Arlington Nixes Proposal For More Development
Arlington residents rallied against new development in the city.
Home buyers already face an uphill battle breaking into Arlington, one of the more coveted towns in the Boston area — and it just got steeper.
A consultant hired by the town recently recommended that little-used odd lots across Arlington be opened up to developers interested in building new homes.
But the proposal has been nixed after pushback from Arlington residents, fearful the new rule might be abused.
The proposal by RKG Associates comes against the backdrop of a 45 percent increase in Arlington home prices since 2000. The surge has been fueled in part by a dearth of new home and condo construction and the town’s proximity to booming Cambridge and Somerville.
“There is only a limited amount of inventory in Arlington,’’ noted Shawn Flynn, a Redfin agent who covers the town, as well as Cambridge and Somerville. “If you add in the additional demand because of market conditions, it has been pretty crazy, especially for single-families.’’
RKG’s proposal called for a zoning amendment that would have given a green light to construction of new homes on “nonconforming buildable lots’’ — odd lots, often vacant and sometime even eyesores. These lots have never been built on because their shape or configuration doesn’t mesh with town building rules.
“Rather than keeping the property unused, unappealing, and off the tax base, the town could establish regulations to allow substandard lots to be developed for housing,’’ RKG’s proposal reads. “Market demand is growing in Arlington and could favor smaller scale development.’’
But Arlington residents made their opposition clear at a hearing in January on a proposed master plan for future development, of which the zoning amendment was just one small part.
One concern was that developers might piece together a number of lots to build a larger project. Another is that contractors might shoehorn “McMansions’’ into neighborhoods full of older homes from the early 1900s, which predominate in town, said Carol Kowalsky, Arlington’s planning director.
“In the end, the [planning] commission was not comfortable with the recommendation,’’ she said.
That said, the rejection of the rather modest housing proposal comes at a time when there is little if any new housing on the horizon in Arlington, and demand just keeps on rising.
The old Symmes hospital site has been converted to townhomes and apartments, with the units all leased out or sold. The Alta Brigham Square, a 116-unit apartment complex opened in 2013.
The proposed master plan being drafted by RKG does call for more mixed-used development on Massachusetts Avenue, though no specific proposals have been identified.
“There are no major new residential projects being discussed right now in Arlington, which is running out of land to build on,’’ Kowalsky said.
“Land costs are high and undeveloped land is nonexistent,’’ she added. “It is very, very challenging.’’
Even fixer-uppers can be hard to come by, with contractors on the inside track when a tired two-family hits the sales block.
“A lot of the two families in Arlington are higher sought after, but families can’t get them,’’ she said.
A single-family priced in the $500,000-to-$700,000 range can draw as many as ten offers, Redfin’s Flynn noted.
Buyers increasingly find that if they want to have a chance of landing a home, they need to take some risks.
That can mean waiving the home inspection contingency or even waiving the financing contingency, which means a buyer would lose the deposit should the mortgage fall through.
“A buyer that is going into a market like this needs to be willing to take on additional risk,’’ Flynn said.
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