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Time for another newsletter and there’s a lot to report. Topics include a Needs Assessment survey, D Line track work and shuttle updates, a Chestnut St road work update, the return of the winter parking ban (for now), Walker Center acquisitions by the city, Affordable Housing Local Preference reform, a resolution on a Real Estate Transfer Fee For Affordable Housing, Land Use matters of note (at Four Corners, Grove St, and Newtonville), public employee vaccination, a nip bottle ban next year, school bus fees, accountability for election administration mistakes, and the annual tax classification.
I wish you all a happy and safe Thanksgiving next week.
ARPA: Needs Assessment Survey
One use of ARPA emergency federal funds here will be a local Needs Assessment, basically figuring out what kind of gaps in city programs & services we have for vulnerable and low-income populations in Newton. Then we'll try to develop or expand services with other, ongoing sources of funds. I already participated in one focus group (among several) on this issue, but we want to hear from the public at large.
So: What are some things we should look into? We have a general survey. (Pass it along to any Newton residents you think should fill it out!)
Please complete the survey by NOVEMBER 30th.
English: http://research.net/r/NewtonNeedsSurvey
Translations (Spanish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, & Brazilian Portuguese): http://research.net/r/NewtonNeedsSurveyTranslated
The survey will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. Responses will remain confidential.
MBTA D Line update
The latest from the MBTA today: On the Green Line D Track and Signal Replacement Project, track inspections, trackwork items identified by those inspections, and the testing and activation of new signals between Eliot and Brookline Hills stations are starting to wrap up. Weeknight work from Riverside to Fenway Station will continue Monday, November 22, through Wednesday, November 24, while crews conduct signal testing and complete electrical signal cutovers. [...] While this work is occurring, shuttle buses will replace D Branch service between Riverside and Brookline Village. Visit the D Branch alerts pagefor the latest information about service changes. Crews will pause work for the Thanksgiving holiday after start of service on Thursday, November 25 until Sunday, November 28.
Chestnut St road work update
Preparation work for Chestnut St repaving is continuing this month between Beacon St and Commonwealth Ave. The City Council just allocated a couple hundred thousand dollars for re-lining old, worn-out water and storm drain pipes under the street in that section. This is all a precursor to next year’s re-paving work. We’re also cautiously optimistic at this time that there can (and will) finally be an expansion of sidewalk and crosswalk infrastructure in parts of that section, where possible, to make a safer pedestrian experience there as part of that project.
If you live in that section, you may be experiencing water flow difficulties at the moment. This is because the temporary bypass pipes have a much more limited carrying capacity than the standard pipes. Unfortunately there’s no good way around that, which means during this pipe maintenance phase there will be problems during peak usage periods. We understand your frustration, but it won’t be for very long.
Winter parking ban returns (for now)
In contrast with last year’s emergency suspension of certain parking rules to accommodate extra people being in Newton during the pandemic, Newton’s citywide “Overnight Parking Ban” will go back into effect this winter on Wednesday, Dec. 1 through Thursday, March 31, 2022. Parking on City streets will be prohibited from 2 AM to 6 AM.
However, Mayor Fuller also urged residents to weigh in on the future of the winter parking restrictions – long a hotly contested policy – with feedback to her and the City Council: “Feel free to let me and the City Council know your thoughts about the Overnight Parking Ban. Keep it? Shorten it? Eliminate it? What do you think?”
Emails have been flooding in to us since last night with people’s opinions on both sides. Some residents have been ready to end the ban for years, while others believe it is an important limiting factor on student populations parking near Newton’s various college campuses or on street parking from dense residential developments if they don’t have extensive on-site parking.
I look forward to continuing to hear from everyone on the pros and cons.
Walker Center Acquisitions
In Ward 4, Newton is on the verge of making some property acquisitions on Hancock St & Grove St. These are portions of the Walker Center properties currently being sold off. One part will be used for potential future expansion needs at neighboring Williams Elementary School and one part for affordable housing.
The affordable housing component is to acquire four existing historic district homes (totaling 14 bedrooms currently) and (after renovation) make them deed-restricted permanently affordable housing for families to live right by the school. The houses are in good shape inside and should need relatively light renovations and some conversions of a few bedrooms back into family common space.
The rest of the Walker Center site that isn't being purchased by the city (including the Walker dormitories) is expected to be coming forward as a Special Permit residential project of some kind. But that's a private effort so we don't know the specifics yet.
