
ideas that might achieve that, subject them to vigorous analysis, try
the ones that are most promising, and keep the ones that work best.

> I think the experience with zoning has been that a bunch of those
> restrictions don't work well,

Agreed.

> so I'm not finding that a convincing
> argument in favor of adding (e.g.) a max bedroom size...

That was not my point. An argument was made that restrictions like max
bedroom size would be Soviet-style government intrusion on personal
freedom. My point was that such a restriction would not be any more
intrusive than the existing -- but misguided -- housing policies we have
had for decades.

> I think the Pew article from earlier
> (https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2025/07/31/new-housing-slows-rent-growth-most-for-older-more-affordable-units) also suggests ~"just add market units, don't try to shape them" has a lot of potential to improve the situation,

I agree! And if that could fully solve the problem then it certainly
would be the simplest approach. But I do not currently think it would
be *enough* to address the low-end need, because the way it functions --
as nicely described in that article -- is by shifting more affluent
renters out of the *existing* low-end units, and a kind of trickle-down
effect. It does not *add* more low-end units, because as you point out,
builders will not voluntarily construct low-end units. Furthermore, new
low-end units could be built with significantly higher density than
those existing low-end units -- *if* we change current zoning regulations.

> - "Pew’s analysis . . . .
> That last suggests to me that if we have a choice of upzone [versus] shape housing production . . . .

I could not entirely follow what you meant -- you lost me when you
mentioned *lowering* density. But I definitely agree with your overall
point that we should analyze the expected ROI of each approach so that
we can push for those that are most promising.

> (Presumably if we don't provide some carrots or sticks, developers will
> just keep building expensive units, at least until that submarket
> saturates.)

Agreed.

> Obviously, depending on the policies being compared, the exact ratios
> might be different, but it's a sign we should be careful about this sort
> of policy, because if we limit expensive units too much, we might
> actually get fewer lower-market units too.

Interesting question. If the policy were merely to *limit* production
of higher-end housing, then I would certainly agree. But the point is
not to *limit* high-end housing production per se, it is to encourage
more *low-end* housing production. The assumption is that the same
amount of capital could produce *more* units of low-end housing than
high-end housing, but it needs a carrot and/or stick to happen.

For example, suppose that:

1. the cost of building a high-end unit is 30% more than the cost of
building a low-end unit, i.e., the same amount of capital could either
build 100 high-end units or 130 low-end units;

2. the downward-chaining effect described by that Pew study is 70%,
meaning that for every 100 high-end units are added, 70 existing low-end
units are freed up; and

3. there's enough capital for 200 new high-end units.

If that capital is only used to build high-end units, then it would free
up 70% x 200 = 140 existing low-end units.

But if instead that same capital is used to build 100 high-end units and
130 low-end units, then the result would be 70 existing low-end units
freed up *plus* 130 new low-end units = 200 low-end units.

In other words, that Pew study very convincingly shows that adding
high-end housing reduces demand for low-end housing, by a trickle-down
effect. But *directly* adding more low-end housing clearly has a larger
effect.

Thanks,
David Booth

[johnh...@gmail.com]

Attached is a current multi-family housing report for the Boston Metro for anyone interested.

Best,

John

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[Don Meglio]

Alex, David, et al.....,

Again...I would like to thank you all for a conversation where I have learned much....but...I still have another question. (sorry...and thank you for being so willing to respond).

We all know that Somerville has over the years ranked as one of the densest (most dense?) cities in NE. I understand the impact of the housing affordability crisis we have both nationally and locally. 

My question is...How do we know when we have enough affordable housing for a particular town or city? How does that work?

Again...thank you.

Don Meglio

On Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 11:51 AM Robert Collins <rober...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes I think we should have more housing that looks like cubes 

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 18, 2025, at 10:45 AM, johnh...@gmail.com wrote:



To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/01f401dc57e8%248757f530%249607df90%24%40gmail.com.

