The mayoral election in my hometown is coming up November 2, and in the final weeks of the campaign incumbent Newton Mayor and Chestnut Hill resident Ruthanne Fuller is using the tools at her disposal to gain an edge over her opponent, former Newton City Councilor and Auburndale resident Amy Mah Sangiolo. [Update: Fuller won and her success at getting big donations from outside of Newton undoubtedly helped].

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the flood of newsletters from Mayor Fuller’s office, which were accompanied by a flurry of positive social media announcements and Facebook friend requests from Newton’s Public Buildings Division. The online communications onslaught was ostensibly part of a “listening” exercise, but to me looked more like a stealth PR campaign launched in the wake of Sangiolo filing her papers to run for mayor in June. This week, I wanted to explore another effective tool in the Newton mayoral election: Money.

In late August, I pulled 2021 data from the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance for the three declared candidates for Newton mayor. One of them, Al Cecchinelli, lost in the September preliminary race, and had only a handful of contributions. By August 23, Sangiolo had two months of active campaign fundraising and 196 donations – not bad, considering Mayor Fuller (246 donations in 2021, plus additional donations in 2020) had a huge head start. Here’s how 2021 donations looked for both on August 23, segmented by donation size and total value:

 

Here’s the breakdown by number of donations:

 

The pattern was clear: By late August, Fuller was getting the biggest donors (73 giving $1,000 or more vs just 12 for Sangiolo) and doing far better overall in terms of overall contributions ($111,097 for Fuller vs $39,123 for Sangiolo) and total counts (246 for Fuller vs 196 for Sangiolo).

But Sangiolo was doing far better with smaller contributions. Even though her campaign had started much later, she had 121 contributions in the $1-$100 range, 30% more than Fuller’s 93 contributions in the same category.

Campaign donations from outside Newton

Almost all of Sangiolo’s campaign donors resided in Newton. Only one of her twelve $1,000 donors was from outside Newton.

By comparison, of the 73 $1000+ contributions to Fuller’s campaign by August 23, 31 Fuller donors (43%) were not from Newton, with about 1/2 that number (15 donors) listing out-of-state addresses. If all of Fuller’s non-Newton campaign donations in the OCPF list are tallied, including smaller donations from elsewhere in Massachusetts and beyond, they are greater than what Sangiolo received for the entire period ($40,125 vs $39,123).

(Notes about the data: 2021 data includes donations recorded between January 1 and August 23, even if the contributions were marked as 2020 donations. In addition, there was a $2800 amount on Fuller’s list from Nationbuilder in Los Angeles in July which was listed as a “non contribution” in the OCPF data. Nationbuilder appears to be associated with a software application for processing donations).

Regardless, we’ve already begun to see the impact of Fuller’s fundraising success. Our household has received three flyers from the Fuller campaign since late August, but only one brochure from Sangiolo. Mailings and other paid publicity can have a huge impact on elections, as we saw with the Northland referendum, which was decided in favor of Northland Development Corporation after the developer dumped more than $300,000 into the campaign (see “As sole donor of the “Yes” campaign, Northland’s deep pockets try to steamroll Newton’s democracy“).

Explaining the Fuller/Sangiolo fundraising divide

Back to the mayoral election in Newton. Why are the patterns of donations so different?

Name recognition has certainly played a part. As mayor, Fuller is known across the city, whereas Sangiolo’s name recognition is more concentrated in north Newton, including her home village of Auburndale. Personal and professional networks play a role as well.

But another way of looking at the Newton’s mayoral race: Donors are aligning with the candidates who represent their values. Wealthy donors gravitate to Mayor Fuller. Donors of more modest means gravitate to Sangiolo.

For instance, in the OCPF report, I am one of the 121 small donors in the $1-$100 contributions to Sangiolo.

Why?

She aligns with my values.

For instance: I agree with Sangiolo’s campaign regarding zoning and development in Newton:

I have quite a bit of experience with zoning and development in Newton, having served on the Newton City Council for 20 years — including 18 years on the Zoning and Planning Committee and 2 years on the Land Use Committee. I believe that our City’s current work on zoning needs a fresh focus to better reflect what residents want.

First, I do not support the elimination of single-family zoning. I believe we need a diversity of zoning districts throughout our city to meet the needs of all who want to call Newton home.

Eliminating single-family zoning without adding strict dimensional controls will not make Newton affordable. We can see by the existing multi-family zones throughout the City that developers are tearing down modest-sized homes by-right and replacing them with out-of-scale units selling for over $1 million each. This does not improve affordability.

