About our Vision

Yes. All new housing isn’t luxury housing. The law of supply and demand is real, and most housing economists agree that rising home prices and shrinking affordability in Greater Boston reflect inadequate supply. Brookline is no exception. Increased supply, especially near transit, will have a stabilizing effect on rental and sale prices, and that would be good news for households in the “missing middle”.

Equally important, multifamily development creates the mixed-income buildings within which subsidized, income-restricted units can be provided for low- and moderate-income households. We favor robust inclusionary zoning (the requirement that new housing include a meaningful percentage of affordable units, which the Town has recently strengthened), collaborative 40B projects (which require a minimum of 20% – 25% income-restricted units), partnership with non-profit developers and the Brookline Housing Authority, continued use of federal, state, and local subsidies, and adoption of the Community Preservation Act. Both strategies—increased supply and robust inclusion of subsidized, income-restricted units—are essential.

There’s more developable land than you might think, when you take into account surface parking lots, major institutional parcels, and some of the one-story commercial buildings in our business districts and transit corridors. Density isn’t a punishment. People who live in North Brookline have chosen to live in a compact, walkable, transit-rich environment, with mid-rise, multi-family housing as a prevalent form of land use. Most of Brookline (including some large swaths near public transit) is less dense than many other Boston neighborhoods, Cambridge, or Somerville. Along most of our Commonwealth Avenue border, the Boston side is much denser than the Brookline side.

On the contrary—compact, walkable, mixed-use, transit-oriented development is the green solution. There’s a rich body of scientific literature showing that such development is environmentally beneficial—not only because it helps preserve open land, but because the energy used to build it and operate it is proportionately less. Any building process generates some embodied carbon. But a new building with multiple households is a significant net carbon saver compared to a comparable number of single-family homes. This is especially true if the new building is fossil-fuel free—a policy direction in which Brookline is providing progressive leadership for the whole region. 

Compact, walkable transit-oriented development also generates much less driving per household, with consequently lower greenhouse gas emissions. That’s because people use transit, not to mention the many everyday trips that can be taken on foot or by bike. And with less driving comes less parking, our next topic.

For a town as rich in transit service as Brookline, our zoning has historically required way too much parking for new multifamily development, even when it’s near a Green Line station or bus stop. Structured parking (garages and decks) is very expensive, especially if underground, and this adds to the cost of housing. It penalizes people who want to live in Brookline to avoid needing a second car (or in some cases any car). It invites more automobile use, since someone will wind up paying to use those excess spaces. Minimizing the residential parking requirements in our commercial districts and other transit-rich areas not only makes housing and commuting more affordable but is the key to welcoming more neighbors without significantly more traffic. B4E advocated for the zoning changes adopted by Town Meeting in 2021 to reduce residential parking requirements, especially in Brookline’s Transit Parking Overlay District (the area within a half-mile of any Green Line stop). 

Change is happening. Green Line track and signal work was completed during the pandemic; traffic signal prioritization is being installed on the B and C lines (the D line doesn’t need it); and 24 new trolley cars (each with 10% added capacity) are being added to the fleet. You’ve seen them. A more dramatic change is planned—replacing the whole fleet with trolleys that have double the capacity of today’s cars. It may take a decade to achieve this, but it will take that long to permit and build the housing we need as well. Meanwhile, the replacement of the Orange and Red Line fleets, and the upgrade of their signal systems, will boost the capacity and reliability of those lines, which many Green Line passengers use in their daily commute

Multifamily development is one of the surest ways to support Brookline businesses. The two go hand-in-hand. Walkable, multi-family, mixed-income housing is essential to local businesses, especially in the mixed-use environment of our commercial districts and transit corridors. For businesses, the juxtaposition means that workers and customers live within walking distance or a short hop away by bus or Green Line. For residents, it means convenient access to jobs, school, services, and fun—the things that attract people to Brookline in the first place. If you were trying to establish a small business in Brookline, wouldn’t you welcome a ground-floor location surrounded by customers? Our commercial districts are an integral and beloved part of this community. They need customers and workers living close by.

The Economic Development Advisory Board (EDAB) has developed a Brookline Fiscal Impact Model to estimate the net effect of new development on the Town’s operating budget—does new development bring more in tax revenue than it costs in services, or vice versa? Preliminary results confirm that commercial development is strongly net tax-positive. And while the model is still being refined, it also suggests that multifamily housing is a net plus in its own terms—not to mention its role in supporting local businesses. 

The model includes not only the everyday operations of Town government but annual debt service costs for school construction. The Fiscal Impact Model can help Town officials guide the density and mix of development, alongside other key planning issues like traffic, shadow impacts, and design.

Of course. Thoughtful planning—with outreach to, and participation by, all segments of the community—is essential, and B4E strongly supports it. The new Housing Production Plan, now underway, is a foundational step—town-wide in scope and incorporating the Planning Department’s recent studies of Multifamily Housing Development and Residential Parking Requirements. There are varying views on the appropriate amount of new multi-family housing and its impacts; the Housing Production Plan is the forum in which to resolve those goals.

The HPP is closely related to the Town’s strategy for complying with the state’s MBTA Communities Law. Enacted in 2021, this law requires Brookline (and 174 other cities and towns) to zone for multifamily housing in their districts around their transit stations. 

We also support comprehensive planning studies in Brookline’s commercial districts and transit corridors, where zoning changes to support multifamily housing would be focused. For example, the Lower Boylston Street Corridor Study, currently underway, is evaluating preservation, public infrastructure, and zoning reform, all in the context of Town objectives and good design. This study builds on the approach used with great success for the zoning overlays approved over the last decade for the Emerald Island and Waldo-Durgin. 

Similar proactive studies for other mixed-use corridors or districts, long advocated by the Housing and Economic Development Advisory Boards, would examine zoning changes that could generate commercial development, mixed-income housing near public transit, and new tax growth. B4E supports these studies and believes that well-planned mixed-use, transit-oriented development will also enhance racial and income diversity, climate resilience, and sustainability. 

Brookline has an overall Comprehensive Plan, a specific framework prescribed under state law. Known as the “Comp Plan”, the Town is preparing to revise and update it in the coming years. Our existing Comp Plan lacks the urgent, coordinated focus on housing supply and affordability that B4E advocates. That focus can be achieved by advancing the Housing Production Plan, the MBTA Communities plan, and the district or corridor studies described above and folding them into the Comp Plan revision as they are completed.

That’s certainly a goal; it puts Brookline’s planning and regulatory power back in our own hands. From above the threshold, Brookline can entertain collaborative or “friendly” 40B projects—for which the Town can offer comprehensive permitting while gaining the 20% to 25% income-restricted affordable units required by 40B, all the while subject to zoning and design review. To do that, we need to install zoning that meets our objectives. Remember too that a town’s hold on the 10% threshold can be tenuous, and without accommodating mixed-income projects we could slip back below it. 

More important, since when does Brookline aspire to the bare technical minimum? Our town should not be a community only for the wealthy and for those lucky enough to access a limited number of subsidized units. We care about the fact that our children can’t afford to live here, and that our own teachers and first responders and shop keepers can’t afford to either—a workforce increasingly without roots in the community. We care about racial diversity, not as an ideal for others, but as a cherished value for Brookline. Over the last two years, many have acknowledged the need for proactive, intentional anti-racism in our society. Part of that is making it possible for people of all incomes and backgrounds to be our neighbors.