Arlington development

A recent finding that investors purchased one in every five homes sold between 2004 and 2018 across Greater Boston “came as a surprise” to  Marc Draisen, the Executive Director of MAPC (Metropolitan Area Planning Council) – (“Investors Buying up Homes,” Boston Herald, Dec. 1.)

That Draisen was surprised strains credulity.  He resides in Arlington, as does the governor.  He should have known that this investor exploitation was increasing quickly. Even in already fully built out towns like Arlington (second most dense town in Massachusetts) the density push is relentless.  See www.arfrr.org.  Developers and investors outbid families wishing to buy.

Developers encourage irresponsible elimination of zoning protections to incentivize construction of lucrative luxury homes after destroying existing homes.  Residents of the region’s limited modest affordable units are greatly endangered.  For example, in Arlington, where there are many of these residents, their units would be torn down and replaced by expensive luxury flats.  Damaging commoditized housing policy choices by politicians and their appointees have also been seen in recent so-called “friendly” 40B developments.

It is Draisen’s responsibility to oppose potential damage from over-compliant municipal-voted plans designed to comply with the bureaucratic regulations for BY-RIGHT development enabled by the MBTA Communities Law.

Arlington’s now-voted plan excludes the area, required by the law itself, within walking distance to Alewife. So the plan will not reduce traffic which was an important goal for the MBTA law. That area is already at required density and needed only a change from current two-family zoning to three-family zoning to provide the legal overlay.  But this simple compliance solution was ignored.  The chosen plan has huge developer profit potential and will be much more destructive for Arlington.

Like Lexington, the Arlington Town Meeting (TM) vote was rushed through for approval.  Lacking local newspapers, most Lexington and Arlington residents had no idea what was happening.

They were in the dark. Unintended consequences were not studied and no satisfactory dimensional safeguards were required by the MBTA C Law Working Group (WG). Arlington’s WG membership was dominated by developers, architects, half of the Arlington Redevelopment Board, real estate and construction employees, density zealots, and ZERO members of Arlington’s many dedicated committee and commission members. The overlay plan finally voted had no sustainability or protection for individual historic buildings, and very limited affordability requirements.

Admirably, voting against the destructive final plan were the current Chair and long-time past Chair of the Finance Committee, former Chair of Arlington Redevelopment Board, and former Arlington Fire Chief who happen to be current Town Meeting members.

The legal notice of inclusion of residents’ homes in doomed overlays had no indication of what the planned overlay was – only a boilerplate mention of a meeting. Some elderly residents were in tears when they found out what these overlay plans would enable. Surprise, surprise, the governor’s home, and Arlington’s senator and state representatives’ homes are not in the overlays.

We need Draisen to protect us – not to be “surprised” at what is happening. He should protect dense towns like Arlington from the huge damage potential of the regulations for MBTAC Law. He could start by recommending that MBTAC law overlay plans that are designed mainly to increase developer exploitative
gentrification and ignore the requirement for overlay accessibility to transportation hubs like Alewife do NOT receive approval by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC).

Patricia B. Worden, Ph.D.

Former Chair, Arlington School Committee

Former Chair, Arlington Housing Authority