Residents form Brighton Allston Community Coalition (Jeff Sullivan, Boston Bulletin: May 3, 2018)
Anthony D'Isidoro
Residents form Brighton Allston Community Coalition (Jeff Sullivan, Boston Bulletin: May 3, 2018)
Housing development has been a boon and a curse to residents of the City of Boston, and a few Allstoners and Brightonites have decided to try and do something about it.
Last week, several community members of Allston Brighton announced the formation of the Brighton Allston Community Coalition (BACC) to try to combat what they see as harmful development to current residents.
Co-Founder Kevin Carragee said the two main focuses they are currently aiming at (it’s a new group and he said they would have much more to say after more internal discussion) are affordable housing and owner occupancy within the two neighborhoods. He said the wave of development facing the neighborhoods are hurting current residents and causing a lot of displacement.
“There’s no lack of community meetings in Allston Brighton, you could camp out here if you wanted and go to one every night,” he said.
Carragee said they wanted to focus on affordability in the neighborhood, mainly because many residents are being pushed out by increasing housing costs.
“We’re pushing for 20 percent affordable in the large residential developments,” he said. “We believe, given the interest by developers in this neighborhood... The housing prices far exceed the median income in our neighborhood and we’re seeing displacement. People who want to stay in the neighborhood and contributed to the neighborhood are being forced out. The neighborhood is losing its soul.”
The BACC’s mission statement said that currently, the median income for Brighton is $56,729 and Allston is $42,722. Currently, the city’s inclusionary development policy (IDP) requires that any development over 20,000 square feet or containing more than nine housing units have 13 percent of its units be designated affordable, create the same amount of units offsite or contribute a funds equal to those units to the city’s IDP fund. Carragee said because of the disparity with the regional area median income that decides what the city considers affordable (the region’s AMI is hovering around $100,000 for a family, and the average affordable unit comes in at 70 percent AMI, $70,000), not even that is actually affordable to many current residents. He said adding the 20 percent would help alleviate the demand for affordable housing.
“We’ve been suffering through this for decades and now it’s just becoming too much,” he said.
Carragee said that the disparity between rental properties and owner occupied units in the neighborhoods are also causing this spike in housing prices. He said currently, the owner-occupancy rate for Allston is 10 percent, one of the lowest in the whole city, and Brighton’s rate has dropped from 26.8 percent in 2010 to 22.5 percent in 2015. Carragee said one of the main problems is that Boston University and Boston College, with campuses on site in Allston and Brighton, don’t house the whole of their undergraduate population within campus dorm rooms.
“The use of residential housing stock to house students, I mean that’s a tragically bad decision and the city needs to do more to influence and force colleges to house their students on their campuses and not land bank parts of their property where dorms could be built and have their students flood our neighborhoods,” he said. “That’s one piece of a complex housing puzzle but it’s an important piece.”
The city does not have a good track record with holding colleges and universities responsible. Every fall, the city releases numbers for example of payment in lieu of tax payments to the city that colleges and universities agreed to pay, which was 25 percent of the total amount they would have to pay in property taxes if they were required to. Historically, no institution has ever come close to that 25 percent.
“I think it’s fair to say that the Walsh administration has been too timid in its policies regarding the universities and the failure of the universities to house their undergrad students is one influence on our current housing crisis; it’s not the only influence, there’s a whole host of influences, but it’s one influence and those units already exist,” he said. “We’re creating new housing units to try to reduce the housing crisis but I think the administration is not looking carefully enough that existing units are ill-used at the moment and that’s unfortunate.”
Carragee said the group is looking to advocate for more owner occupancy units in the neighborhoods, as most of the housing proposals coming in now are rental units.
“That’s going to lead to a further decrease in our owner occupied rate, so we are at a dramatic tipping point. I mean, Allston’s owner occupancy rate is 10 percent currently, with the housing being proposed in Allston mostly rental, it will decline and Brighton’s owner occupied rate has declined over the last few years,” he said. “That’s a disaster in terms of increased transience.”
Carragee pointed to the new Allston Yards proposal, which will be hosting a community meeting at the Jackson Mann Community Center on April 23 at 6:30 p.m. He said BACC will have a presence at that meeting and others for the proposal moving forward.
