Zoning & Planning Committee - March 9, 2026

and Block, requesting a presentation and discussion about the proposed zoning and related traffic modifications under consideration by the Town of Brookline for the Boylston Street As I mentioned in the cover memo to this attached to the packet, I was part of a conversation in the mayor's office and the town administrator from. And I felt it was important that the council have similar information for it so you can understand the potential impacts on the city and to the extent that their information is one of the four major east-west corridors that goes through the city.

And what happens in Newton Park affects Brookline, and what happens in Brookline affects Newton. And so it's important to at least understand what is going on. I want to make clear that Brookline has the capacity and the right and the opportunity to do what it wants with its own zoning. inform the reclining officials if they want to take advantage of any of the points of view that we have. I will just say in a historical perspective, I don't know if Councilor Albright was on the council, but when we rezoned the Star Market, do you remember that long time ago? We did that and we had comments from Brookline at the time. We were thinking about what happens with that and after we saw we had a big the parking spaces set aside for it.

And then also more recently, Chestnut Hill Square, you may remember, was the redevelopment that involved Wegmans. and one of the important decisions that council made in part from input from Brookline was to make sure that all the access to the site was from Route 9, not through Florence Road. So there's been a history of cooperation between the communities, even though it's been informal and not anything formal. So I hope that practice would continue in this context. but as a way of providing background, there's a whole presentation that the memo indicated that the town had put together for design considerations. There's also a traffic study that has been done. What I did was pull out with consultations with the planning department. The slides that are attached to the agenda that I thought were the most relevant to be set the stage for Newton.

And then what I would do is we would go through those.

I can't remember if he's right in the chat, but we're coming back online.

Hello. We're having some technical problems in the room, but we'll be back online momentarily.

But they obviously realized I'm not good on their own.

Okay, am I good? We were talking about there's a traditional cooperation between the communities. We worked there with Brookline when we did the Chesapeake Hill Square development, also a time of star market redevelopment. and Pattern and Newton, for those of you who are watching from Brookline, has been generally to do a rezoning a couple of the special permits. A very rare event would be to don't do that. but Brookline is considering something which is a major rezoning for the Route 9 corridor and I'm going to ask Ms. Wewell to take us through that and then Mr. Starkney will take us through the traffic slides and then we'll Thank you. Thank you.

that will go through the process in Brookline and be completed, we understand, sometime in May or early June.

Lane, Overlake District, Salon Route 9, and the Town of Brooklyn. sharing the most relevant information from her finance materials.

Those of you who first visit the zoning planning committee

My colleague Miles will be helping me.

So the site context.

There are four overlay subzones that are pictured Next slide. So the Chestnut Hill You can see the areas that allow the highest building height.

A zoning envelope is a three-dimensional space within which a building must Thank you. Thank you. So shown here is the envelope based on the corresponding overlay district. So I think that concludes that zoning overview of that the town of Brookline

So let's just go through the other part quickly. It's important to understand that the town had engaged, as I understand it, a traffic consultant to prepare some possible responses to The traffic situation in the area, not all of which are dependent on the development. So I think it's important to understand that. And they require, in the case of Route 9, because it's a state highway, The concurrence of the state. Other matters within the town itself could be done by the town. But they set a context because a number of parts of Newton, the area that's under study, thought it was

I tell you, let's close the Zoom.

Do we?

We do. Oh, we do. Oh, sorry. We do. Mr. Carey, a work of you dudes, you know, normally have extra visual effects.

I've seen it before. We know, but we just don't know.

Okay.

Miles, are you ready to show us something or do we need to clear the deck? Well, the slide is ready for you. All right, let's try to watch the slide.

Okay.

So the purpose is Evaluate the project, improve safety, incorporate pedestrians and cyclists, go back to second, Miles.

Same slide, I was

are not decided by anybody yet, but they're part of the package of considerations that the town at least has to be evaluated. So carry on, Miles. Go to the next one. So this is one of the modifications would be to try to improve the signalization of Route 9. I should just say parenthetically that a number of years past, Route 9 intersection used to be straight East, West, North, South at the same time. And it was modified a number of years ago. So it's East, West with left turn lanes and so on.

So this is an improved situation by a significant amount. The concern is does it mitigate the traffic on Hammond Street and it has limitations for bicycles and pedestrians. opportunity for the town that's considering. And this is called an R-cut. And take a look at it. It's a little hard to see, but the yellow lines indicate that the traffic movement going north and south would be modified so that you couldn't go south directly across Hammond Street. You would have to turn right, make a U-turn down by the FedEx building and come back and then turn right. And if you're going northbound, you would go north

It would be a new loop down by Dunster Road and you would come back and go north after making that U-turn. And then the advantages for that particular It's better for pedestrians. The potential challenges required out of direction travel for some minor street movements. This is an issue that was considerable concern to members and a letter to the Select Board just indicating concern about that as well Resolving Concept. And I have copies of that for you. You'll make that part of the report. So go on to the next. The other is Hammond Pond Parkway and Heath Street with a roundabout. And this is a potential opportunity to Narrow that roundabout to one lane, as I understand.

and again the thought here is that that would improve the flow of traffic and also the question of how all of this works obviously has to be of the Department of Conservation Records. Okay, carry on. Hang on a minute. Anyway, the point is that they will go through this with the I don't think the transportation board in Brookline has passed on this yet. and there are other things that have to happen, but it's all part of the litigation possibility for this particular development. So that's sort of the basics.

And what I want to do is open the committees up to conversation and questions if you have any about other aspects for this aspect and we also have the town administrator who can respond and I can also ask for comments.

That was great. The R-Cut is something I'm an award aid counselor and the R-Cut is something that is really concerning actually because and so on. The test and learn kind of scenario could be to understand if that actually works. You know, it's interesting because when that whole Wegmans shopping area went in. We added a lane where the state had to add a lane and everybody was questioning whether that would work. Well, I think it's worked pretty well. The art cut could be the same thing.

But looking at it, I'm very suspect. And I'd just like to hear more of... And if there's any background from what the... Your... Your studies have shown, I'd love to see that if you could, but if you could comment on that, that'd be great.

