The City of Boston has an organization called One in 3, dedicated to reaching out to the third of the city’s population between the ages of twenty and thirty-four. (Trivia: Ten percent of the city’s population, and 30% of the 20-34 age group, lives in Allston/Brighton). I get their newsletter.
As you might guess, the primary issue for people this age is the primary issue for most of the city: housing. After getting an email newsletter from One in 3, I wrote to the Boston Redevelopment Authority asking how I could get involved in the housing development process. They said I could join an Impact Assessment Group– provided that I lived in Boston in the neighborhood impacted by a particular development.
Fair enough, except that everything they do is geared strictly to people living strictly within the city limits of Boston, rather than people living within spitting distance of Boston. This too is obvious, but it’s also obvioiusly stupid.
Why should Boston have different laws from Cambridge, West Roxbury, and Arlington? It makes little or no sense. We need consistency within the greater Boston metro area. It would help a hell of a lot.
You want to solve the housing problem in this area? Not badly enough, obviously. Here’s my simple plan:
- The City of Boston should annex all land inside Route 128, or state should impose mandatory zoning reconciliation for the entire area. No matter how it is achieved, the permitting and building process should be identical for the entire area.
- All universities should be required to provide a bed for all students who don’t already live in the area.
- All new residential construction greater than, say, 3000 square feet should be required to have a rentable apartment as part of it.
- Currently, simpler regulations apply to 3-family and fewer buildings than to larger apartment or condo complexes. This should be expanded to four or five.
- Most new residential development should be encouraged to be at least one story higher. Most height restrictions on residential construction should be eased.
- Subsidies for reuse of historic or industrial buildings should be increased, especially for environmental remediation. They can pay for this by increasing the cost of parking permits.
- The subway should be extended: Red line should run out through Arlington, Blue line to Billerica, Green line E train out to the blue line somewhere, Green line Lechmere should be extended to Davis square, with a free transfer at Davis. The “Indigo” or “Circle” line should be constructed, even if it’s just with buses and a dedicated lane. They can pay for this by doubling fares. Double fare will also pay for extra subsidies on discounted T passes for the poor.
- All independent for-pay surface-level parking lots in the city should be fined or taxed out of existence. Turn that land into a (min. 4 story) parking garage or develop it in some sane way. Don’t waste it like that. Municipal parking lots should be converted to municipal parking garages where possible. Ideally, two lots could be replaced by a garage over the location of one, and then the other could be sold to housing developers. Money for the city, housing for the people.
Any of these would help. All of them would be political suicide. What we need is a supervillan or someone with mind control rays. That’ll solve the problem!
Secretly Ironic 