I’ve written about this very issue for years on this blog. Teardowns of modest middle-class homes and apartments to make way for McMansions, million-dollar condos, and luxury apartments is a chronic problem in Newton, especially in the north-side villages. Very few politicians are willing to truly stand up to developers. Sangiolo, when she was councilor, actually did try to introduce a teardown moratorium in 2014 but was rebuffed by other councilors and then Mayor Setti Warren:

“I’m trying to jumpstart something; make something happen. Development is a real issue. I just want to get something done.”

By contrast, Mayor Fuller (and before that, Ward 7 Alderman Fuller) has been a reliable supporter of zoning reform to encourage high-density “market rate” housing as well as giant luxury developments like Trio in Newtonville, Riverside in Auburndale, Northland in Newton Upper Falls, and 28 Austin Street in Newtonville. These projects are multimillion-dollar ATMs for the developers who build them, with the mayor and allied Newton city councilors – many of them from distant southside wards – ensuring that developers’ demands are met.

Case in point: the 99-year lease granted to the 28 Austin Street developers Dinosaur Capital for just $1,050,000. (Update: Meryl Kessler, the spouse of the developer behind 28 Austin Street, is running for a Ward 3 councilor-at-large seat, currently occupied by Andrea Kelley and Pam Wright. Kessler’s platform includes “revitalizing Newton’s village centers”) Or, Mark Development being allowed to repeatedly rip up signed agreements by claiming they’re not making enough money – with the acquiescence of Mayor Fuller, who said in the October 14 mayoral debate that she doesn’t want to “push a developer away” so projects “become uneconomic.”

In other words, no attempt is made to verify developer claims about profitability. With the precedent set by Riverside, developers know all they need to do is claim poverty to get Fuller and many southside Newton city councilors in Wards 6, 7 and 8 to agree to their demands for even more luxury units.

Mayor Fuller’s listening problems

Sangiolo has also taken issue with the mayor on schools, noting that Fuller “fails to elicit input” from stakeholders when it comes to Newton’s schools:

This is yet another example of the mayor’s “listening” problems. In some cases she and her administration merely pretend to listen to residents. In others, they don’t even bother.

And not just about schools. It’s about development. Roads. Public buildings. How many times have we seen Fuller’s administration plow forward with some project, then backpedal after outcry from residents and groups who were ignored or never even consulted?

This especially seems to happen on the north side of town. There was the aborted 2019 plan to place NewCAL in Albemarle, rescinded after sustained pushback. In 2020, the city unilaterally eliminated hundreds of parking spaces along Washington Street to make way for bike lanes. The many small businesses along the route came to work one morning to discover parking spots for employees and customers were no longer there. They were flabbergasted, to put it mildly. The response from the city was classic – we don’t need to listen!

“City officials said the project was always meant to be temporary, and thus doesn’t need to go through the stakeholder process.”

As for development, Mayor Fuller is good at putting on a show of sympathetically “listening” to Newton residents, but then going along with the plan she, the planning department, city consultants and well-connected developers wanted in the first place.

I participated in the “Hello Washington Street” exercise that the Fuller administration’s planning department and consultants put together to elicit residents’ input. It was clearly an act of political theater, with the city creating a plan that seems almost tailor-made for Mark Development:

According to the draft, the maximum height by right for all of these designations will be 5 stories. If developers successfully apply for special permits at any of those sites (a requirement to maximize the value of their investments) they will be able to place gigantic buildings between 6 and 10 stories tall.

This represents thousands of new units of housing (most of it market rate/luxury), and millions of new square feet of office and lab space. That’s not what residents asked for, but that’s what we’ll be getting if city councilors approve the plans for Washington Street. Similar zoning designations will likely be applied in other neighborhoods all over the city — a handout to developers worth billions of dollars, and a nightmare of traffic, massive infrastructure and school costs, and lost quality of life for the residents of Newton for decades to come.

The trend, on Washington Street from West Newton to Newton Corner, Riverside in Auburndale, Northland in Newton Upper Falls, and elsewhere, is clear:

It’s not just big developments, either. In the mayoral debate, Sangiolo challenged Fuller’s claim that she wants to eliminate single-family zoning in the city (Fuller: “No one is suggesting that we eliminate single family zoning in the city. I don’t know anyone who is supporting that, period.”) Sangiolo responded:

“Eliminating single family zoning is not off the table. I believe it was tabled until after the election, until next year. The other issue I have to push back with you, is you keep using the phrase ‘special and unique neighborhoods’ that we seem to want to protect. Everyone thinks their neighborhoods are special and unique and trying to figure out whose neighborhoods can have more density is not an easy task. There are already multifamily zones that we have throughout the city. And what we are seeing now are the teardowns and replacement of moderately sized homes to luxury units and that’s not making the city affordable. That’s what drives the biggest distrust in the city about eliminating single family zones and doing that trickle down housing theory.”