“A thousand units? Overwhelmingly rental? We’re going to oppose that as it’s presently defined,” he said. “Keep in mind it’s being proposed by a multinational corporation with great assets, and one would think that such a corporation would be able to do research on the community where they want to propose housing, and they’re proposing housing that doesn’t meet our communities’ needs, which is housing where people are going to put down roots. I think the Stop and Shop development (as it is known by the neighborhood) is a decisive moment in the future of the neighborhood.”
Carragee added they would also be advocating for better public transportation so as to accommodate the incoming density.
“If you’re going to build housing, you need public transportation and public transportation in Allston and Brighton is a joke,” he said. “The buses are always bogged down in traffic, and to take the B Green Line, you have to bring a Russian novel and by the time you get Downtown at Park, you’re definitely finished with it... Other than the new Commuter Rail Station at New Balance, that’s been the only solution and West Station is being battled over and how can you build so much housing without public transportation improvements. I would also point out that the MBTA doesn’t come to any of our (Allston Brighton’s development) meetings.”
To join the Brighton Allston Community Coalition, send your contact information (name, address and email) to: bacommunit...@gmail.com.
Kevin M. Carragee
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Mike
-When you increase the percent of affordable housing in a building prices will rise for the market rate units.
-Using median incomes for A/B can be very misleading. A professor who studies demographics posted a while ago about this and mentioned the large number of graduate students.
-About those grad students, while they fly under the radar compared to the undergrads, they may take up more beds of off campus housing in A/B than undergrads. We have the numbers and addresses in the reports from the city clerk-just have to filter them all.
-Everyone “supports” more housing on campus for undergrads. Well, until that housing is deemed too close to one’s backyard.
-With regards to the high turnover rates in A/B; we really don’t have survey data of why people leave. It is a lot of anecdotal evidence. This is not to minimize displacement as it is real. What is also real is people living in A/B for a few years and then choosing to pay more and move to Southie, Charlestown, the Seaport, etc. With so many residents in their 20s there is going to be a lot of movement regardless of what type of projects are built or not.
-Owner occupancy. One approach is to stress a balance of owner occupancy with new construction projects. If it is all about the owner occupancy rate then large scale condo coversion is the way to crank rates. It seems there is this myth about how high owner occupancy rates were “back in the day.”
-Let’s not forget about the C and the D lines. Rush hour on the C line everyone gets a seat at Cleveland Circle and Park Street is about 35 mins. The D line Reservoir to Park is about 25 mins rush hour. Off peak hours each line is about five mins faster. Tonight during rush hour the D line was 26 minutes Park Street to Reservoir. Waze had a 33 minute drive via the Pike to Cleveland Circle from Park Street.
Mike
Orkney Road
Kevin M. Carragee
Thanks for a thoughtful response.
Here is a brief response.
I think we share many views. For example, the Brighton Allston Community Coalition (BACC) has focused on the need for universities to house more of the graduate students on their campuses, in an effort to reduce stress on the residential housing stock.
Clearly, Allston-Brighton has experienced low owner-occupancy rates for some time, but those rates have declined over the last several years and new construction is overwhelmingly rental in nature. Simply put, we are at a tipping point.
You correctly point out that attention should be focused on the C and D lines. I am sure that you agree that the B line service needs to be dramatically enhanced and please note that much of the current and planned development is occurring along the Commonwealth Ave. corridor.
Finally, I hope you agree that given the unprecedented rate of development in our neighborhood that more attention needs to be devoted to the creation of affordable housing and owner-occupied housing. Both of these forms of housing will increase the likelihood of people putting down roots in our neighborhood and that would be a positive development.
Once again, thanks for your thoughtful comments.
Cordially,
Kevin
________________________________________
From: allstonbr...@googlegroups.com [allstonbr...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Mike [michael...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2018 9:15 PM
To: AllstonBrighton2006
Subject: [AB2006] Residents form Brighton Allston Community Coalition (Jeff Sullivan, Boston Bulletin: May 3, 2018)
Mike
Orkney Road
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