Thank you, Councilor, and thank you to the Chair for inviting me and the whole planning team and Newton. I just want to thank everyone for your time, for your efforts in this. We really want to be good collaborators here, and so it's great to have the opportunity to speak with you. You're not alone in this concern about the archive. When people see that on a map, when they see the overhead, they go, it doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't make any intuitive sense. Why would we do that? It seems to add a step. It seems to... Look, it seems to invite the sort of potentially dangerous crossing across traffic. There are a lot of concerns that just inherently arise from it. What I would say is a consultant is looking at those dedicated U-turn lanes a little further out from the intersection to try and defray that issue that you're talking about where a traffic piles up at the intersection anyway to try and make that U-turn. So the goal there is to separate that function out a little bit. That's my understanding.

But the other thing I'll say about this is this is one potential solution that the consultant that we brought in identified. Ultimately, the people who make a decision about this are the state. and the state is not going to make a decision about this without Brookline and Newton being on the same page and getting consensus on this, which is why we want to work collaboratively with you to make this happen. We're at this point now where we're talking about the zoning, we're talking about the design. We know that there are downstream impacts of traffic on rezoning. We want to mitigate those as best we can. We also want to Be deliberate in moving this process forward. I mean, the other thing that I noticed when I look at that map above, the bird's eye view of that area is you can clearly tell where the Newton border ends and the Brookline begins because Newton is developed and Brookline isn't.

We are underdeveloped in that area, and it is one of the last major areas where Brookline could see meaningful commercial growth in a way that would have a significant impact on the tax rolls. With that said, Brookline is trying to do two things at once here. It's trying to both develop a long range strategy for that entire neighborhood. So there are rezoning efforts there that are not attached to a particular developer, but have a long range goal in mind. and then during the course of trying to develop that the committee was approached by a developer who was interested in that parcel closest to Newton there on the I'm back there, City Realty, on the south side of Route 9. And concurrently with those broader questions about how do we want that neighborhood to look, how do we want it to develop, There were these specific questions about what could go in there, how could we go through that process.

And it's my understanding in working through that that the The committee that was set up for that to reevaluate that area and the developer went back and forth several times. The developer came in with a 20-story proposal. Senator McClendon said absolutely not. It's been back and forth several times now. And each time we've been trying to be make clear to the developer, but also the broader community, because it's not just about those parcels and that developer's future. that it has to be well integrated, not just on the Brookline side of the border, but the Newton side of the border. And so, you know, one of the things that we responded to in terms of community requests, not just the lowering of height, but for example, making sure that there's no Exit into the neighborhood there, making sure that we're doing the traffic mitigation, that we're asking for funds for our DPW to do work on our side. in terms of landscaping and maintenance of sidewalks and roadways.

There's a lot going on here, but I think the big takeaway is The R-cut idea is an idea at this stage. It is one that I think it's worth thinking about, even though it elicits that strong reaction on paper. But it's also something that's not going to happen without the state's say-so, and the state is not going to say yes unless both Brookline and Newton have an understanding together. This is what we want, and it's going to be beneficial for both of our communities.

Okay, I appreciate that. and so on. are you requiring that as part of this new area, meaning shuttles or bikes or things like that?

I'm not currently well versed enough on the alternate means of travel to kind of talk through those in detail, but I can ask the planning department on our end to follow up on how that process has been going. I will say that when it comes to commercial and residential rights, Chattelbrook line is not the city of Newton in terms of the balance between commercial and residential. We're in desperate need of advancing our commercial tax base, but not all of this is zoned for commercial, right? There's the opportunity for... Mixed use, there's the opportunity for residential. And the further you get from the street, the more residential in character the zoning becomes. There's still the opportunity for commercial development. For example, there's currently a 40B proposal on the south side. It's part of this rezoning. And it's got its PEL letter. It's moving forward. But the developer has said that if it was rezoned, they would reconsider building

and potentially look at transforming that into a hotel so it wouldn't necessarily be a total shift out of the It would be moving into a more commercial framework, but it would be capped at the same height as it would be in those neighborhoods. We're cognizant of the potential load on the neighborhood. We know that we're fortunate that it has access to the Green Line. We also know the Green Line is on the wrong side of Route 9 for most of that development. And so that's our big, you know, outstanding question is how do we work together to ensure that there is not just development there, but access, meaningful access. And that's going to take conversations with the state.

Wright, and Councilor Roche, I don't want to

I'm seeing more and more road rage and people not letting people in, so it is a difficult concept. and I was just reviewing the documents quickly. It seems like you're calling out certain buildings are going to be so many floors or hotels, so much is or condos or whatever. So do you, I mean, it is called out somewhat in there. Do you have a rough idea like on space-wise? Because again, it all comes kind of down to cars and traffic. and is each of these buildings gonna have a driveway from Route 9 or do they kind of like funnel onto Heath Street? There's a lot of different conflicts there.

There's no new vehicular connection between Boylston and Heath to buffer Heath Street from increased traffic. We're trying to build landscape buffers and setbacks and height restrictions closest to the existing two-family residential areas on both sides to kind of preserve those. and all of those are built into the zoning. The goal here is to make this complementary to the street on your side. You guys already have a significant retail development over there and significant high-end commercial opportunities Supermarkets, etc. We're not looking to duplicate what you're doing. That wouldn't make any sense. We're looking to build complementary uses. So, right, medical offices are contemplated. Hotels are contemplated. When we talk about ground floor retail, it will be more along the lines of coffee shops and so forth. Although we've had requests from the neighborhood, for example, it would be great to have a neighborhood hardware store. It would be great to have things that are missing in the area that aren't provided on the other side of the street.

Where possible, we're looking for complementary, not competitive uses.

Have you done any traffic studies or anything like that, or a rough idea of

That initial study is the study that we've done so far, the design study that's trying to think that through. And we've done kind of informal traffic studies on that front. But again, we're at a phase now where we're trying to think about how to approach the state and have that conversation. and so we're not at a point where we're going to the state and saying this is it we want to do this saying we're going to have development here it's going to change the nature of Route 9 There's no getting around it. If it gets more dense, then we have to talk about how that impacts Route 9. So how can we mitigate the increased density in a way that also protects the people who currently use it?

Wright. Have you done a traffic generation study, though? I mean, that's a little different from the traffic mitigation measures.

Right. I don't know the answer to that question. I can ask the planning team.