Sangiolo is right. And if these trends continue, Newton will become unrecognizable within a decade or two. From a collection of unique villages, the city will be transformed to a developer-controlled syndicate of high-density luxury apartment enclaves separated by acres of condo conversions and McMansions. Family-owned businesses will give way to chain stores, lab space, and high-end amenities.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at what happened to the Orr Block businesses in Newtonville, including institutions like Newtonville Camera, sent packing after Mark Development got what it demanded on Washington Street with an assist from the Newton-Needham Chamber of Commerce. Then there’s Russo’s just over the border in Watertown, destined to become expensive laboratories. This process will accelerate if things continue as they are in Newton City Hall and the Newton City Council.

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In the middle of the summer, a strange thing happened. Someone in Newton’s Public Buildings Division sent me a Facebook friend request.

I get friend requests from time to time from people I don’t know, but this was suspicious, as the same person had recently started relentlessly spamming practically every community Facebook group across the city, including Auburndale Village, Newton Community, and the Newton Civic Action forum. The posts were trumpeting public announcements from the Mayor’s Office about various public works projects, such as this one:

 

This post was immediately shared or cross-posted on other Facebook groups, including People who grew up in West Newton and Newton Parents.

Looking at the Newton Community Facebook group, the posts by the same Public Buildings Division employee commenced on July 22 (Gath Pool). It was followed by similar posts relating to these projects:

• July 23 – Newton Free Library’s Children’s Room Expansion
• July 26 – Lincoln Eliot
• July 27 – Franklin School
• July 29 – Newton Center for Active Living Project Community
• July 30 – Newton Early Childhood project
• August 2 – Horace Mann
• August 4 – Athletic fields city wide
• August 11 – Gath Pool
• August 12 – Carbon Neutrality
• August 19 – NewCAL
• Sep 1 – Newton Early Childhood project
• Sep 3 – Newton Early Childhood project
• Sep 10 – Lincoln Eliot
• Sep 15 – Oak Hill
• Sep 16 – Gath Pool

Many of these were cross-posted in other more local Newton Facebook groups, along with other positive announcements. I don’t know if they also appeared on Nextdoor or other local forums (comments welcome below, if you know the answer).

In addition to the municipal employee, one other city official has also been very active on electronic media, too. I have subscribed to Mayor Ruthanne Fuller’s weekly newsletter for years, but a funny thing happened around the same time the Public Buildings employee began touting all of the great news from the Mayor’s Office. On July 21, the day before the Public Buildings Division employee started excitedly posting on Newton’s Facebook groups, the mayor sent five newsletters in less than five hours:

It’s no coincidence that Fuller and one of her employees started sending out so many messages at the same time.

The first one – “Welcome to the Interactive Newton Network” gives a clue as to what’s going on (emphasis mine):

We know people are hungry for information about what is going on in our neighborhoods, villages and across our City. We in City government are also eager to hear from all of you. City projects are always better when we listen carefully to the people who live and work in Newton and shape the projects accordingly.

To that end, welcome to the INN, an interactive map that allows you to focus in on your neighborhood or any place of interest across the City and see what improvements and investments are in the works.

The mayor, a Chestnut Hill resident, has been hammered for years by complaints that she doesn’t listen, particularly from residents of northside wards disproportionately affected by development plans, including Newton Corner, the Lake, Newtonville, West Newton, and Auburndale. For instance, she was put on the defensive on this point in the past, as the Newton Tab reported in 2019:

“We are listening,” Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said in response to questions about whether the community’s feedback will be taken seriously. “We all care desperately about Newton. We care about this site. I, too, want the right size here,” referring to the green “RightSize Riverside” stickers distributed by the Lower Falls Improvement Association’s Riverside Committee.

I’ve also criticized the mayor on this blog for putting on a charade of listening and then doing pretty much what she, her consultants, and luxury housing developers seek to have built:

Another side of this trend is the tactics used by some of our own elected officials and the city planning department to steamroll opposition and discussion. A few years back, it was holding neighborhood feedback sessions (“Hello Washington Street“) in which the mayor, planning department officials, and highly paid consultants made a big show of listening to local residents in West Newton and Newtonville about the plans. After the sessions were over, they promptly turned around proceeded to ram through the high-density plan that they and big developers wanted all along.