<25Q3 Greater Boston Multifamily Report.pdf>

[Robert Collins]

Yes I think we should have more housing that looks like cubes 

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 18, 2025, at 10:45 AM, johnh...@gmail.com wrote:



Attached is a current multi-family housing report for the Boston Metro for anyone interested.

[Jeff Byrnes]

Repeating Don’s question b/c it’s a good one:

My question is...How do we know when we have enough affordable housing for a particular town or city? How does that work?

This might sound like a dodge, but “enough” is an ever-moving target. If we continue to be a welcoming place with job opportunities, our need for more homes will always exist. It’s less about “what’s enough” and more about “how many new homes do we need every year to keep affordability within reach of almost all people?”

The key metrics for that are:

• vacancy rate for rentals
• the combo of homes for sale + time on the for-sale market

Healthy rental vacancy is 5–8% (we’re at 2–3%).

I can’t quote a specific for the for-sale metric, though it’s downstream of rentals being affordable. People rent before they can buy, so solving that one is more acute for us, especially with ⅔ of our residents being tenants.

So, if our population is growing at x%, how many more homes do we need each year to keep rental vacancy above 5%?

There is an answer for this, but it’s not one we have for Somerville, specifically, because it’s more easily answered at the regional level of Greater Boston. Still, we can figure it out!

-- 
Jeff Byrnes
he/him

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[Jeff Byrnes]

Boston as a whole is ~2% last I saw. The Boston Foundation’s 2025 Greater Boston Housing Report Card is my longtime resource for this & similar metrics.

From the “Core Metrics” section of that report:

“Greater Boston’s vacancy rate is especially tight, at just under 3 percent in 2024. The Joint Center for Housing Studies has suggested that a stable vacancy rate is one that allows rents to rise in line with incomes and construction costs rather than faster. Following this logic, and using Boston’s 1994 vacancy rate as a benchmark, today’s levels point to a significant undersupply of rental housing in the region.”



While Somerville’s vacancy rate matters, we’re a small city in a large metro, so if we want to solve this by ourselves, we’d need a lot more vacancy ourselves to bring the entire region up to a healthy level.

While I don’t mind if Somerville solves our housing crises on its own, I also don’t think that’s realistic, so figuring out what our part of “creating healthy vacancy” means, and working hand-in-hand with Cambridge, Boston, Brookline, and Newton (at least) is what makes the most sense to me.

-- 
Jeff Byrnes
he/him

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On Nov 20, 2025 at 9:28 PM -0500, John Wilde <johnh...@gmail.com>, wrote:

Hi Jeff,

The Colliers Q3 market report shows the figures aren’t so low, 4.3% in Somerville and over 5% in some other communities in the Metro area. Not sure which figures might be more correct though ?

Where was your data from ?

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 20, 2025, at 8:49 PM, Jeff Byrnes <je...@somervilleyimby.org> wrote:



[Alex Dehnert]

> As I get more data about where larger units are getting built, it
> seems small apartment buildings really do favor them, and allowing
> more of those might be the solution to keeping the city in balance.

Yup, I'm pretty sure smaller buildings favor larger units -- at least
for "larger" in the sense of "more bedrooms". Each bedroom needs to have
a window, so in a big building available exterior wall becomes a big
constraint. A unit with fewer bedrooms will tend to have a larger
fraction of its floorspace as non-bedroom (a 2BR and 1BR might have the
same size kitchen and dining room, but obviously the 1BR has less
bedroom space), which means it uses less precious exterior wall per
square foot (and therefore likely per dollar of rent). (You can also see
this in hotel rooms, are often long and about as narrow as will fit a bed.)

Looking at the 115 Thurston plans[1], for example, it appears to be
around 30ft wide by 70ft deep. That means each floor is around 2100sqft,
of which around 1600sqft is within 10ft of an exterior wall. If you
assume rooms are around 10ft*10ft, that means more than three-quarters
of the building can reasonably be bedroom space -- which gives
flexibility to have basically whatever mix of bedroom and non-bedroom
space you want, since you can probably easily fill the building core
with stairwells, bathrooms, etc. that don't need windows.

