Doug Quattrochi

The difference in price between real estate in expensive Greater Boston and affordable Central and Western Massachusetts is driving longer commutes, to our great detriment. As this publication reported, the number of commuters choosing a 90 minute or longer commute in exchange for better housing has grown by 69 percent over a recent 12-year study period.  

Car commuting is not the way of the future. Ground transportation is responsible for half of the commonwealth’s greenhouse gas emissions. And “motor vehicle accident” ranks among the unlucky top 13 causes of death in the United States, holding steady per mile driven. We need to get away from mandatory car commutes, but this will mean greater building density, greater household density and greater reliance on regional transit. 

As it turns out, three drivers of high housing costs are pitting local control against regional and state-wide transit: zoning, household size restrictions and parking requirements. 

Zoning Prevents Density Transit Needs 

Transit and housing affordability rely on density and smallness of structures. But the overwhelming majority of our land is zoned “one building, one family,” with large minimum lot sizes and frontage. These push rail and bus routes out to inaccessible distances, and push housing prices up. 

Take Worcester for example, a place some might consider “dense” or “affordable.” Zones RS-7 and RS-10 constitute 75 percent of the buildable land. They only permit single-family homes on lots of 7,000 or 10,000 square feet, respectively, twice what most grandfathered buildings actually have. If a grandfathered building were somehow to be destroyed (e.g., fire) or condemned (through neglect) it could not be rebuilt without a variance. The same applies to multifamily housing.  

Weston gives an extreme example of sprawl and price. Just 17 miles from downtown Boston, Weston’s minimum lot size for a duplex is 240,000 square feet, or over five acres. The message “poor people live elsewhere” is clear, discriminatory in its impact and ripe for state intervention in the model of Minneapolis 2040, a ban on such zoning. 

Cities Restrict Household Size Too Much  

Transit and housing affordability rely on density of people. But Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Westfield and most other communities regulate the maximum number of roommates you may have. This increases per-person housing costs and reduces potential ridership. 

The state sanitary code is generally much more permissive than cities in terms of the number of safe and lawful occupants. Consider a typical three-bedroom, 1,000–square–foot apartment. Whereas the state sanitary code would safely permit approximately five unrelated occupants on the basis of square footage, Boston would permit only four unrelated occupants and Worcester only three. 

The restriction on unrelated individuals is particularly harmful to young adults and foreign nationals, many of whom would choose to create makeshift households, share housing costs and use transit if not for the ban. 

Too Much Parking Required 

Transit eliminates the need for cars. Yet parking is the first and most commonly cited objection to density. “Where are all these people going to park?” Most communities have minimum space requirements. 

Holyoke requires two parking spaces for each housing unit in buildings with up to 50 units; Springfield 1.5; Cambridge one; and Boston one per six units (better, but far from zero). These requirements are imposed even within accessible distance of PVTA and MBTA bus and rail stops. South Station Tower in the heart of all that is the MBTA will have 1,083 parking spaces in it, a patent absurdity for such a transit-oriented spot. 

The parking requirement is particularly harmful to those of us with disabilities who would value the chance to live car-free if only we were free to do so. 

The high cost of housing could be lowered dramatically if these restrictions were lifted, and doing so would be synergistic with transportation reform. When there are enough residents in an area to utilize public transportation, there will be enough fares to make transit work. And when there is enough transit in an area to serve additional residents without parking, new small and affordable housing can be created on existing land. Massachusetts needs a new public policy, via a new statewide bill, that can address both housing and transportation at the same time. 

Doug Quattrochi is executive director of MassLandlords Inc.