Then there’s the issue of the Fuller administration not even bothering with “stakeholder input,” as local businesses in West Newton and Newtonville discovered last fall when hundreds of parking spaces along Washington Street suddenly disappeared to make way for bike lanes. Even the Newton-Needham Chamber of Commerce, which has loved having the mayor on its side when it comes to high-density luxury development in Newton, was surprised:

Greg Reibman president of the Newton-Needham Chamber of Commerce said he thought the city made a mistake by not communicating the decision in advance or giving stakeholders a chance to weigh in.

But the Fuller administration claimed that it didn’t need to “go through the stakeholder process” because the project was temporary. It was forced to backpedal owing to the outcry.

Why now?

Keep in mind that the flood of social media posts this summer from the Public Buildings Division employee haven’t just been about listening, they’ve also been shouting to the rafters the accomplishments of the Fuller administration:

“In less than 18 months we completed the design and construction of the fossil-fuel-free addition to the Oak Hill Middle School”

“We’re hard at work with our design team, friends from Newton Public Schools, City Council, and parent community to deliver a wonderful project for the Lincoln-Eliot School.”

“It was a beautiful morning as we set the new temporary pedestrian and bicycle bridge at Albemarle in place.”

Regardless of the posts’ contents, the longstanding concerns about Fuller’s listening habits kind of makes one wonder why INN, the coordinated social media press releases, and Facebook friend requests didn’t get going years ago. Why did the communications frenzy start in July?

Maybe it has something to do with this announcement on June 16 that Fuller has a serious contender (former Auburndale city councilor Amy Mah Sangiolo) in the Newton mayoral race this November?

I read through the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission Advisory 11-1: Public Employee Political Activity and did not see how a flood of positive social media posts about city business by a Newton municipal employee reporting to the mayor running for reelection would constitute an ethics violation.

But it still doesn’t feel right.

Update: The election is over, Fuller won, and as if by magic the Facebook spam from this Newton employee have largely disappeared.

Updated. Lots of people have reached out after my post last week, “Upzoning” in Newton: A tool to turn over the city from one class of people to another? In addition to reading comments by various city councilors on the Newton rezoning process, someone also shared with me a letter to the Newton City Council Planning and Zoning Committee. The letter was written by a group of architects who were originally recruited by the mayor, the city’s planning department, and some city councilors to help review the rezoning proposals and add their professional opinions and recommendations.

It appears rezoning in Newton has been severely undermined. I am going to post the public document in its entirety, as the committee chair has yet to post the PDF on the official city website (even if it were available, it would be hard to read, especially on mobile devices – a chronic problem for most official city documentation, incidentally). The letter is long, but I have bolded some parts which I believe are particularly important, and encourage people to leave comments at the bottom of this page:

September 30 2020

Members of the Newton City Council Planning and Zoning Committee:

Over the past several months, many of us have been providing assistance to the Planning Department with analysis of the impact of its proposed rezoning plan. We have been encouraged to provide this assistance by planning department staff, many city councilors and the Mayor in recognition of the detailed knowledge and expertise we bring to evaluating the effects of zoning on housing development from design, construction cost and home owner perspectives. As architects, builders and residents of Newton, we are committed to help maintain the quality of life in our city as zoning is being reconsidered. Despite challenges to our businesses and personal lives caused by the pandemic, we have provided significant time and effort to analyze both the macro effects of the rezoning plan as well as its impact on homeowners by applying the proposed rezoning to numerous renovation and new construction projects which we have worked on for Newton residents over the past several years.

During numerous online meetings, we have presented detailed analysis of built projects to planning staff and we have shown that the vast majority of these projects would not be permissible under the current rezoning proposal. The projects we analyzed reflect a diverse range of improvements and building programs which are typical across the City. Specifically, we have presented projects that reflect renovation and additions undertaken by homeowners as well as projects that involve restoration of historic properties. In addition to the analysis of specific projects, we have also provided many examples where the proposed zoning would on a broad scale increase the number of homes that would not conform to the new dimensional requirements. Despite our efforts to help inform decisions regarding the impact of the proposed zoning, we have seen no evidence that our work is being considered. In fact, changes to the proposal that have been made over the past few months have ignored issues demonstrated by our project analysis and have instead made some elements of the plan more prescriptive and restrictive. In view of the Planning Department’s failure over several months to meaningfully answer questions and concerns, respond to evidence provided by numerous building professionals or provide its own probative analysis, we reluctantly have concluded that the proponents of rezoning have no intention of considering facts and evidence of the potentially broad, negative impact that this plan could have on homeowners, the aesthetic character of the city and potentially on property values. In short we feel our time and expertise is being wasted. 