Market Central[2] (Central Square), OTOH, is a much larger building
(well, several buildings), where it looks like geometry may really be
constraining units. Consider unit 512 (1BR, 700sqft, $3700) vs 614 (3BR,
940sqft, $9K). 614 is a corner unit, with a hallway down the ~middle,
with two bathrooms on the interior side, 3 bedrooms on the exterior
side, a kitchen *in* the hallway, and a small dining room at the end.
512 is a middle unit, verging on a studio, with a dining area against
the window and the space just in from that divided by a wall, with a
kitchen on one side and a long, narrow bedroom on the other, and closets
and bathroom still farther in. 614 (3BR) is about a third larger, but
charges more than twice as much -- a bit under $10 per sqft-mo vs a bit
over $5 for 512. I'm sure the builders would *love* to have made 512 a
3BR as well -- turning three copies of 512 into 2 3BRs the size of 614
would presumably have rented for 60+% more -- but the geometry doesn't
work. There's not nearly enough exterior wall to fit three bedrooms in,
at least not if you want a dining area with a window too. Looking at
Market Central, all four currently-available 3BRs are corner units,
which provide much more exterior wall -- my understanding is that in
large buildings this is very typical.

Those lower floors of Market Central are a good example of a
double-loaded corridor -- a longish hallway down the middle, with units
(often fairly deep ones) on either side, and often a staircase at either
end. AIUI this is a pretty common building shape, in large part because
over 3 stories or 12 units[3], I think you're required to have two
stairwells (to provide alternative means of egress), which basically
requires using this shape. The fixed space requirements of the second
stairwell push for a larger building with a central corridor (to reduce
the percentage overhead from that staircase). This has various
disadvantages -- 3BRs don't really fit, they require larger parcels,
etc.. My understanding is that in the US, a builder with a large parcel
will tend to turn it into one giant building (because they need two
stairs per building), whereas in Europe (which tends to require just one
stairwell) they'll often build several smaller "point access blocks"
(buildings with a single central stair), allowing for larger units, more
natural light, and more cross ventilation. On smaller plots, we may be
unable to take advantage of more height at all, because of the need to
cram in two stairwells.

So, in terms of allowing more smaller buildings, a big thing we could do
is allow single stair (up to say 6 stories, which is common elsewhere).

More on single stair:
https://www.vox.com/housing/410115/housing-single-stair-building-code-icc-fire-safety-firefighters-research
https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/09/10/97-single-stair-buildings-and-eco-districts-with-michael-eliason-incentives-series-pt-1/
https://www.bostonindicators.org/upzone_update/single-stair

~~Alex


[1] Available at
https://www.masslandrecords.com/MiddlesexSouth/D/Default.aspx, choose to
search Plans -> Property Search, and then enter the address, and view
the image from 9/24/2024. I'm not sure if there's a easy "download PDF"
mechanism, but the print flow seems to really open it as a PDF.
[2] https://marketcentral.com/floor-plans
[3] https://www.bostonindicators.org/single_stair

P.S. I also spent a while looking at 50 Prospect while writing this: a
25 story tower and adjacent mid-rise building with 450 units, 324K sqft
-- the tower is roughly 100ft x 100sqft[4], and the mid-rise is much
longer (500ft?) and narrower (60ft?)[5]. I'm a bit confused by that
tower -- it's got a surprisingly large central area, and no obvious
second stair. The large central area means units are only ~25ft deep,
which isn't obviously a big constraint on unit size, though the rooms do
tend long and narrow, and the 2BR units are all on corners. I'm not sure
what the overall unit mix is, but there's currently[6] no 3BRs, 7 2BRs,
12 1BR, and 7 studios available. It looks to me like probably each floor
of the tower has 2 2BR in the left corners, 6 1BR (right side and middle
of the top and bottom), and 6 studios (middle of the left side, and one
in on top and bottom). The mid-rise may actually show more of the "small
units in the middle" effect, though I didn't look at it as closely.

