[Massplanners] Upzoning - potential vs. actual impact on building?

[John Cruz]

I think it's far too early to make any blanket statements around the
potential impact on development at a regional scale. The whole situation is
too new and far too nuanced.

We'll need to look at real vs paper compliance, community type, development
history, comparison to development in non-3A areas, and look at it through
the lens that with everyone upzoning at once, it's a more level playing
field. So we could theorize that if 3A never happened and Newton upzoned
this area independently to build by-right, it may have attracted much more
interest.

For the time being, it's going to continue to be a mixed bag.

In some communities, there will be little initial growth. In others, we're
seeing more of it,here's an example of what's happening in Lexington
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/03/business/lexington-mbta-communities-housing/
where there's a thousand units in the pipeline under 3A. Everett is also
seeing lots of units from large developments get built in their 3A overlay
zone "the commercial triangle", albeit that was in an area that was already
targeted for redevelopment and lots of redevelopment had been happening
there prior to 3A zoning.



On Wed, Feb 12, 2025 at 11:01 AM Jeffrey Robert Levine via MassPlanners <
massplanners at masscptc.org> wrote:

> I found this interesting analysis of what has happened under the VCOD
> zoning changes in Newton that suggests that upzoning does not immediately
> result in the amount of new development some expect.
> <https://www.newtonbeacon.org/from-floodgates-to-trickle-vcod-saw-a-remarkably-slow-start-in-2024/>
>
> Given all the MBTA Community Act changes, and other rezoning happening in
> various communities, does anyone know of any similar studies in other
> communities? Anyone think the study I link to is fatally flawed?
>
> thanks,
>
> Jeff
>
> Jeff Levine, AICP (he/him)
>
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-- 
John Cruz, AICP
john at cruzweb.net | 314-688-6463
<http://www.urbanistdispatch.com/>
Misplaced Focus - www.misplacedfocus.com
www.linkedin.com/in/johncarloscruz
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