Many of us have been concerned about this process from the outset given that no detailed analysis was undertaken to identify specific issues with current zoning so that the new “form based“ approach could be properly evaluated. Form-based zoning imposes a highly prescriptive approach to housing design and has been adopted predominantly in dense urban communities like Somerville. It is clearly ill suited to communities like Newton with a very diverse housing stock and varied lot sizes. Given the drive to force fit form-based zoning to the actual built environment, the Planning Department is now calling it a “hybrid” of form based zoning. Nonetheless, we made a genuine effort to improve on the original proposal rather than reject it summarily given the many problems that were obvious from its inception. The problems with the metrics of the rezoning proposal are only exacerbated by the most recent change that would allow multi family development by right across the city. Combined with the elimination of minimum lot sizes and allowing some additions in setbacks by right, the lack of restrictions on multi-family seems to effectively “unzone” the city, rather than reduce non conformity, make development more predictable, or retain the character of neighborhoods. The Zoning and Planning Committee’s “3rd straw vote goal” approved at its April 27, 2020 meeting was as follows: “Context: Preserve and protect what we like in our neighborhoods. Encourage new development to fit in the context of our neighborhoods and villages.” The current plan clearly conflicts in many important ways with the objectives the Committee adopted just a few months ago.

With this background in mind, these are our primary concerns with the current proposal:

• We have examined numerous built and proposed projects and find these new proposed controls are significantly more restrictive and more complex than current controls. New side and rear yard setbacks will create more non-conformity in existing structures. For example, the side yard requirements imposed by the new R1 zone for much of Waban results in most homes being non-conforming. The new lot coverage definition that now includes driveways compounds the problems. The resulting non conformity will severely restrict and discourage homeowners across the city from improving their homes with additions that reflect contemporary living requirements and market expectations to retain property value. Such projects also facilitate improved energy conservation as well.
• The proposal to remedy increased non-conforming conditions by allowing certain additions by right in the new more restrictive setbacks would likely be struck down in the courts and defies the most basic purpose of zoning in the first place. Shouldn’t property owners at least be able to expect that there will be no construction allowed in setbacks, at least not without a variance?
• The elimination of FAR in favor of foot print restrictions is another significant issue. The footprint restrictions are based on the median of what currently exists in contrived neighborhood zones based on the pattern book prepared by Sasaki. The problem with this methodology is that over 90% of homes in Newton were built before 1960 which means that this most critical standard of footprint limits is based on characteristics of housing built over the last hundred years, not current and future housing requirements. In many the data used reflects homes [text missing]
• The removal of minimum lot size is an enormous and unnecessary paradigm shift that promotes more vertical than horizontal homes. As is the case with all the dramatic changes in this plan, no study has been presented which evaluates the impact of such a significant change to land use in the city. If we want a mechanism to allow existing non conforming lots to be buildable, we can simply add a provision to our existing code with whatever stipulations we find appropriate and subject the approval to issuance of a special permit.
• Minimum lot frontage has also been significantly reduced. Combined with the removal of minimum lot size, this one change could allow certain neighborhoods in our city to be significantly transformed. If this is adopted, developers as of right could more easily take down a house on a larger property, subdivide that land, and put up two houses on lots that do not meet current requirements. In fact, subdivision of existing lots should not be the primary concern. The incentives under lower frontage requirements without lot size minimums to assemble adjacent conforming and non-conforming lots to create two legal lots will certainly spur property speculation and encourage more demolition of homes, a central problem that rezoning was supposed to address. 
• One of the late additions to this proposal was the global change to eliminate single family zones. As proposed, existing homes could be subdivided into up to six units by right. This would certainly affect density, green space, and parking issues. It could also create new infrastructure demands on schools, streets and sanitation. If there is a desire to increase housing options through such a change, its adoption should require extensive community discussion, and an independent review of legal issues and its and economic impact. We also believe that abutters should be able to weigh in on multi family conversions by requiring a special permit when such conversions are proposed . 

We believe that based on the evidence we and others have presented, the proposed zoning plan disregards many of the original goals of the City Council for updating the city’s zoning code. As the proposal has evolved, it has become increasingly clear that it is being driven by ideology and not an evidence-based approach to updating and improving the city’s land use policies. The lack of objective quantitative analysis of issues with current zoning by the Planning Department is unacceptable in a city which touts its high standards for transparency and professionalism. 