Let me go to, I think it was then Councilor Albright, then Councilor Getz.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So have you considered asking the developer, well, first of all, is all that property under the control of one developer?

No.

So there could be multiple developer opportunities.

Yes. So we have this one potential larger scale developer in city realty. We've talked to all the other owners of the properties. Some of them have said we're not interested. Some of them said we may be interested down the line. Some of them like that owner of the 40B has said, I will consider my options, but I want to see what passes at town meeting. That's the other thing to remember here is that, you know, take a step back from this The Brookline Town Meeting has to ultimately pass this zoning. It would require a two-thirds majority. It's subject to amendment. And there's not consensus. I think there's vocal opposition in the community to some aspects of this that relate to height, that relate to traffic, that relate to all of these things. So it's not a guarantee that this passes in its current form or passes at all. Brookline does need commercial development but there is a possibility that the town meeting ultimately says you know what we don't we don't want this proposal to you know take it back to the drawing board so

Under the current proposal, we have that one developer who's looking to redevelop that stretch that is closest to Newton on the southern side of Route 9. It's possible that that will change. For example, that developer's current proposal has a The opportunity to build up to 14 stories if a certain commercial density is achieved in the building. That's a subject of dispute. I know some of the members in the neighboring precincts would like to see that reduced, some of them significantly, and that would change the character of what could be developed there. There is a possibility that this will change. So I just want to be clear to you on the committee that Until May, the zoning isn't final.

And even once the zoning is final, there's additional steps that need to be taken.

So does this one developer have multiple buildings? And I'll tell you why I'm asking is because have you thought about asking him to build a pedestrian walkway over Route 9?

We thought about that. I said to the chair and to the mayor when we met, that is the dream, right? The dream would be a pedestrian... Some means of easy pedestrian access over route or under Route 9. I would settle for a tunnel. It doesn't need to be an overpass. The complexity of a project like that with the state is monumental. They wouldn't be able to do it by themselves. They would really need our help. What I have committed to in our conversation with the mayor is we want the same thing there. And the problem is because Route 9 has truck access, it's difficult to build an overpass. and tunnels are incredibly expensive, but I'm committed and I know the mayor is committed to creative solutions to this problem. So yes, we have absolutely thought about it. They can't do it without significant outside investment. We would love to...

provide that outside investment. But again, it's going to be a team effort, and it's further in the future than this rezoning.

Well, I'm just glad to see that it's on the drawing board in some way, shape, or form. And one last question is, so how many units are in the 40B that they're proposing?

That's a good question. Let me pull that up. I have that information and I can get it for you.

Is the 40B the only project that they're proposing? Or is it a multiple, you know, this and that and the other and one of them is a 40B?

That developer only has the 40B there.

Okay.

That's further up the Brookline. That's further towards Heath Street.

Okay. And I don't really need to know that tonight. You can maybe just let us know later.

Yes. So I'm keeping a list here of questions, and we will pass that along to the planning team on your side.

Thank you very much.

Councilor Getsch?

Yeah, I just have a couple of follow-up questions. The unit density for each of the zones, the west block, the east block, do you have any sense of that? Is it in the zoning?

The density is in the zoning. The FAR and all those things are in the zoning, and they provide for a certain level of units. But yes, and all of that is currently being ironed out. The select board is potentially taking that up tomorrow night. and they'll talk through, you know, what in practice that means in terms of if you were to build all housing here, what would it look like? If you were to build mixed use, what would it look like?

Yeah, and then the R-turn or whatever.

That's actually really problematic at that intersection. You know, many times I'm through that intersection. is like blocks, you know, in terms of that specific intersection. So I don't know that that's a viable solution, you know, for that intersection. I'm just commenting, unfortunately.

So the question about scale, my understanding is, and again, subject to correction, is that the part that's subject to redevelopment right now, which is where the office park is, the other parts are not. except for the 40B under any particular project. And these, as I understand it, don't have a special permit even yet, but they might. Around 887,000 square feet for the towers, that's the proposal. about 3.8 commercial square footage around 400,270 residential units and 204 hotel rooms.

That's for the whole zoning area?

The other districts had no current development proposal other than the possible 40B design. One of the concerns that I and others have expressed to the town administrator was Thank you. Thank you. I don't know. Carrie, is there a chance that that piece would be taken out in the warrant or is that?

Yes, there's definitely a chance. We're having those conversations. I think on our end, our concern is not the parking lot. It's everything else over there. It's the possibility. Possibility, for example, if some of those residential structures may be becoming small-scale retail or like a boutique hotel or something like that, that would be great. It would be, again, a common use in that neighborhood. The parking for the Star Market, there would be, you know, the opportunity to do something over there. It's just the general sense, too, of if we're going to rezone what's on our side to have that sort of awkward triangle there, you know, it doesn't Unlike, you know, I think it's just a matter too of, you know, different philosophies on zoning. We're trying, you know, when we rezone, when we get approached and so on.

based on what we want to see, not what developers want to see. And so where we can, we're trying to balance those things. We're saying, you know, even when a developer comes to us, as is the case here, we're still trying to develop this as part of a bigger picture of what we want the neighborhood to look like. and as we said to the chair and to the mayor and to the planning team right because of that special permit that the star market has it's very unlikely that the current owner would redevelop that in any way that would impact the star market without the star market use changing in some way. We're not trying to incentivize that change with this zoning. With that said, There's a chance that this parcel comes out of the zoning altogether, just based on these conversations.

I would applaud that decision you've made. I would just say that you're all aware of that exit from the Star Market onto Hammond Street is a very tricky one. And the town of Brookline really has been very helpful in working with the market to create that block that's sort of marked out. and it actually works. It really is astonishing how many people will not go into that so that you can get in and out of that. And I'm a little nervous about putting something up on the corner, If you're talking about shuttles, if they come through Newton, they've got to get approval from our bus licensing process. Not that it's impossible, but it's just another step. So other questions from committee members?

Councilor Roche, you had a question? Gordon.

I just want to say I'm in this area multiple times a day throughout the and a lot to sort of get around having to do the turning already people are trying to go the wrong way sometimes down the opposite street to Heath Street. I've noticed when I'm there with all that construction going on in that corner, the movement still seems to be pretty good using the straight across. So I'm not quite sure what problem is, I know it's written out here what the problem is, and operational efficiencies. I figure it's also pretty easy to test, right? Not to see what happens. But I'm guessing that this is going to cause multiple problems further down on both sides, east and west.

