Colleen Cunningham, an Arlington resident who describes herself as pro-environment, submitted this letter.
A proposal to allow extra apartments in R1 areas will be placed before Town Meeting. But allowing extra apartments with kitchens and separate entrances will serve as the opening to eliminating single-family housing in Arlington.
Residents who purchased their homes on a quiet street may now be confronting short-term rental units all around them. ADUs create a two-family home on a single lot. People who live in a single-family zoned area should not be subjected to a surprise removal of zoning protections.
What’s to prevent a developer/homeowner from eliminating green space/trees/nature by building a second unit in a house, equipping it with an expanded asphalt driveway and renting it out, creating an AirBnB, or eventually selling the unit as a condo? These extra apartments will decrease the number of small, starter homes and add to the selling price of the existing home with the unit.
It is unethical to remove single-family zoning status from neighborhoods where people have invested their life’s savings expecting to live in a neighborhood full of trees, gardens and yards for children to play in.
Instead of pushing zoning changes, the town should be considering long-range planning to protect the health of our environment. We need more green space and less residential density in Arlington. ADUs will cause increased traffic and strain on town services in our neighborhoods.
My grandmother lived with us for a time when I was a child. After college, I continued living with my family. There was no need to add a separate entrance or build a separate home on the property to house family members. The proposal before Town Meeting is not about family members – it is about changing the character of our town.
ADUs are simply an effort to add as much housing as possible, which profits only developers. I have always loved walking around my hometown and noting the Victorians, capes, ranches, Colonial revivals and other styles, with their lovely trees, gardens and yards. Tragically, the town continues to allow unregulated teardowns leading to large home construction in my neighborhood.
I would like to see the town focus on eliminating that problem instead of creating new housing problems.
This letter to the editor was published Sunday, March 14, 2021.
In 2019, Arlington adopted a set of bylaws to regulate short-term rentals. Those bylaws already prohibit ADUs from being used that way. The specific section of the Town Bylaws is [url=https://www.arlingtonma.gov/town-governance/laws-and-regulations/town-bylaws/title-v-regulations-upon-the-use-of-private-property#A18]Title V, Article 18, Section 3(B)(3)[/url].
It is actually unethical (and fortunately at least now, illegal) to build and sell those homes originally with deed covenants saying the property could not be sold or rented to black people, and as such, others got an inside track on owning Arlington homes and building equity for generations. That is how many of the homes in Arlington were originally built and sold. Look at the original deed restrictions on homes near the Hardy, as an example.
It may not be unethical, but the outcome is just as exclusionary, to say that the wisest way to build a town is to insist on the vast majority of land being only useable for single family homes on large lots. Big houses on large lots surely isn’t the best way to build for the environment – its like the GMC Suburban of housing choices.
[b]The following was submitted by Monica Bernstein, a resident of Norfolk Road for 34 years.[/b]
As the Mom of a daughter living in Portland, Oregon, a city rife with ADUs, I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of this issue. I agree that safeguards and guidelines will be necessary, as will be continued review of the situation as it unfolds. But I am a strong proponent of ADUs.
I’d like to respond first to your suggestion that allowing ADUs will serve as the opening to eliminating single-family housing in Arlington. There is already a movement to eliminate our R-1 zoning districts and it has nothing to do with ADUs. Just sayin’.
We desperately need affordable housing in town. There has been a lot of talk and have been many articles over the past year about the need for housing in general, not just in Arlington, but a lot of it boils down to the more housing, the more reasonable the prices. This sounds good on paper. But on the ground we are seeing a lot of proposed developments that are, let’s just say, not ideal. Too big, no setbacks, ugly, and expensive. Only a handful of the apartments in these proposed buildings will be affordable. And even at that, the characterization of affordable is somewhat misleading.
More affordable than the other apartments in the building, certainly, but not affordable enough for the hometown recent college grad who wants to move back to town, not affordable enough for the single mom and front line worker at Stop & Shop. Not affordable enough for the grad student, the budding journalist, or your dog walker.
ADUs provide affordable housing almost by design – structural design. The vast majority of ADUs will be in basements or attics. A large majority of them will be one bedrooms. They will never command the same rents as the first floor of a two-family, much less even than the affordable apartments in these new buildings. Many of them will be lovely, but they will still be small apartments in an existing structure. And – if our neighboring towns are an example, even after we vote this in, few homes will have the available space, few homeowners will have the cash or will.
You suggest that we need more green space and less residential density, and the folks who invested here have an expectation of things remaining the same. Much as I would love my R-1 neighborhood and street, and view, and noise level, and traffic to remain in their current peaceful state it is an unrealistic ask. We are going to grow because Boston is going to grow. We have only two choices. We can grow, hopefully with sound and smart zoning, or we can stay as we are, become an idyllic island, and watch our home prices and taxes skyrocket. Even more than they already are.
You say: ADUs are simply an effort to add as much housing as possible, which profits only developers. I disagree. ADUs are an effort to add affordable housing, which benefits existing homeowners and your neighbors, not developers. I don’t doubt that there will be developers who try to take advantage of the law, but for this you need to contact your Town Meeting members and make sure protections are put in place.
Consider the older Arlington homeowner who has been here all his life. He needs just a little help, someone close by, but he doesn’t want to lose his independence, or his privacy. Consider the older Arlington homeowner who just plain can’t afford to stay here but would be heartbroken to leave. With a small rental income she could age in place. Consider the families with disabled relatives who need supervision but desperately need their independence. Consider the young, vibrant newlyweds looking for a start, saving for a home.
I do, however, COMPLETELY with you on the teardown issue. If you missed the chance to participate in the survey last fall from the Design Review Working Group and Department of Planning and Community Development, go to this link to see the result. These groups are working hard to address the issue of teardowns and the most-often inappropriate new builds. https://www.arlingtonma.gov/Home/Components/News/News/9959/16
Good reading, with many images that survey respondents commented on: https://www.arlingtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument?id=51964
I think the consultant did a very decent job WITH THE EXCEPTION that there were no “Before” and “After” images of the East Arlington 2-families that have had their front porches torn off and had all their greenery/shrubbery removed in favor of paving stones. Literally, there is not one shrub on some properties in my neighborhood now.