Moreover, to advance such dramatic changes to our neighborhoods at a time when the public cannot effectively participate because of the pandemic is divisive, cynical and unnecessary. Is this what we envisioned for a process toward improved zoning? There are simply too many changes in this proposal that are so diametrically opposed to the controls currently in place. Does such unstudied dramatic change to land use make sense now? 

We believe that strategically-targeted incremental modifications to the Zoning Code would be a much more effective way to improve and rectify problems on the ground. Changing all the controls will create chaos, driven by conflicting policy objectives and too many unforeseen consequences. Conversely, if we improve the current code based on clear objectives and analysis, the results are likely to be far better. We can modify the Code to strategically improve what is on the ground with modest modifications that help preserve neighborhoods and can allow for reasonable and controlled growth. 

We hereby request an opportunity to present our analysis and conclusions at a ZAP meeting as soon as it can be scheduled. Such a presentation will allow a more detailed and dynamic discussion of the many substantive concerns that have been raised by us and many other residents with the proposed rezoning. We encourage other professionals who may be working privately with members of the Committee to make their views public and participate.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Steven Garfinkle

Peter Sachs, Architect

Marc Hershman, Architect

Robert Fizek, Architect

Stephan Hamilton, Architect

Schuyler Larrabee, Architect

William Roesner, Architect

About one week after this group sent the letter, three city councilors (Marc Laredo, Lisle Baker and Pamela Wright) sent a memo to Deborah Crossley (the committee chair) and cc’ing the mayor, senior city planners, and the city solicitor. It requests the following:

1. The Zoning and Planning Committee should hear dissenting views directly from a group of local architects who recently wrote that they have been excluded from the group advising the Planning Department about its zoning proposals;

2. The Zoning and Planning Committee should be advised by the Law Department how homes which might become nonconforming under the proposed new zoning can be protected or find relief if changes need to be made;

3. The Zoning and Planning Committee should have an opportunity to discuss the current Planning Department proposals, including whether alternatives involving our current zoning code should be considered.

More details are in the memo, which is available on the city website (in PDF form). But one section of the memo from the three councilors stood out (emphasis mine):

As an institutional matter, we remain troubled by the manner in which this entire process is proceeding. While we appreciate the expertise that the Planning Department brings to this effort, it is the City Council, and not the Planning Department, that needs to debate the merits of any proposal and decide how to proceed. Instead, we have had repeated presentations by staff with questions that they want answered in order for them to work on their proposals.

The decision whether to continue to use Floor Area Ratio (FAR) as a check on oversized residential construction is a good example. While the Department offered a brief written response about FAR in the attachment A to its last memorandum dated September 25, the Committee itself has not had a chance to discuss whether to discard this tool that originated from a prior Planning Department’s advice. If FAR it does not work well presently, are there ways to modify it so it can be improved? What are the experiences of other communities that use FAR? Have any other communities adopted FAR and then abandoned it? If so, why?

The same types of questions need to be asked of other elements discussed in the September 30 architects’ memorandum. These are key policy decisions that need to be made by the Council initially through the Committee, not by staff, with thoughtful deliberation after considering all points of view. Instead, what we appear to be doing is assuming the new framework is sound, and responding to questions about the details. This strikes us as backwards, especially since the original idea of fixing some specific issues such as oversized construction and front-facing garages has been superseded by this grand redesign for Newton zoning that the Department, but not yet the Council itself, has endorsed.

In summary, policy about zoning ends and means should be explicitly decided by the Council, not implicitly by the Planning Department. A way to begin frame that decision is to provide the members of the Zoning and Planning Committee, on behalf of the Council, some time to discuss the current Planning Department proposals, including whether alternatives involving our current zoning code should be considered.

I alluded in my last post to some of the tactics used by developers to undermine local democracy in Newton, such as providing huge cash injections to “grassroots” groups that support high-density housing. The developers (Northland) won the vote as a result.

Another side of this trend is the tactics used by some of our own elected officials and the city planning department to steamroll opposition and discussion. A few years back, it was holding neighborhood feedback sessions (“Hello Washington Street“) in which the mayor, planning department officials, and highly paid consultants made a big show of listening to local residents in West Newton and Newtonville about the plans. After the sessions were over, they promptly turned around proceeded to ram through the high-density plan that they and big developers wanted all along.

Now we’re seeing a situation in which architects have been invited to participate in the discussion. Guess what: their well-articulated concerns have also been ignored. Does anyone see the pattern here?