There are also uses north of the schools and the institutions that depend on that intersection access. So it's not just sort of just cars. School drop-offs and so forth.

Yeah, when I'm on this road, I see people, they don't want to stop for the pedestrian light that's there already because they've been waiting long enough. Then they see the light and they try to go through it. And I watch it all the time. I'm like, there's someone in the lot. Um,

I believe that it's a possibility. We can go back and show that.

I want to clarify. What they're proposing is a new roundabout where there's a four

Oh, behind Florence, please. Yes.

I'm sorry. I beg your pardon. You're correct, and I'm misspoke.

I just wanted to clarify.

No, no. Wonderful to correct you.

Wonderful. Okay. None of the traffic deals with the eastbound that they merged the crossover between eastbound traffic exiting Chestnut Hill Square Eastbound traffic on Route 9 heading down the down ramp.

So I would encourage... what we had proposed at the time perhaps remember this Councilor Baker then Alderman Baker is that there be a frontage road

In order to go into Chestnut Hill Square, you had to commit to that frontage road, and you also had to commit to that frontage road to Hammond Pond Park. that would eliminate the crossover and so

and many more. What are, are you talking about the Wegmans wall?

Are you talking about the Chestnut Square?

Yeah.

And you think it's a failure the way that you, when you come out?

Yeah, and the indication it's a failure is, I mean, It is not intuitive enough or safe enough that it doesn't require a police officer. You shouldn't need to staff that intersection If you did what I'm proposing as a frontage row, and many separate uses.

I would just comment. One thing, Mr. Administrator, that occurred with the Chesney Hill Square is the grinding in the road was a condition of the building That was, and the city of Newton actually was the guarantor of the bonds that paid for that. We didn't have to, we didn't have to come through and actually pay for it because of the bonds work, but The point is that that project, and I don't know how many square feet it is, we can look it up, but we didn't approve it as a special permit or a as a project until we had an assurance of at least a winding highway at that point because of the problems of traffic. So I think your traffic study about the generation

is going to be important to figure out what litigation measures you need because that's and may cause you to the area near the star market that reduces some of the potential development pressure because it's not imminent, but it's still apparent. And then you have a sense of a little less demand. But again, I think the whole question How this corridor works is going to be critical because

Anything that's going to have a bearing on how that intersection works is going to be relevant to how we try and fix it. I know our police department keeps crash data on this. I can try and get that to this committee. Historically, we have had accidents there. It is a prime area for accidents. So I want us to be cognizant of not just pedestrian safety, but the safety of everyone who crosses through there.

Coon.

Yeah, so Mr. Carey, what and so on.

I hope the administrators indicated the city will be part of the conversation in any event, which I very much appreciate because this is obviously a joint effect. The question was, can you...

Sorry, yeah, I just wanted to emphasize we're... We talked about this in our staff-to-staff meeting. We really like the idea of some sort of task force where we're working together on this, not just on the specific issues here, but Route 9 more broadly. It's a major thoroughfare. It's a lifeline to both of our communities. It's frequently snarled with traffic. There are a lot of things that we could be doing better. that we can help the state with because it's not necessarily a state priority. But the other thing that doesn't keep me up at night but it's lodged in the back of my mind is that In the event that they bury the pike, they level the mass pike, traffic on other roads is going to go up, and that includes on Route 9. And so we all have to be ready. Under the current federal administration, probably not going to happen. Things change, and I don't want us to say that just because it's not going to happen now, it means it's never going to happen.

So I think we've got to be in good communication with each other to talk about how we're going to... how we're going to ensure that the Our shared roadway continues to serve the purpose it needs to serve. This is a conversation that's being driven by a specific incidence, this rezoning, but I don't think this conversation should stop when this rezoning is completed and we've addressed these immediate issues. I think we got to work hand in hand with the state to flag the continuing issues we have with Route 9 and how we can make it better.

I just want to say I've got a representative of the county

I can answer a couple of questions that came up. So that was one question. Another question, another thing that hasn't been brought up This building will be very tall.

and I don't know what that means. The other thing that I don't think the traffic

at a bike lane.

All of the proposed traffic modifications and a variety of other things that are part of this are there to take a look at. And also we'll have for you the text of the zoning amendment. But we do appreciate, Mr. Kerry, you're taking time. It's not often that we get the town administrator or client We've come to spend time with the City of Newton City Council representatives, so we're grateful to you and your colleagues for the willingness to do that. And also, thank you very much, Wisconsin, Any other questions? If not, I'd entertain a motion to hold because I think we want to see what happens to this. But there's a motion to hold. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

Perry, thank you and your colleagues very much. We look forward to continuing the conversation and learning more about this as it goes forward.

Well, very much. Great night.

Thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to make comments here as well.

Thank you. I'm going to trade places with the vice chair because she's going to run the balance.

Okay, so the next item is 59-26, Presentation for affordable housing deficit for low and moderate income households. This report, prepared by the Newton Housing Priority Task Force, formed in late 2023, analyzes the city's affordable housing landscape What is the existing supply and what factors led to its development? Two, whom does the existing affordable housing serve? And three, how does the supply match the need? I'm going to present, so why don't you come on up? Thank you.

Councilor Wright can actually do this. Thank you so much for inviting us to share this report. Great. And you have it You have it in your packet. I realized there was one tiny mistake, so when we get to it, I'm going to tell you it was just a missed one. See, you do know it. I think you should do it. So this task force,

One of the things we realized is we didn't actually have a clear sense of what affordable housing we had, what we needed, or what the priorities should be. You know, it's hard to choose where to allocate limited funds without some clear direction. So the citizen task forces, if we can go to this. Housing Commission, which were then, as we got, were in the middle of the process, were combined. And the Newton Housing Authority, along with staff,

These three questions. Before I go on, I want to thank Esther Schlorholtz, who was the chair of the and is now a member of the Fair and Affordable Housing Partnership and Councilor Albright. And then on this we have at least I know Marva Slatkin is and perhaps other people. Next slide.

Okay, I'm gonna, oh, we're now, some of the,

Is this the version you sent me?

