[Massplanners] [EXTERNAL] Housing Production vs. School Enrollment

[Michael McCarthy]

Hello Leeann,

My former colleagues at UMass Dartmouth analyzed this in 2019. They looked into a few common opposition arguments related to housing development. Their big takeaway on school capacity was: "The results indicate that school capacity does not have a statistically significant impact on whether towns permit new housing. In fact, the relationship is in the opposite direction-towns with school capacity tend to permit less housing. So, while municipal officials may argue that school costs prevent them from permitting new housing, cities and towns that tend not to permit new housing are just as likely as other towns, if not more so, to have extra space available in their schools."
There's a summary of their work in this issue of MassBenchmarks (pg. 23 of the PDF): https://donahue.umass.edu/documents/MB_072919_low-re.pdf.

MAPC also did a research brief on this topic in 2017: https://www.mapc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MAPC_HousingEnrollment_Final.pdf that found there is no "meaningful correlation" between housing production and enrollment growth.

While I hate to get bogged down in statistical analyses, both of these prove what I think a lot of us know in our guts: not every new unit will be filled by a family with a school-age child AND the addition of one or two children per grade has a marginal impact on schools that have already built the classroom, and purchased the bus and the desk.

Good luck!

Mike McCarthy
Staff Planner
New Bedford



From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org> On Behalf Of Leeann Bradley
Sent: Monday, June 7, 2021 11:10 AM
To: Massplanners Listserve <massplanners at cs.umb.edu>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [Massplanners] Housing Production vs. School Enrollment

Good Morning,

Looking for information on housing production v. school enrollment.  I have MAPC's October 2017 research brief with metrics but wondering if there is anything a bit more recent.  Middleborough is now an MBTA community with a new train station under construction.  We are TRYING to implement a 40R overlay surrounding the train station but are having enormous pushback with regard to a perceived explosion of children in the school system.  Thank you so much.

Leeann

Leeann Bradley
Town Planner
Town Hall Annex
20 Center Street
Middleborough, MA 02346
508-946-2425 ext. 1150

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