What’s going on now should be setting off alarm bells across the city, in every neighborhood. “Upzoning” or “unzoning” (or whatever you want to call it) will primarily benefit developers, not residents. Any house that can be torn down, chopped up, and divided into overpriced multifamily units will be. The result: more luxury apartments, condos, and townhouses that are out of reach to all kinds of ordinary people, including:

• Seniors and disabled people living on fixed incomes
• Teachers, firefighters and other public workers
• Recent immigrants
• Young people who grew up in Newton trying to move back to their hometown
• Anyone earning the Massachusetts median income of ~$77,000 per year or less

Just as we’ve seen at Trio Newton (studio rentals starting at $2,600 per month) and 28 Austin Street (rents starting at $3,700/month for a 2-bedroom apartment), a sheen of affordable housing will be tacked on to these projects to give the appearance that officials are, as Councilor Jake Auchincloss once claimed in an election flyer, “holding developers’ feet to the fire.”

I’ll close with the same excerpt from The Newton Villages Alliance newsletter that I quoted last week:

The proposed overhaul of Newton’s zoning code for higher density will lead to a transformation of Newton to a much more expensive, congested, urban environment. In the process, well-financed property speculators will be the winners and existing residents the losers as investment capital pours into our community for the sole purpose of extracting as much profit as possible.

Comments are welcome below.

Rezoning is in the news again in Newton. I have deliberately avoided most of the coverage. Developer kingpins aided by pliant politicians and high-density CODS housing activists and their southside allies on the City Council always seem to get what they want around here. Local elections are undermined by millions in developer-funded PR campaigns and outright cash injections to pro-development activist groups, while local residents protesting the luxury developments are ignored, demonized, and even publicly bullied by a southside city councilor, Brenda Noel (Ward 6).

After the dust settles, we’re inevitably left with thousands of units of luxury housing that do nothing to bring down housing costs in the city of Newton.

Hundreds of luxury apartments have already been thrown up in Newtonville. They include 28 Austin Street, the parcel across from the Newtonville Star Market which the former mayor and city councilors agreed to lease to the developer for just $1,050,000 for 99 years, over the protests of Newtonville residents. The 28 Austin Street website now boasts “luxury boutique living,” starting at $3,700 to rent a 1,050 square feet apartment:

(2021 Update: Meryl Kessler, the spouse of the developer behind 28 Austin Street, is running for Newton’s Ward 3 councilor-at-large seat, currently occupied by Andrea Kelley and Pam Wright. Kessler’s platform includes “revitalizing Newton’s village centers”)

Across the Pike, developer Mark Development didn’t have to rip up a signed agreement with neighbors and local councillors like it did for Riverside. Instead, the former mayor and the Newton-Needham Chamber of Commerce helped get him what it demanded, again over the objections of neighbors:

“This is terrible news for Newton and Newtonville. Robert Korff had proposed a thoughtful project that would have addressed a desperate need for workforce housing, generated foot traffic for our village businesses and provided wonderful community give backs,” said President of the Newton-Needham Regional Chamber Greg Reibman in a statement to the TAB. “But no thanks to an obstructionist political group and a few city councilors, Newtonville might end up with a building that is even taller than the proposed five stories and without a public art space, shops, bike and sidewalk improvements, or any of the other amenities Robert had offered.”

“Workforce housing?” What a joke. Mark Development of course ended getting what it wanted, which was 3/4 luxury rentals that no ordinary workers or middle class people can afford.

This piece of commentary in the local newspaper summed up what everyone now knows: Dumping thousands of units of luxury housing is a tool of wealth creation for developers. It does nothing to reduce housing costs in Newton:

The belief that more housing will add affordability for Newton is a false premise as well. A look at Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, South Boston, East Boston, Charlestown, Waltham, Watertown tells us all we need to know: large developments drive up land prices, drive up rents and make naturally affordable housing less available and less affordable. It creates a tiered class with subsidized housing for those who qualify, and expensive housing for everyone else. These are the facts and wishful thinking doesn’t change this reality.

Here are the facts concerning the former Orr block. The low-cost apartments and small businesses on Washington Street in Newtonville were quickly demolished to make way for Mark’s new replacement for the Orr block, Trio Newton. The work is wrapping up now. Have housing prices dropped as high-density housing activists have promised, because hundreds of new units are now being added to the supply?

No! If anything, it’s gotten more expensive to live in Newtonville. The facts are in the numbers. On Google, Trio promotes “luxury apartments in Newton.” Click through to the Trio website, where the least expensive option is apparently $2,600 per month to rent a 600 square foot studio!