No, no, no, no. You have an older version of I have it on here. Why don't I share my screen?

He has an older version. There's a what?

There's something right here.

You know, there it is. You see the title. Thank you. Was missing. And so... All right, so the numbers, with one exception, the numbers in, and I Yeah, it's, you know, one of the people who worked the most on this has exactly All right, I'm going to walk.

Let me just tell you, this is the quick snapshot of what our housing cycle looks like. and the numbers, we stopped doing the count in June of 2025. And so this is from that time period. The affordable units in here are defined as 110% AMI and below that are in some way de-restricted. So they're not going to be, most of you I think will be familiar with the subsidized housing inventory that indicates our compliance with 40B debt. These numbers are not going to match that for two reasons. One, that just goes up to 80% AI because that's how the state measures it.

And two, under 40B, is counted on the SHI. But what we wanted to know is what do we really have for affordable housing? So this is not the only important housing issue how much we could actually set it. and the housing stock, it won't, you know, but it just gives us a sense. So in the one last caveat, will be moving a little faster. But is that the total units we've tried to update, but they're not. That is less accurate. The affordable housing units We've really spent a lot of time scrubbing.

But the affordable units, we're not going to have a great count until the 2030 census when they all get up. The total units. The total units, that's right. So we, in general, we have about 33,600, 700 units in Newton. Of those, 275, or in a minute you'll see slightly more, are affordable. And the affordable units, 2,000. I have a little dyslexia and, you know, comes out in numbers. We're both dyslexic. Yeah. Oh, great. Great. So 19% of all rental units are affordable.

and almost 70%, 69% of our stock is ownership. So that's just what you would expect for a community like Newt. And that means, of course, that 31% are working. OK, next slide. One question. Oh, wait. Can you wait? Sure. to work with Councilor Wright to try and get that. I do on rental and I'm going to get, I'm going to, but just be affordable. Only thing I counted was affordable and that's one of my new slides. So this is the way we're going to,

and for each section, we're gonna give you a data snapshot. I'll answer your question on the data snapshot for rental. Then tell you what the recommended policy is. data that informed us in making that recommendation in ways we might implement. So this is, Mayor Laredo said, Next is we're going to look at update of affordable housing. and all right and we're going to just quickly move from this slide what this tells you what we

Next slide. This is the one place, you know what, you have an older one. Okay, so I'm going to If you all look at your own slides, We're going to ask Susan if we could change once more and I'll tell you about...

Okay, I'm gonna go to June. Miles, will you let me in?

It always goes to Randy.

The three things that have happened is that the Newton Gardens project with 112 units has come online. We've put our money in. All of the affordable units are not yet online because they're still waiting for some subsidy dollars. The units are available to be rented and so we're showing those as existing. Our affordable housing, we have to get to the numbers that really we can count on having. We've combined our existing. and we have in construction because we're pretty confident that if it's already in construction it's going to count and so building three of Northland this is by

There's my one mistake you're going to get. Building 3 of Northland is in construction, so we're pretty confident that that's going to happen. and we've added that into the permitted in construction and for a total existing and in construction of 2,118 units. Permitted, but not in construction. I think everybody's been around this long enough to know until you start, until you break ground, it can't guarantee. Oh, we wanted to count what we've permitted. And so we added the balance of the Northland Needham Street. And when we cut this off, those were the changes that had happened.

And that adds 587 units for a total of existing and permitting of 2,705 units. So I think that we can feel good about making some progress in our rail unions.

The 587, that's not just... No, no, no.

That's including everything that was in construction. And actually... Well those are not in construction. So it'll be like on Craft Street because it's been commented and things like that. But it's not in construction. So it's not counted. If you want to know what's in that Number. If you look at the full report, it's actually in the footnotes. We provide the list of units and afterwards I'm happy to look at it with you. Okay. So next slide, please. So here are the priorities for rental. prioritize low-income family rental housing. And why do we do that? Because two to four unit housing that's generally available.

Newton has 437 units. That's only 22% of our affordable rentals. And families are... of our schools, and we're not serving as deeply. and we'll go through why. We're really suggesting that, recommending that, that housing prioritize low income, But we want to recognize that there's a real pressing need for every type of affordable rental housing. And so we need to support opportunities as they emerge. Next slide.

So we talked about types of affordable rental housing. Newton has much more senior housing than general housing that includes family. and you'll, you know, seniors serves 60 or 62 and over. And it's 54% of our housing. 14% is and housing for formerly homeless and victims of domestic violence and general occupancy housing. That's everything else. And that's only 32%. And of that, a piece of that is for families. And so we're just going to go two slides, please.

General Housing primarily serves moderate income people because most of the general housing exists because of 40B and inclusionary zoning. and they and set of eyes. Did you say, Miles, did you have something? Oh, I'm sorry. I was, I'm trying to count counselors who are in the room. I apologize. All right. Oh, and, and, and so that, And senior housing serves primarily low income because it was primarily created through deep subsidy programs. Next slide, please. So how do we grow this supply of affordable rental housing? First, we need to carefully leveraged state funds.

When we looked back at 10 years of funding review of city investments, we found and properties with 33 to 49 units spent an average of 64,000 per unit. Now I wanna tell you one other thing. We know there was enormous inflation in construction price over that 10 years. and the larger projects grant so that it is an even larger gap. So we can't target permitting in ways that we, and Forty B.

And as we reach safe harbor, and one of the things that I would urge the council to think about is can you if both provisions allow you to encourage deeper affordability for fewer units and the priorities cast for us felt like the deeper affordability was more important than even the number of guests. Hard to get to us. We can take advantage of both of public-owned properties, both city-owned and Andrew's study of vacant land that's available to look at. And state properties.

And I know you all have talked a lot about how do we get more state properties. And then the final piece, and this is a really active piece. The city could decide to incentivize private development of family rentals in the same way that happened with the armory. and so that's produced deeply affordable family units and that's a great model to think about. There are many tools that the city has to do that. Next slide. All right, so not a lot of housing to talk about. Less than half of a percent of our ownership housing is affordable rental, 88 units. Next slide.

Affordable home ownership. Thank you. Thank you. Esther, could you hand me my walker? Thank you. All right.

