Needham’s Large House Review Study Committee hoped for widespread public input at its Monday night meeting and, while the turnout was not large, the range of opinions ran the gamut. Some Needham residents expressed support for introducing lower-priced starter houses and for preserving the scale of homes typically built in Needham until the past decade or so. Others wondered why any new regulation was being considered, whether there was significant voter support for further limiting house sizes on certain sized lots (Single Residence B, or SRB), and whether doing so would affect Needham’s tax base.
Town Clerk Louise Miller, who served on the town’s Finance Committee before running for office, was the first resident to speak after the committee’s presentation. The presentation had demonstrated that Needham’s building regulations allow for much larger homes on small lots than nearby towns including Wellesley, Concord and Lexington. Miller pointed to one implication of that regulation: She had compiled data to demonstrate that “new growth” was occurring faster in Needham than in the other communities, at least over a 20+-year span. New growth refers to properties that fall outside the Proposition 2 1/2 tax structure, allowing towns to raise the tax on that parcel more than 2 1/2 percent in a given year. The large new houses, with their high valuations, have been helping to grow Needham’s tax revenue.
“We have had new growth larger than any of the other three communities,” said Miller. “And looking at the residential values, [in 2002] the total value for our residential properties in town was 67% of Wellesley’s. Today we’re at a hundred percent of Wellesley.”
Miller did not say she opposed the possibility of further limiting house sizes on SRB lots, but she did urge caution, and not only for financial reasons. “I think we need to keep in mind that the way people live today is very different from perhaps the way they lived before. We have multi-generational households where there may be a household that needs to bring in elderly parents and take care of children at the same time. So the need for space and the type of space may be very different from what already exists in houses.”
In her comment, resident Karen Partridge supported the idea of limiting house sizes. One reason? Stormwater drainage. “Stormwater management is a huge and increasing problem. And these gigantic houses with very little yard space are a problem in that regard. Also, the clear cutting of trees, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trees just in a one-block radius around my house have been cut down in the last dozen years or so. Environmentally, it’s disastrous. I thank the committee for looking at making these modest changes that I think would increase the green space in the town, which adds value.”
Susan Herman was in agreement. “I was rather shocked at the bulk that Needham allows versus places like Concord and Lexington. I don’t know many people that would be unhappy living in Concord and Lexington. So I still believe Needham will remain a very desirable town. I commend the committee for putting those slides together.”
Ilya Scheidwasser spoke about the prices of new homes, and how challenging it is for young families to afford to buy in Needham. “I think that having more restrictions on house size will kind of disincentivize so many teardowns and incentivize people to maybe sell houses as they are at a lower price.”
When asked whether stormwater and tree clearing — two subjects often mentioned by residents who support new size limits — are part of the mandate of the large house committee, co-chair Artie Crocker said no. “We are essentially the bulk committee.”
“What is wrong with the bulk?” asked resident Dina Creiger. “I get it, some of the homes are huge and they look funky, but does it make sense to have a one-size-fits-all fix for that and changing zoning for the whole SRB area? Some neighborhoods are more built-out than others. So one house that may appear completely out of whack in one neighborhood might look perfectly fine in another neighborhood.”
Lynn Klatt said she had bought a newly built house when she moved to Needham but that was in 2002. “I would’ve preferred a little bit more land and a little bit less house,” she said. She expressed doubt that people really need 6,000-square-foot houses. “I see people move in, [have] a couple of kids and they realize there’s no place for their children to play.”
The takeaway? There were fewer than 30 community members who took the time to attend the meeting and fewer than 60 who participated in an instant feedback poll at the meeting’s end, so it may not have been a representative sample. Still, if the various opinions expressed at the Large House Review Study Committee’s community meeting represent the opinions of significant portions of the Needham community, neither keeping the existing regulations nor creating new ones will sit well with some swaths of residents. The committee’s next step, an economic analysis of potential changes, may determine whether it actually recommends new rules.
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