Good luck if you’re a senior on a fixed income, a new immigrant, disabled, or a young person who grew up in Newton and wants to move back to your home town. Using the 30% rule of thumb for housing costs, excluding utility costs, and generously assuming Mark Development isn’t stacking additional fees on top of the listed rental prices at Trio Newton, you would need an annual income of $104,000 to afford the least expensive studio apartment.

At nearby 28 Austin Street, a young family would need an income of at least $144,000 to rent the cheapest 2-bedroom apartment (1,050 square feet). The most expensive (1,365 square feet) 2 bedroom unit, at $7,500 per month, would require an annual income of $300,000.

Note that the median household income in Massachusetts is $77,378, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The development battle has now turned to single-family housing. The mayor, city planners, developers, and some city councilors want to abolish single-family housing, by “upzoning” wide swathes of neighborhoods currently filled with existing single-family homes and convert them to luxury condos and townhouses by right.

It will happen in Newton Corner. The Lake. Newtonville. West Newton. Auburndale. Newton Lower Falls. Newton Upper Falls. And so on.

If you thought the first wave of Newton tear-downs that eviscerated the stock of older, small single-family homes in the city was bad, wait until the new plan gets underway. Don’t think for a second that the vast majority of multifamily units under such a scheme would be built for anyone other than those who can afford, as 28 Austin puts it, “luxury boutique living.” The remaining working class and middle class households in the city of Newton will be pushed out, while the developer class will be left laughing all the way to the bank.

The Newton Villages Alliance got things right in its latest newsletter, noting:

The proposed overhaul of Newton’s zoning code for higher density will lead to a transformation of Newton to a much more expensive, congested, urban environment. In the process, well-financed property speculators will be the winners and existing residents the losers as investment capital pours into our community for the sole purpose of extracting as much profit as possible.

For a taste of what’s to come, check out this video which chronicles the failure of upzoning in Austin.

I’d never thought I’d see this happen: Washington-style corporate donations sleazing their way into Newton’s grassroots democratic processes. The Northland Investment Corporation’s approach to getting its way on Needham Street in Upper Falls sets a terrible precedent for all future elections in Newton, in which winners may be decided by which side (or which candidate) has the biggest corporate sponsor.

Signs that something amiss in Newton came in the mail starting in January. Thousands of local residents have been sent multiple copies of glossy fliers like this one:

There have also been sizable ads in the Newton Tab and on social media. My wife even received a text message urging her to vote yes to support Northland Investment Corporation’s proposed luxury development on Needham Street.

Our home received a half-dozen such fliers. I am a publisher, and know that full-color mailers printed on glossy card stock are not cheap. I wondered how “Yes for Newton’s future,” the ostensibly grassroots group supporting the developer’s vision, was able to pay for all of that printing. Could the group have that many ordinary citizens mailing in checks?

Nope. It turns out that nearly $320,000 came directly from Northland Investment Corporation. The Boston Globe has more details. In fact, as noted by the Globe, Northland Investment Corporation is “Yes for Newton’s Future” sole donor.

Northland’s atrocious record in New Haven

It must be noted that Northland Investment Corporation does not have a good record of behaving like a friendly corporate neighbor. According to media reports, it played dirty — real dirty — in another real estate deal where outsized profits were on the table.

In 2008, Northland purchased a 301-unit development in New Haven. By 2016, Northland had managed the property so badly it was condemned by both HUD & the city. HUD inspections of the Northland-managed housing found 1,015 health & safety violations. More than half were life-threatening violations, including broken smoke detectors.

In a lawsuit filed on behalf of residents, a Yale expert found that poor conditions at the Northland-managed property in New Haven led to asthma in nearly half of children living there.

How could any company in good conscience do something like this to ordinary people living in the units it controlled? According to the lawsuit, Northland Investment Corporation deliberately carried out “demolition by neglect” of the property with the goal of razing the site and turning it into a profitable venture.

In a way, it should come as no surprise that Northland Investment Corporation is demanding special rights to build 800 units — most of them luxury apartments — on an old industrial parcel adjacent to an already overcrowded Needham Street. Just as in New Haven, outsized profits are at stake. If a $320,000 corporate cash injection translates into enough “Yes” votes, Northland Investment Corporation stands to make tens of millions of dollars in additional profit on its Needham Street plans. Maybe even more.

The ROI for Northland will be off the charts. The damage to Newton’s democracy will be irreparable.