So

Our recommendation is that we rely on Chapter 40B and inclusionary zoning as the most cost-effective way to add units and that the city consider ownership housing as well. That we really make sure that we're clear about the policies we're trying to accomplish. with our affordable homeownership and make sure that we've aligned. And this is a conversation that many communities and actually state funding agencies have been having over the last five or six years. and I'm going to tell you why. So next, why not just created ourselves? Because creating affordable home ownership is extremely costly.

We can't access the state funds that we could leverage for homeownership. Newton is not eligible. It's only available to low-income census tracts. and Gateway Cities. So this is a really very conservative estimate if your total development cost is $800,000. Hard to get to these days. That means the subsidy per unit.

The one other way that the city encourages affordable home ownership is if The city can provide just a few each year. But down payment and closing cost assistance and then there are state programs that provide mortgage interest right now. both kinds of affordable housing trigger deep restrictions that require resales are paid to the original I fear that's going to be really hard to see, but if you can see the yellow line, and the blue line.

The blue line is area median income over a 25 year period. And the yellow line is the is the So what happens is when you have those restrictions, you don't. So let's go to the next slide. Homeownership doesn't equal market rate ownership. It's not for those of us who have the privilege of being homeowners. It's not the same. It does provide Thank you.

Thank you. You don't have advantage of the appreciating home equity for kids' college loans. And so communities have really been grappling with what they're trying to accomplish and really thinking about ways to tweak That's a conversation that Newton could have.

And I think that we don't always really understand what we're talking about when we say we want more affordable home ownership. And I'll tell you. Over 35 years, I've fulently argued both sides of this. So I don't think there's a right answer. And so the major thing Home Ownership, or even Middle Income Ownership, this is a good conversation for us to have. Okay, next slide. We're getting through this, and thank you for sticking with us. Let's talk about preserving our existing affordable homes because we have more than 2,000 units, but we want to make sure that we keep them for the long term. So next slide, please.

In the next 10 years, there are 302 affordable units representing 541 that are at risk of being lost. So remember that 100%, and we're going to An example in just a minute. 100% of a rental project, it counts on the support of housing. It was a way to make communities feel better about 40 feet. when 40B was created. So, you know, you get 100 units 40B and 25 of those units are affordable, but 100 units go on the supported housing inventory. That's why your SHI list overstates how many portable units there are.

And then other risks. Next slide. The most important thing we can do, our most important recommendation is to plan for and invest to protect those 275 affordable homes. and that's an ongoing process. That needs, I think that we're gonna see why that's a priority. And we can do that with it. We need a five to 10 year rolling inventory. It takes a long time. to deal with expiry units. So you want a good lead time. You can't do it in the last year. And it cannot be preserved. And then we need to...

stay on top of our really critical owners to make sure that they continue to be viable. Next slide. And we're going to just skip this one and go to the next one. There are, of those 302 units, there are 51 units with 223 subsidized housing inventory units that are at risk or have have been lost in 2025-2026. Those include an eight unit group home and I am not sure staff is checking on what happened with that. We know, those of you who might know Evans Park, that Benchmark owns with 23 affordable units and 115 supportive housing inventory units.

Staff were not able to negotiate to keep those affordable units. And it's owned by Benchmark. And Benchmark has another project. Cabot Park with 20 affordable units and 100 SHI units that are expiring this year. And we don't know the outcome. I just can't emphasize enough how much preserving what we have is really important. And so next slide. What we want to also, while we're doing that, make sure that we're thinking about these five companies three of whom are non-profits making sure that they are able to have the resources

to maintain the housing stock in good condition. And I'm gonna focus on one and then I'm just about done. The most vulnerable, next slide please. is the housing authority. It's not because they are not good. They're very, very talented, dedicated staff. But housing authorities, this is a state and national problem. Housing authorities are really challenged by long-term capital and operating underfund. And it's resulted in really inadequate capital and operating reserves. That doesn't look as good as I'd like. that's because they are making do with really not enough resources and we as a community want to be able to support them.

So one of the things in the Affordable Housing Act The state actually dedicated $1.5 billion for affordable housing. I mean, for public housing. And that money is really, it is so competitive across the state. It will only go for properties that oath. and so let's think about being open and and working with them and hopefully they will focus on family housing as they're looking at that but so that's that's a

And I'll tell you, as we did this study, my thinking about what we needed, the support we needed to provide for the housing authority and then I started looking at where they stand in our housing stock and realized that's really the biggest base of our housing. So it's a hard lesson. So there we are. And I'm going to go to two last slides if we can. I have some recommendations. There are three, and I think two are particularly important.

There are three things that I think are worth continuing to look at. One is to refine our housing production More important is if we are interested in home ownership, I think we need to have that conversation. And the final one that I don't wanna understate We looked at affordable housing.

The middle market definition in Newton is really like 150 to 210 percent AMI because if you look less than that amount. And that's a really important which is that we can become a leader That's what our task force, where we've got. Thank you very much.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to get people to raise their hands. When that person, you know, hones in on one thing, I'll let other people ask questions during that time, and then I'll take the next person on my list and we'll go to that area. So I see Councilor Albright and... Yes.

Okay.

We're joined by Councilor Bixby.

Oh, thank you.

Okay, so I have... all posting this at least three times. Yes. Councilor Albright, Getz, Baker, any other councilors that have some questions? You can have questions as we go along. I have a lot of questions, so we'll get to that.

So we'll start with Councilor Albright. So the first thing I want to say is the people who worked on this study from these various task forces and commissions and committees. We are so lucky to have them. They all work in the field. Thank you so much for being all of you Does the $80,000 per unit for homeownership and the cost, what did I say? We wish him safety.

even for a condominium, even for a 12 to 1500 square foot condominium, that would be below And remember, we've got land costs in addition to your construction. Yes, but condominiums and zero-wap line townhouses and things like that are great ways More affordable opportunities. Not really affordable, but at middle markets.

And we don't ever have the housing staff, the planning housing staff, come to this committee. I'm wondering what you thought about having them be more part of our process So that, you know, maybe there's a way we could help. I don't know whether it's, you know, the budget is pretty strained, but maybe there are other ways that we can help as they're looking at these things that are coming off the deed.

Thank you so much for joining us. Existing Affordable Housing. Because then it prioritizes

Let them decide where they should put their time.