[4] I struggled to find floorplans for the whole building. This is from
https://s3.amazonaws.com/somervillema-live/s3fs-public/2-Project%20Narrative%20D2.3.pdf,
pages 3&6.
[5] I'm guessing the relative size from
https://www.prospectunionsquare.com/sightmap/
[6] Same source as [3]




On 11/4/25 21:32, 'Christopher Beland' via Davis Square Neighborhood

Council wrote:
> On Tue, 2025-11-04 at 12:41 +0000, Carol Rego wrote:
>
>>> 1 bedroom apartments are not family friendly and all the smaller
>>> apartments are driving out families. Where is the balance if we
>>> only build 1 bedroom and then we have a lot of young single
>>> people who may only be transient.
>>>
> As I get more data about where larger units are getting built, it
> seems small apartment buildings really do favor them, and allowing
> more of those might be the solution to keeping the city in balance.
> I just read that the new apartment building at 115 Thurston Street
> is adding larger units, built where there used to be a triple-decker
> and a parking lot. (The new building has no parking.) It will have 2

> one-bedrooms, 3 two- bedrooms (up from 1), and 4 three-bedrooms (up

> from 2). That's in addition to the approved 3-unit building at 53
> Chester we already knew about, which is all 3-bedrooms.
>
> Somerville YIMBY will be probably in January be bringing a proposal
> to the city council to allow apartment buildings on all residential
> lots in Somerville. Currently in the NR zone (most of the city's
> residential streets), only up to 3 units are allowed per building.
> The proposed change would probably allow the construction of a large

> number of 3- bedroom apartments, both close to and farther from

> rapid transit.
>
> BTW, it was interesting to hear the experiences of families living
> in small apartments; personally, I had to live in a studio for a
> while even after getting married.
>
> -B.
>

> -- Davis Square Neighborhood Council · https://DavisSquareNC.org

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[Alex Dehnert]

>> - "Pew’s analysis . . . .
>> That last suggests to me that if we have a choice of upzone [versus]
>> shape housing production . . . .
>
> I could not entirely follow what you meant -- you lost me when you
> mentioned *lowering* density. But I definitely agree with your overall
> point that we should analyze the expected ROI of each approach so that
> we can push for those that are most promising.

Well, the question is what carrot or stick we could use. One option is
something like a hybrid of Cambridge's affordable housing overlay and
their city-wide upzoning -- rezone (say) the whole city for four stories
of ~whatever developers want to build, or six stories if the units are
all "less-fancy" (but not necessarily "affordable"/subsidized).

The followup question for basically any carrot is "why not give that
carrot to developer-choice housing too?" Instead of upzoning to
4-or-maybe-6 floors, we could upzone to just six stories of anything.
The hypothetical choice to max developer-choice housing at four stories
instead of six is what I mean by "lower density" -- hopefully not lower
density than the status quo, but lower density than the less-fancy housing.

For some carrots -- e.g., a city tax break -- there's an obvious answer
for why not give it to all housing construction (the city can only
afford to give up so much tax revenue -- although maybe it'd be better
off funding "affordable" housing than "less-fancy" housing), but for
things like a zoning increment the answer is less clear.

(There's a similar question for most sticks: "what if we just didn't use
that stick for *anyone*?)

> 1. the cost of building a high-end unit is 30% more than the cost of building a low-end unit, i.e., the same amount of capital could either build 100 high-end units or 130 low-end units;

> But if instead that same capital is used to build 100 high-end units and 130 low-end units, then the result would be 70 existing low-end units freed up *plus* 130 new low-end units = 200 low-end units.

