Greetings, and happy Official Summer!
We start this week with a repeat Action Item which may now be critical: as regular readers know, the House version of Governor Healey’s Affordable Homes Act did not include the Real Estate Transfer Fee (see this Globe Article on how it was killed by real estate interests), and we expect it to come up THIS WEEK in the Senate. If this becomes law, Brookline could adopt a RETF that could raise between $7 and $14 million each year by charging a 1-2% fee on the amount of each real estate sale, excluding the first $1 million. That amount dwarfs what we raise for our Affordable Housing Trust (which currently has only about $3 million in unencumbered funds) and from the Community Preservation Act (which raises about $3 million a year to be split among historic preservation, open space and recreation, and community housing). Action Item: Send a short email now to Senator Cynthia Creem (who represents Brookline and Newton), cynthia.creem@masenate.gov, or call her office at 617-722-1639. In your note or call, urge her to support inclusion of the RETF in the Senate’s version of the Affordable Homes Act. Senator Creem has been generally supportive of the RETF in the past, so now we need her to use her influence as Majority Leader to make sure that this crucial provision is included in the final legislation. For more information, here is a link to a useful source sheet from the Local Option for Housing Affordability Coalition.
Town Meetings This Week
- The Chestnut Hill Commercial Area Study Advisory Group meets on Monday, June 3 at 6:00-7:30 pm via Zoom (click here to register, and here for the full agenda). They’ll get a report on EDAB’s “mini-workshop” last week on June 17, and also hear a presentation on “massing test fits” (basically, different building shapes and sizes would fit on the existing parcels in the district) from the project consultant, Eric Halvorsen of RKG Associates, project consultant.
- The Affordable Housing Overlay District (AHOD) Study Subcommittee also meets on Monday, June 24, via Zoom, at 7:30-9:00 pm (join here; no registration necessary). This month the Committee will meet with Kyle Talente, from the Town’s newly-hired consultant RKG Associates, about work to date on their feasibility study to assist the Committee to determine where, and how, an affordable housing overlay (which would provide zoning incentives for 100% affordable developments) would/could work in Brookline. You can see all the Committee’s background documentation and work to date here in their “Rolling Meeting Agendas and Minutes.”
- The Select Board meets on Tuesday, June 25, from 5:30-9:30 pm, in person at Town Hall and via Zoom (link here, no registration required) and will hold a Public Hearing late in the meeting to consider the request for Project Eligibility Letter for a potential new 40B development at 429 Harvard Street. The proposed development would be six stories and include 40 new homes, with eight affordable at 50% median income, the most affordable option for a 40B project. The Planning Department has prepared a draft letter for the Select Board to consider (which you can find here) asking MassHousing to find that the site is not suitable for the project, considering the all the other actions the Town has taken to promote affordable housing, including approval of other nearby 40B developments and the recent rezoning of the site to allow four story buildings in the “Harvard Street Corridor” as part of the MBTA-CA compliance. You can view the entire 40B application file here. Brookline for Everyone has not yet taken a formal position on this application, and we encourage everyone to review it and consider commenting to the Select Board (by email to Tiffany Olivia at toliva@brooklinema.gov) and/or directly to MassHousing (by email to kmiller@masshousing.com).
What We’re Reading. Though it’s a little over a year old, we just discovered this fascinating article in Slate: Just Build the Homes: Public Housing is Ready to Make a Comeback. The authors, Daniel Denvir and Yonah Freemark, argue that while upzoning to allow significantly more housing (such as the MBTA-CA in Massachusetts) works, and is important, it is a long term strategy and will never solve the severe shortage and affordability crisis we face on its own. They argue that we also need significant new public investment to “just build” more social housing for low and moderate income households for whom virtually all market based options are now out of reach. We agree, and would love to hear your thoughts and comments at brooklineforeveryone@gmail.com.