Go back to page 17 is where you first had a question. and so I had a question just to understand it better sure so yeah I did go through yeah so these are home ownership okay so you're saying You know, average of $800,000. And then the sale price is $320,000. So for developers, I thought if a developer has a condo project They eat that $480,000 that it costs for that unit as part of the kind of shares it about the other costs. Inclusion Area Zoning, or 40B. If the developer didn't have to do affordable housing, if in the way we do rental housing, if we Thank you.

So with the IZ and with our condos, we're not putting that $180,000 subsidy. Okay. The

T, where the developer was explicit and said we're building six because it doesn't trigger inclusionary zoning. So the $480 million

Yeah, so they do a percentage of that, too. and this was he was able to do 40B homeownership projects that produced he actually did and he used the market to actually write down the cost of affordable. So it is possible to do those sorts, but it has to be a motivated developer and they were smaller projects. Okay.

Councilor Albright, do you have more questions?

So what's the best thing to do?

You're talking about the 38 craft, didn't you? I think that you know I'd love to hear what It is difficult. We're in our most recent project that we invested funds in. We got 56, 58 units of affordable housing, of deeply affordable housing for $2 million. So less... and $50,000.

So, you know, you can, there's a lot of leverage, but mixed income housing is also a really valuable. and I think that the council has really been engaged in some important discussions about in low payments and many more.

I mean, we're the committee that's creating ordinances that might impact affordable and middle-income housing, so if you guys could all stay involved.

The CBA should be working with them to see what they need.

And from this data, it seems more family housing is really what we need, not the very deeply affordable ones.

because our family housing tends to be 80% AMI. And so what we really have a shortage of is deeply important for all family housing. But all family housing is important. So that's something that they should know, the ZBA. So that's something that they should try to negotiate.

and everything.

that in general staff are trying to do in perpetuity and particularly home and CDBG are done in perpetuity. The most recent deed restriction that was fairly recent that I looked at was a 40-year. There are reasons. Think about private developers applying. As homeowners, you have to refinance periodically to reinvest and renew your capital. And so developers actually anticipate like, before they refinance. So affordable

There are usually five to ten sources of financing on deeply affordable projects. Do you know where we are? So all of the senior There's usually missed debt and soft debt, and then you get to us. And so in the event of a foreclosure or a project that can't make it, Often by the time it gets to us, we're not even at the table. We're not even at the table. So it's really important that we stay on top of. are going to be refinancing, even if our use restrictions last.

And to be good partners, to be good partners, developers are not bad people, even for-profit developers.

So on this point, you mentioned Cabot, I think it's called, or units that are being rolled off. What are we doing to try to preserve those?

They had some conversations. It's the same developer for the two projects. It's Benchmark. And The Cabot property did just expand and has three new deep restricted units coming on. The city You know, I would have to talk to the developer to understand. You'd want to understand What their situation was. Because they can make more money.

I will tell you, I'm not going to tell you who it is, but

who really know this side of the business really well. I'm sure they're great citizens. I'm sure they'd be happy to. Anybody, I have a question. Most units coming online now are in perpetuality. Anyways, and I'm surprised to hear it's like 40 years. I thought we were doing all of them now. Okay, but what would be good, I'd like to see the when they aspire to consent.

and so on. All right, the Friendly Forty Bees, and then that study that was done by the...

Yes. That's actually something that we need to discuss. What's the dream? It's the one where they looked at all the... and the possibility of,

I think if some of the counselors would like to do some thinking about that, I am happy to buy lunch and bring some folks who are really interested in thinking about it. and to see if we could come up with a strategy.

Can you guys explain how you got to, you know, there was a full inventory of I absolutely feel that this is a launchpad.

and then I also feel like you know we especially with the housing

and the state has absolutely, absolutely, the state really wanted to see what's called naturally occurring affordable housing. That's what Moving Gardens was, taking housing That's affordable and making sure it stays affordable. Do you want to explain to people who don't know what the city did to help with that? So the city went in very quickly and helped. and property manager who has great resident services. Critical for us. And we provided very fast very quickly and supported conversation with the governor's office.

And Nguyen has a lot of blood. We provided money to them. It's a very unusual structure. So it's 112 units. 40 in multiple buildings. Great shape. I was astounded. And... 16 are extremely low income, 30% and below.

with rental housing vouchers that allow the tenant to pay 30% of their income and the voucher pays the rest of the affordable rent. And those are the ones, remember I said, and some are being provided by the Newton Housing Authority. And until we have those vouchers, those units stay at below 80% AMI, but they'll drop down and they'll be rented at affordable rents. The rest of the units, the 82 remaining units,

and that was a negotiation not just with Gwyn but with their investors who didn't want to be locked into having to income restrict 100% of those. will still be affordable. Otherwise, those units, the rents would have escalated the property right across the street, same building type, but got converted to one tree house.

So that's why NOAA is so important. Okay, on this subject.

Yes, I just want to say that Peter Sargent, who's the vice chair, said, Peter's been working in affordable housing his whole career. I never thought I would see wind development and beacon communities come to Newton. And I think we can feel good about the fact that we have a housing trust

There's a lot of data and a lot of different perspectives here, but part of the value of having trust and giving is that you're doing a lot of homework sort of outside our region. What I'm trying to understand is if I hear this from an outside perspective, preserving your affordable units is your biggest priority. No.

Remember the three? Three sets of priorities, and the two biggest are create more family, affordable family housing, low-income family housing, and make sure we keep what we've got. And then figure out what we want to do about home ownership.

If you could work at trying to keep the units affordable beyond their terminals, what does that involve? And is that a better use of the money than to put it into one unit?

I don't think it's an either or. I think that it's a both and. We need to both be expanding our affordable housing. and because we have an extreme shortage of housing in the state as a whole and we're concerned with affordable housing so we need Losing.

went up as, as and we had a plan to be adding new units and both were important and both were part of our financial plan. So part of the reason that we did that You're the experts and I appreciate all that.

which is some is going to be invested in new and some is going to be invested in existing, right? And I'm just trying to understand

So we're already doing it, but we'd like to make sure that we know what we're doing.

Well, I guess I'll...

I know you want an answer that's clear.

