The Roslindale in-person Neighborhood Housing zoning meeting took on some lively discussion last Thursday at the Roslindale Branch of the Boston Public Library.

The new initiative is looking to change the zoning in the more suburban residential districts in Roslindale, West Roxbury and Hyde Park (with a complete rezoning of Allston-Brighton coming this fall).

The main idea is to make accessory dwelling units (ADUs) easier and as-of-right in the zoning code, along with increasing density to three-to-six units depending on the zone. Dormer-2 is three units for existing buildings / two units for new construction, Dormer-3 is three units, Decker-4 is four units and Decker-6 is six units.

The main fear expressed in the meeting was that of big-time developers, at least one of whom was spotted at the meeting itself. A cohort of residents came out from Fletcher Street – just north of Fallon Field – to argue that their neighborhood didn’t fit with the D6 zone the Boston Planning Department (BPD) gave it.

“What I’m worried about is private equity, coming in and putting six units, because that’s how they’re going to get a return on their investment,” one resident said. “What prevents them from building a monstrosity next to my house? What rights to I have?”

“There are a couple of ways to get at it, that may not be as satisfying as you want them to be,” said BPD Project Manager Will Cohen. “As professional planners, we do assess that these are the strongest things we can do for that kind of issue.”

Cohen said that planning doctrine is to keep as many residents owning their homes and in their homes as possible.

“That is a fundamental American value, that’s the American Dream, that’s why we all live here,” he said.

Cohen said residents’ fears about new zoning and interactions with the city through the Planning Department or the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) aren’t unreasonable. He said the confrontational nature of those processes can make and have made residents feel like the city is not necessarily on their side, but he said that’s more because of the onerous and complicated nature of zoning. That’s why people have careers interpreting and navigating such complicated documents.

The other thing pushing residents that way is that so much of the Parkway’s housing – West Roxbury, Roslindale and Hyde Park – was built before the current zoning, almost nothing conforms to it, meaning if you want to put in an addition, a dormer, a deck, an ADU, etc., you have to go through the same ZBA process as a developer, again putting you in a seemingly confrontational situation with the city.

“The situation is set up so that the rules are so restrictive, there is no way to follow the rules in zoning,” Cohen said. “Zoning is supposed to be the common thing that we all agree is the [collection of] rules we’re supposed to follow. If you want to have buildings, this is what the buildings are supposed to be like. And because there is no way to follow the rules, it’s just as hard to make a small change to your property as it is to go big and see what you can get.”

Advertisement

That last sentence was alluding to the fact that many developers see it just as risky to put in something small and close to the zoning as it is to put in something much, much larger.

“So now there is an ad hoc group of developers who do know how to this, who just go at it,” Cohen said. “And, as a planner, I would say that’s because right now, it’s worth someone’s while, since they know how to work the game – to propose something at whatever scale they can try to get, because the zoning is irrelevant. So the proposal here is an attempt to level the playing field and make it fair, so that you – and not just you, the local homebuilder who wants to build a single-to-three-family home – knows that if they follow the rules, they’ll be approved for such a thing, and they won’t be up against someone else who’s going to be way better at navigating a complicated, arduous and expensive approvals process where that fear happens.”

Basically, Cohen is saying that by decreasing the risk and cost of building at a smaller scale, it increases the risk of going all out and seeking 43 variances on a large building at the ZBA. It’s a disincentive.

Residents on Fletcher Street still said they felt that six units was too large for their neighborhood. Deputy Director for Planning and Zoning Kathleen Onufer and Cohen said that the D-6 zoning was chosen there because of the average yard sizes on the street, along with several other commonalities in the neighborhoods. They said that’s how the zones were initially decided, but invited residents to disagree. They pointed out the public comment period for this initiative ends in October, and before anything is finalized, they want to make sure everyone can be heard, and tweaks and changes can be made.

“If you think we got it wrong, that is exactly the kind of feedback we want you to give us,” Cohen said.

One resident asked about limiting the ADUs and larger unit counts to owner-occupied buildings. Onufer said the city has been trying to do that since the ADU initiative started 10 years ago, but there are legal issues that crop up with trying to do that.

“The Fair Housing Law says that renters and homeowners should be treated equally, in all instances – you cannot discriminate against renters, and the law is interpreted that this isn’t a benefit to the landlord, this is a benefit to the tenants,” she said. “We tried a lot to have a law to make sure there was at least one owner onsite, but the big issue is that it creates real problems long-term. People’s housing situations change. All of a sudden someone goes to live in assisted living and then they’re not onsite anymore. We’ve had literal issues of folks being retired and they’re spending half of the year visiting family in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, and they’re getting dinged by Inspectional Services (ISD) as not living there. It’s a family home, but the person on the title is no longer living there, family members are living there, but ISD is like, ‘You’re not the one paying the property tax.’ So at this scale, we’ve found it consistently impossible to enforce.”

For the full zoning map, the slides of the presentation from the meeting, and a survey for public comment, go to https://gvimes.link/nhbrhdzng