If the areas immediately surrounding Eastern Massachusetts’ commuter rail and subway stations were densified only slightly, we could solve the state’s housing crisis nearly twice over.
That’s the point researchers at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership made in a recent Twitter thread where they previewed the group’s latest research, which combined numerous sets of parcel-level data to show how many housing units the state has within a half-mile of high-capacity mass transit stops.
There are, on average, only 6.6 housing units per acre within this area – slightly less dense than central Gloucester, with all its commercial buildings, parks and cemeteries.
If, however, this average was brought up to 10 units per acre, MHP calculated, the state would suddenly gain nearly 243,000 units of housing. With an average of 2.5 residents per home, that could house 600,000 people. For reference, the state added only 303,000 new residents between 2010 and 2017 and the UMass Donahue Institute projects Greater Boston needs to produce around 320,000 housing units between 2010 and 2025 to keep up with demand. To date, the area is woefully behind this target, driving prices and rents higher and higher.
What does 10 dwelling units per acre look like? Dorchester. Specifically, a bit less dense than the area around the Ashmont Red Line station, which currently sits at 13.8 dwelling units per acre. The neighborhood has a wide variety of homes: some single-family houses, numerous triple-deckers and the occasional larger apartment building.
As our transit infrastructure improves, leaders from town meeting members up to Gov. Charlie Baker owe residents serious conversations about how to leverage these investments to generate more housing.
This math, as the MHP researchers behind the report admit, overlooks many details as it illustrates a larger truth: Small increases in density created by allowing and encouraging the construction of accessory dwelling units, two-families and three-family houses in what are currently single-family-only neighborhoods can offer an important and potentially lighter-touch way of densifying communities where large multifamily projects face serious opposition.
Communities with commuter rail access are permitting significantly fewer housing units than communities on the MBTA’s subway and light rail system, both in objective terms and in proportion to their share of the state population, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by the 2019 Greater Boston Housing Report Card.
Massachusetts leaders are considering pouring tens of billions of dollars into a bid to transform its commuter rail system into something closer in frequency, capacity and reliability to a subway system. As we have said many times in this space, this paper considers that an eminently necessary idea in order to deal with the state’s crippling traffic and cut carbon emissions as the world tries to stave off the worst effects of climate change.
However, that money will be partly wasted if towns, cities and the state as a whole do not also take action to permit areas around this new infrastructure to densify, even mildly. As our transit infrastructure improves, leaders from town meeting members up to Gov. Charlie Baker owe residents serious conversations about how to leverage these investments to generate more housing.