I don't think you have an answer now, but I do think part of the value of this presentation is to try and simplify it out. New Family Housing. We might invest 30% of that. We'd like to have 30% in the middle. I don't know what it is, but I think the point I'm trying requires all this to get there, but at least says this is what we're about.

and sometimes they

Are we going down the right direction? Are we not?

I think in general that produces this middle market housing more than deeply affordable. And they're both really important. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, if...

Can you just clarify where those are coming in in terms of inclusionary zoning?

People are really feeling like they want it. And so one of my recommendations is if that's a priority for this committee, if that's a priority for you all with your constituents, That's worth some study. It's an entirely different solution. is a subsidy that affordable housing can tap into. I was hoping nobody was going to ask because I have on my list of things to do to do a little research.

I think this is a gas. I'm sure there's somebody online. I see somebody online who could answer that question. But here is, I think, that that person's lease runs out The rent goes and our SHI, our affordable units go down. So we are further

you are way out of my

on a condition that X percent

So that they couldn't fall out of compliance if they fulfilled that duration.

Anybody else on this subject? Okay, go ahead.

Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. And one of the things you mentioned briefly was

We know new construction projects. The people who really need it needed Very low income and a lot of times it's not might be an 80%.

So someone who could physically use that unit, they can't get it because it's out of their range. And so they will, you know, rent it to someone else. and that is another problem with that.

I'm sorry, I'm just, is there any, in this case,

Is there any reason that there is way of providing assistance. I know the Cousins Fund was talking about other things, but it seems to me subsidized housing and providing access to all segments of the community. You know, disabled, they can't earn any money and they can't, so they're very low in income and the unit that they can occupy is

Often, an accessible unit, when you have that unit available, you don't have someone who needs it. And when someone needs it, you don't have the unit. Meath, Cyrus probably knows this better than I. Five percent. Tier one.

Yeah, but

and so forth. That might be part of the support. These are all lottery units to begin with. Only a fork.

and Cyrus and others. of the Unit. Charles, et cetera, then we could step in and say, OK, here's a unit. We'll fund the conversion to fully accessible. And it's much less because we built it ahead of time. And that's the only way we've built for, I don't know, 15, 20 years. So all the units that we build are now accessible, ready?

Certainly the ones we did. Yeah.

But we can make it a condition of special permits.

That's right.

And it's adaptable. Adaptable.

I like the comment that Markle has done this.

Can I just add that one totally unmet need, not accessibility is one aspect, but children living at home with their parents over the age of 22 is huge, much larger than you would suspect. I think I left out the word disabled. Not disabled children living at home because I have one of the other kind myself. The number of adult disabled children living at home with their parents is huge. And we do not study that. There's no research on it. We have no thoughts on how to meet that need.

Well, and on that point, right, there's another

Supportive Housing. Yes. In this group. And we actually have a disproportionate number because Newton parents have been, most of those group homes were developed by parents. Yeah. and Newt's parents have been excellent about creating good housing options, but as their children and so it's sort of a crisis within the group home industry across the state. One other thing when we did our I found out at the police station and for some promotions for police officers, they have to live in Newton.

and it's not required for the fire and things like that. So, you know, taking a look at that population, you know, would attract, you know, more police officers if there was something for them to live in Newton.

Okay, any other topic? I have a few, once you guys are done. Well, I was back to... Pardon?

We'll get out before 10. I am also available to talk with you.

I think the vice chair sleeps in a different dimension.

Yes. One thing, the numbers and that you add and I am a There's also some actually housing for people, victims of domestic violence. Yeah, but the transitional ones. Yeah, but I'll separate out and send that to you. And I have some of these. I'll send you an email with questions.

So one of the things, I did a little bit of research, and this is with ownership, and do you know roughly how much or AMI for units increases every year. It does increase, no? It's the same number. has to be sold at that 80% AMI. Which does go up some. Right. So here's... You've got me like, you know, pass... AMI, you're still restricted to, say, 80% AMI. That might have increased. That will have increased, hopefully.

Sometimes it's gone down, but hopefully it will have increased. But the other factor in how much you can afford to spend develop more equity. And a lot of the studies we have right now were based on that. The minute interest rates climbed, the amount of equity you could take out dropped dramatically. because you couldn't get the increased value of the house and what could be mortgaged was so much less.

Have they had in the past in the Boston area some of these affordable housing groups? Because this was one of your concerns. you know, I'm old. So I remember 92 and I remember 2007, 2008. And so they're economic cycles. And, you know, in a bad cycle, But have we seen it in Newton? I don't know. I actually don't think so. But I know that there are some owners who have been faced very difficultly.

One last question. one of the things you said we have 201 vouchers here in Newton that doesn't seem to be in the numbers and if you're kind of doing affordable housing couldn't that be part of Yeah, so we actually tried very hard because vouchers come from a number of different places and from other communities, from the state. We tried. I can go, you're renting a unit, and I can give you my Section 8, and that pays a lot of rent.

We wanted to test that, but we couldn't get the numbers. It's a very small number. 201 are used in you. And out of the 2,000, that's 10%. So that's a little bonus. Any other questions?

I'll send my other ones. So we touched on

Well, there's a small time.

I think first, I think that there's a real nexus. All new housing is very great. We're building to passive house standards. When we build multi-family units, We use less land. We preserve more open space, more trees. All of those are climate friendly. And I think that because those are the We need to be talking more. And I think you've raised this issue really nicely. We need to be talking more about how do we address both together.

Second question is,

I think we need to understand what we're trying to do before we even think about putting money in.

That is a level of clarity which is welcome. Thank you. And then there's no mention unless I missed it about zoning

In the report, it's more clear in the written report. and the ability to get to the funding. 40B and Inclusionary Zoning and now by Wright Development are in producing timely affordable about the difference between

So the buy-right, that's good, nice clarity. That's great. And we have our first buy-right development. Oh, super exciting. And then we think about market-based housing as a regional issue.

of the region and the region has a desperate need for affordable housing and the state has actually quantified that and So I think that we are shouldering our part of the region. We are trying to shoulder our portion. And Councilor Baker and I, it's past our bedtime.

CHST.

Okay, all in favor to hold, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Quick question.

Do we have a plan to update this either later in the year, later in the term? I'm just curious, as opposed to holding, would we redock it something later?

I know, the pressure to close it up. Okay, good.

Okay, and motion to adjourn. Yes. Recording stopped.