A thing that I'm really unclear on is whether "that same capital" is a
meaningful constraint. My model of financing -- dunno how accurate it
is! -- is that there's essentially infinite capital available in the US
bond markets, if you can provide high enough returns: if you can pay
back 15% per year with very high probability, you can easily borrow
enough to build 10K units; if you can pay only 2% per year, you'll
struggle to borrow anything. If that's true, it doesn't matter that you
need the same amount of capital to build 130 units yielding 2% or 100
units yielding 8% -- nobody will loan you money for the former but you
can get plenty of money for the latter. (All these numbers are made up;
dunno what you actually need to offer. Presumably the rate of return for
the less-fancy units is less than for more-fancy units, though,
otherwise we'd see the former get built more.)

Things like "suitable plots of land" strike me as more likely to be a
constraining resource, although it's also not clear to me how much
"less-fancy" units take up less of it. (In-unit laundry is like a couple
percent, so probably not going to move the needle much. Parking probably
is like 25% in many cases -- though I'm not clear how much parking
construction is developer-initiated vs. pushed on them.)

~~Alex

[John Wilde]

Thanks Jeff!

I can check with my colleagues on the commercial brokerage side on their sources for vacancy rates.

John W.

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 20, 2025, at 9:52 PM, Jeff Byrnes <je...@somervilleyimby.org> wrote:



Boston as a whole is ~2% last I saw. The Boston Foundation’s 2025 Greater Boston Housing Report Card is my longtime resource for this & similar metrics.

From the “Core Metrics” section of that report:

“Greater Boston’s vacancy rate is especially tight, at just under 3 percent in 2024. The Joint Center for Housing Studies has suggested that a stable vacancy rate is one that allows rents to rise in line with incomes and construction costs rather than faster. Following this logic, and using Boston’s 1994 vacancy rate as a benchmark, today’s levels point to a significant undersupply of rental housing in the region.”

<Attachment.png>

[John Wilde]

Hi Jeff,

The Colliers Q3 market report shows the figures aren’t so low, 4.3% in Somerville and over 5% in some other communities in the Metro area. Not sure which figures might be more correct though ?

Where was your data from ?

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 20, 2025, at 8:49 PM, Jeff Byrnes <je...@somervilleyimby.org> wrote:



[David Booth]

On 11/20/25 22:47, Alex Dehnert wrote:
> . . . [One option is to] rezone (say) the whole city for four stories

> of ~whatever developers want to build, or six stories if the units are
> all "less-fancy" (but not necessarily "affordable"/subsidized).

Interesting idea! Allowing more stories in exchange for making units
more affordable sounds like a carrot that could work. But we'd have to
figure out how to ensure that they are sufficiently "more affordable".

> The followup question for basically any carrot is "why not give that
> carrot to developer-choice housing too?" Instead of upzoning to
> 4-or-maybe-6 floors, we could upzone to just six stories of anything.

Fair question. Ideally we should have an economic model to estimate the
resulting increase in housing with each strategy. Does anyone know
where we could get the data needed to do such estimates? But the other
trade-off to consider is the community impact of increasing building
height and density: if the jump is too big it could feel disruptive.
(But I personally think we *must* allow some increase in height, to
increase housing supply without reducing precious green space.)

>> But if instead that same capital is used to build 100 high-end
>> units and 130 low-end units, then the result would be 70
>> existing low-end units freed up *plus* 130 new low-end units =
>> 200 low-end units.
>
> A thing that I'm really unclear on is whether "that same capital"

> is a meaningful constraint. . . .

> Things like "suitable plots of land" strike me as more likely to
> be a constraining resource

Good point, I think you're right. For each available *property*, a
developer will construct whatever units will produce the highest ROI,
from among the available options. But if we use carrots/sticks to
influence those available options, then the effect could be similar:
more affordable housing per available property (on average). HOWEVER,
this would only work if the ROI that developers could get elsewhere --
in some neighboring town -- is not significantly higher, so that they
don't develop elsewhere instead.

Thanks,
David Booth