Federal emergency ARPA funds will be used for this purchase. So, the Council was asked to authorize the Walker Center acquisition agreements (which we did this week), but we will not be voting directly on the expenditure of funds.
Local Preference Reform Passes
The Local Preference Reform (covered in a previous newsletter) passed unanimously on November 1 and will reduce the affordable housing lottery requirement from 70% of units being reserved for local applicants to 25%. A study had determined that the 70% Local Preference policy was not achieving its expected objectives and was reinforcing existing diversity gaps.
One concern that came up during the reform debate was about Newton residents with disabilities who need access to affordable housing. However, this was also not really being addressed by the Local Preference policy, because many of those residents require either physically accessible residential units or special services for cognitive disabilities (or a combination of both) and because most of those residents need extremely low-income units (not just somewhat affordable units). Unfortunately Newton, on the public and private side, is simply not building enough ADA accessible and ultra-affordable housing units. The Local Preference Policy wasn’t helping that population because the type of housing needed doesn’t exist yet. This is one example among many of how the well-intentioned policy wasn’t working as hoped and why it needed to be reformed. (We will have to continue working on other tracks to try to achieve the unmet needs we have identified.)
Resolution on Real Estate Transfer Fee For Affordable Housing
This week the City Council unanimously approved a resolution to the Massachusetts legislature in support of a real estate transfer fee local option that (if adopted) would help us to raise funding for the Affordable Housing Trust we are expecting to create before the end of this term. (The Zoning & Planning Committee passed that proposal this week.)
If the state were to allow such a transfer fee, it would be set locally to account for local conditions and preferences. The fee, split between home buyers and sellers, could be set between 0.5% and 2% (or 6% in the case of a high-value speculative flip) and it could be set to apply to almost every residence or just residences over a certain sale price.
If such a fee had been in place in the last few years, depending on the rate and threshold, it would have generated anywhere from several million to $30 million per year in new revenue dedicated to the production and preservation of affordable housing. And with home prices rising so quickly, the fee would likely have been equivalent to just a few months of appreciation.
But right now it’s all hypothetical until the state establishes this local option.
Learn more about the proposed state legislation from the Transfer Fee for Affordable Housing Coalition.
Cannabis Store Updates: Garden Remedies and Union Twist
This week the City Council voted to lift the appointment-only system at Garden Remedies, Newton’s longest-operating cannabis store (and previously medical marijuana establishment). If the removal of appointment-only at Garden Remedies becomes a problem, City Staff has the ability to re-impose it later. But some Councilors made the case that we're actually alleviating a problem of people showing up without an appointment, quickly making one outside on their phones, and then waiting around in the parking lot. Now that many cannabis stores are open in the region, congestion outside these businesses has largely subsided and it seems likely that the rest of the stores in Newton will also be granted an end to the appointment-only system as they reach the end of their trial periods after opening.
The City Council’s Land Use Committee unanimously recommended the revised Union Twist special permit for approval at Four Corners, since all the state requirements were met after revisions to account for vehicle flow around the site and there was not a valid reason under state rules to deny the request. Based on how light the traffic has been to some other cannabis locations like Redi near Route 9, I am not expecting heavy traffic from this site either, as had previously been a concern from neighbors. The full Council approved this Special Permit unanimously on November 1.
1114 Beacon St Condos Approved
Also in Four Corners, 1114 Beacon St (the former ApGuJung site) has gone through many iterations as a proposed project and is now finalized, it seems. Previous ideas had included a mixed-use business and residential project or an all rental residential project, but in the end the developer received unanimous approval this week for a 34-unit residential condo project with 6 permanently affordable units. (A basic summary is included in this document, although some final minor tweaks were made after this version.)
275 Grove St Life Sciences Project Moves Forward
At 275 Grove St, next to Riverside, the proposed life sciences project there received some last-minute compromises to get a feasibility study for clean energy in the building instead of fossil fuels. Renewables advocates are making the case that this study will conclusively show financial advantages for renewables in this particular project. With those final energy amendments included, the proposal passed unanimously this week. There had been a lengthy debate and hearing of neighborhood concerns and questions about this project, which will form part of a broader life sciences hub with the Riverside Station redevelopment project.
Public Employee Vaccination
Programs & Services Committee held a discussion in early November on Councilor Gentile's resolution in favor of requiring all City of Newton employees be mandated to get vaccinated against covid-19. Non-union employees are already required to do so. Union bargaining has been dragging a bit on the matter – not because of the vaccination requirement itself as far as I can tell from the outside, but rather on the compensation for termination for failure to comply. The full Council approved the resolution this week with the aim of strengthening the bargaining position of the Administration.
