Town housing planning begins long journey

by Peter O'NeilSeptember 6, 2023September 6, 2023

In order to meet a state mandate to increase Needham’s housing supply, the town will launch what is expected to be a year-long effort to craft a plan at tonight’s initial meeting of the Housing Needham Advisory Group (HoNe).

The 2021 MBTA Communities Law, which applies to 177 communities in the MBTA service area, requires Needham to have at least one zoning district of reasonable size in which multifamily housing is permitted as of right, among other stipulations.

The law is a major effort to address an acute regional housing shortage. In Needham’s case, this means the town must zone for at least 1,784 new housing units near its commuter rail stations. This will not require all the units to be built, merely for them to be allowable.

The effort in Needham will be spearheaded by HoNe. Established jointly by the Select Board and the Planning Board, the nine-member group will lead the community engagement process that will help inform those boards on the zoning proposals that will be brought to Town Meeting in fall 2024 with the intent of bringing Needham into compliance with the law.

Town Manager Kate Fitzpatrick elevated the stakes when she discussed the HoNe mission with the Select Board in May. “I would say — and I’ll probably say this a lot — this is probably the biggest thing you’ll do in years. It’s a big project. It’s a BIG project.”

Assistant Town Manager Katie King, who will manage the effort, echoed the sentiment.

“With some town projects, there’s a sub-group that might care particularly about that issue. But re-visioning the spine of the town and what it’s going to look like for decades to come, that’s really a community-wide conversation,” said King.

That conversation will begin at a meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at the Public Services Administration building on Dedham Avenue. The agenda will cover multiple topics, such as the status of housing in Needham, an overview of the MBTA Communities Act and the plan for the public engagement process.

King says HoNe plans to leverage the work of the Housing Plan Working Group that in early 2023 produced the 201-page Needham Housing Plan. King expects the HoNe community engagement process will resemble the public outreach done to help shape the housing plan and its recommendations.

“We got a lot of good feedback from the community on that plan,” King said. She added that it gives HoNe a bit of a jumpstart on its work.

“We are going to use the recommendations from the housing plan as a starting point to say, ‘This is what it would look like if we implemented the housing plan recommendations.’ We’ll be asking the community to give us feedback on that.”

After at least two community workshops, King said HoNe will synthesize and discuss the community feedback, and then go back to the community with the advisory board’s response to that feedback.

King said the answer to, “What does compliance look like?” is technical in nature and will require the town to run its draft proposals by the state, which has a complex formula to determine whether the proposed zoning changes are indeed compliant. But she says the community engagement process will not be bogged down by these highly technical requirements — that’ll come later.

“The priorities question isn’t a technical one,” she said. “It’s mostly what type of housing do people want to see and where.”

“When we get a consensus on that, we can fine-tune that to each area (of town), given the overall town consensus.”

The town has engaged two consultancies with expertise in municipal strategic planning to provide technical expertise, guide the community engagement effort and help ensure the town’s plan is technically compliant with the law.

“They will be helping us run tests through the state compliance model,” King explained. “They will be helping with impact analysis — what would the buildout mean in terms of the town’s infrastructure capacity, financial implications, school enrollment and other services.”

Once the community input has been received and integrated, HoNe will offer its recommendations to the Planning Board for its review process. That will include additional opportunities for public comment.

In accordance with Town Meeting process, the Select Board will review the Planning Board’s recommended Town Meeting warrant language. It can make its own suggestions to the Planning Board, which will draft the final language that Town Meeting will consider in the fall of 2024.

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MBTA law drives town on housing

While the town has been doing extensive planning on housing issues for several years, it is the state’s MBTA Communities Law that has instilled a sense of urgency for acting on those plans.

Failure to comply comes with a range of state-imposed penalties, such as loss of access to multiple state programs that fund improvement projects. It’s even possible state officials could sue communities that don’t comply.

“I think we have broad agreement that we have a housing crisis in Massachusetts,” said state Sen. Becca Rausch, who represents Needham and 10 other communities – nine of which are affected by the law.

“In Needham, we can all look around and see the housing prices going up pretty fast. One of the things I continually hear from people, certainly in Needham, is a deep concern that our kids won't be able to afford to buy a house in the community where they were raised and that downsizing seniors don’t have options.”

Rausch noted that while the law is certainly a mandate, the town has a great deal of discretion in how it crafts its compliance plan.

“One of the good parts about the law is that it does allow for flexibility,” she said.

“There's not some rigid plan of action that everybody has to follow. Each community has to come up with a plan that satisfies the base requirements, but implements them in a way that makes sense for their own community.”

As the town readies its outreach plan to mine sentiments on how to comply, Rausch and others expect diverging viewpoints to emerge.

“We have to find a balance between increasing housing stock and housing availability while maintaining the sort of suburban nature of the town,” she said.

“It's a tough nut to crack.”

Early voices

At least one group in town has already begun to organize an effort to educate residents on the MBTA law and also support its main goal of creating more housing units at multiple price points and for multiple housing needs.

The Needham Housing Coalition (NHC) describes itself as “Needham residents who are interested in advocating for more attainable housing choices in Needham.” Its organizers say they plan to remain engaged with housing issues even after the MBTA process runs its course at the end of 2024, but for now the MBTA law is its focus.

“We are behind the intent of the law,” said NHC member Paula Dickerman. “But we need to have zoning that will actually result in the actual building of housing, whether it be affordable or not.”

Dickerman and other coalition members are leery of the potential for towns cleverly – or perhaps deviously – devising compliance plans that meet the law’s technical requirements while failing to include adequate incentives for the construction of new homes.

“There are some zoning changes that one can do that comply with the law, but may not encourage developers to build,” she said. “And then there’s zoning that can do more to encourage the implementation of the intent of the zoning, which is to add actual housing units.”

Coalition member Oscar Mertz is a local architect who played a key role in the housing plan developed by the town’s Housing Plan Working Group. That plan will serve as the template for town wide discussions on what’s possible, what’s desirable, and also what’s to be avoided.

Mertz described how the NHC plans to hold numerous sessions for residents to discuss the plans. He and Dickerman said these meetings are a chance to encourage civil and productive conversations.

“We feel we’re supplemental to this whole process -- additive and educational,” Mertz said. He and Dickerman both stressed that they aim to be a true coalition, collaborating with other groups that emerge as the process plays out.

“These meetings will give people the chance to sit and talk, ask questions, and feel stupid and get smart,” he said. “We also want to have conversations with landowners where there are parcels that are amenable to these changes.

“We actually want to build houses.”

Rausch echoes those sentiments regarding education, the need for conversations and coming to consensus. “We need to learn what current Needhamites want Needham to feel like,” she said.

“I’ve heard a number of different perspectives,” she said. She anticipates there will be competing plans but also sees a common purpose and hopes for a compromise solution.

“When it comes to housing, the perfect should never be the enemy of the good.”