Nip Bottle Ban Next Year
One upcoming policy change went through a different body outside of the City Council, as noted in Mayor Fuller’s latest newsletter:
Newton’s Licensing Commission on Monday passed a ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages by retail establishments in containers less than or equal to 100 milliliters (also known as nips), effective June 30, 2021. The delay allows retailers time to sell their inventory. The goal of the ban is to help curb littering of these small, single-use bottles.
Docket Review: School Bus Fees and Election Problems
Bus fees: #393-21: Resolution from the City Council to the Mayor re school bus fees and the FY23 budget - COUNCILORS HUMPHREY, BOWMAN, CROSSLEY, DANBERG, GREENBERG, KALIS, KRINTZMAN, LAREDO, LEARY, LIPOF, LUCAS, MALAKIE, MARKIEWICZ, NOEL, NORTON, OLIVER, RYAN, AND WRIGHT, requesting a resolution from the City Council outlining the views of the Council to the Mayor on the upcoming budgeting process for school bus fees.
Explanation: This has been an ongoing point of contention for some time now and we’ve taken it up several times this term. But in an effort to stop taking it up during budget debates and instead to make our opinion known before the budget is drafted and locked in, we’re aiming to weigh in next month. The resolution is likely to call for either free bus passes or “significantly reduced” bus fees, depending on the exact number of Councilors leaning one way or the other. Due to the complicated structure of the budget process under Newton’s City Charter and the current placement of the school bus system under the Newton Public School budget, the Council doesn’t have a direct role or vote on this matter – except insofar as we can make a suggestion to the Mayor to move additional funding (in the next budget) to NPS from what we refer to as “the city side of the budget,” so that they (NPS and School Committee) can include replacement funding in “their” budget. The Council can’t adjust the funding even during the budget process because our Charter only allows us to reduce spending, not move it around or increase it. The School Committee would need more money moved to their side of the fence to be able to make a change, and so the resolution will likely be about that specific point.
Election Problems: #414-21 Request for a discussion on improving election administration - COUNCILORS KRINTZMAN, BOWMAN, CROSSLEY, DANBERG, GREENBERG, GROSSMAN, HUMPHREY, KELLEY, LAREDO, LEARY, LIPOF, LUCAS, MALAKIE, MARKIEWICZ, NOEL, AND RYAN requesting a discussion with the Clerk’s Office about problems that arose during the 2021 municipal election[s], including voting by mail. The discussion should result in recommendations or improvements the City of Newton can make in elections practices for the future.
Explanation: We are aware that mail-in/absentee voting did not go very well this year in the March 2021 special election, the September preliminary election, and the November general election – with some out-of-state residents (including students) not even receiving their ballots until after the election. Our new City Clerk, Carol Moore, who did not start in Newton until after the 2021 elections process, comes to us from Washington state most recently, where all elections are conducted entirely by mail. We believe she can help get us on the right track with future mail-in voting, so that this disenfranchisement problem is not repeated.
There were also some formatting problems with the website uploading of the official final results of the November 2021 election. It didn’t affect the outcome of any election and the actual vote tallies were never in doubt, but it created some confusion, and we will likely discuss that as well to try to avoid that issue in the future.
Property tax classification
Every year the City Council is required to vote on how to balance the relative weight of property taxes on residential versus commercial properties. (The city gets about 90% of its property taxes from residential taxes regardless because of the composition of Newton, but we have some leeway around the margins.)
Last year we made an unusual downward tax adjustment on commercial taxes (balanced by a matching increase on residential taxes) in order to try to reduce business collapse risk in the first year of the pandemic, which (it was argued) would have burdened residents far more in the long run. (I have requested data on the effect of this change in practice last year.)
This year the Mayor's Administration requested (and the City Council agreed) that we should reset the rate balancing between the commercial and residential tax base toward our previous balance from before the pandemic, i.e. maximizing the commercial balance. Due to rounding rules on the tax levy, which is limited by Prop 2 ½, this rate also allows us to collect the most revenue we’re permitted to raise, without leaving money on the table.
We are somewhat constrained no matter what by how much residential property values surged this year. Our levy increase citywide is limited by state law (as noted above) and that boxes us in on some points.
So, as usual, residential taxes will be going up a little, but a bit less quickly than if we had chosen to set a lower commercial tax balance like we did last year.