You knew it was only a matter of time before Harvard's Ed Glaeser tackled Menino's notion of an innovation district for the waterfront, which would include a mix of housing choices, not just luxury.  Glaeser likes the idea but sees four dangers the mayor should avoid, including:

....acrophobia — a fear of building up. High densities will support exciting ground-floor shops and cafes, and allow the innovation district to do as much as possible to green the environment and alleviate the high cost of real estate. Hyper-density can help connect innovators and speed the flow of ideas. Ideally, the permitting process would require minimum, not maximum, floor area ratios, at least within the limits imposed by Logan flight paths.

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Reinventing the waterfront, Part 2

 Aug. 1, 2010 

Interesting to see that Archon/Goldman Properties’ new Fort Point Channel plans reflect Mayor Menino’s wish to turn the South Boston waterfront into a research incubator with housing for young professionals. The Boston Business Journal’s Craig Douglas reports the new proposal calls for a 21-story tower featuring 184 rental apartments and roughly 100 parking spaces. Douglas adds:

 In a nod to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s desire to see fewer new luxury units and more affordable housing for younger residents, Goldman and Archon also held out the possibility of converting one of the development’s four parking levels to a row of 20 efficiency apartments ranging between 285 square feet and 430 square feet.

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Recovery barriers in place?

July 26, 2010

Remember our Recipe for Growth analysis of 242 metro areas? In this study, economist Ed Moscovitch found statistical evidence that production of new housing was a pre-requisite for job growth. In other words, cities that enjoyed economic growth early in the century had a flurry of building activity in preceding years. Well, if that’s the case, then Scott Van Voorhis says that there are many barriers in place to prevent Massachusetts from building its way out of this recession. In a recent Banker & Trademan column (subscription required), Van Voorhis observes:

(The)  issues of new stretch energy codes, anti-40B legislation and permit extension serve to encapsulate all the barriers the Bay State still faces if it seeks to build itself out of this recession.

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Innovation & young people on the waterfront?

July 20, 2010

One of the motivations behind our search for a housing strategy that will allow us to sustain and grow our economy is that we need make our state more affordable for young people and college graduates who move out of here because the housing is too expensive.  According to an op-ed piece by Paul McMorrow in the Globe, the City of Boston is exploring this line of thought in trying to jump start development of the South Boston waterfront:

The emphasis is off staples like luxury condos and office towers and malls. They’re being replaced by research incubators, live-work space, and innovative cooperative housing models that would enable the graduates of Boston’s colleges and universities to continue to live in town…

...the administration is weighing mechanisms to bring prices down, including smaller units, shared amenities, and a relaxation of the requirement that developers build enough parking spaces so every resident can stash a car off-street…

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Density debate: Any set-aside for common ground?

July 16, 2010

There’s an interesting article in Mother Jones about the debate surrounding how to develop the Alameda Naval Air Station in San Francisco Bay. The article’s author, Josh Harkinson, puts forth the concept that building dense in urban locations is environmentally friendly and a place where housing advocates and environmentalist should be able to agree (a view not shared by some of his readers, who accused him of swallowing whole all the developer's talking points).

The article does point out why we should be having a conversation sooner rather than later about how to grow and maintain our quality of life:

By 2050, the United States can expect to add as many as 200 million people. Demographers predict that they'll require 90 million houses and 140 billion square feet of office and other nonresidential space—the equivalent of replacing all the country's existing buildings.

If we keep building in the way we do now, suburbs will gobble up a New Mexico-size amount of open space in the next 40 years. More suburbs mean more freeways and more cars, which means that by mid-century, Americans will clock 7 trillion miles per year—twice as much mileage as we do now.

The alternative to this metastasizing, car-dependent sprawl is population density. And that means squeezing more people into cities and inner suburbs like Alameda. According to the Greenbelt Alliance, the Bay Area could absorb another 2 million residents by 2035 without expanding its physical foot print.

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Extend the permits, restart the economy?

July 12, 2010 

The Boston Globe has joined the Patriot Ledger in editorializing in favor of extending building permits issued between 2008 and 2011. Many of these projects have been stalled due to the financial crisis and a law before the legislature would extend them another three years. In its editorial, the Globe makes the housing-jobs-economy connection:

If Massachusetts is to recover from the recession, it doesn’t need to give NIMBY-minded neighbors and local officials even more power than they already have to block the market-rate and affordable housing needed to strengthen the state’s economy. The state needs to build its way out of the recession. And the permit extension should be one of those building blocks.

The issue resurfaced last week when the House removed the Permit Extension Act from an economic development bill. The Massachusetts Municipal Association has argued against the proposal, saying that local boards already have the authority to grant extensions and that bypassing them would usurp local authority. New Jersey passed a similar law in 2008 and extended it this winter through 2012.

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Understanding cities key understanding housing we need?

July 9, 2010

David Smith is excited about the Brookings Institution's new report, The State of Metropolitan America. In an excellent summary of the 100-plus page data rich report, Smith says it redefines the United States as a United Nation of Cities and says it is useful in anticipating the types of housing that will be needed to ensure that cities continue as the main engine of our economic growth. Smith writes:

Despite our frontier heritage and ethos, America is predominantly a nation of cities, and we are becoming even more a nation of larger, more complicated, and more interconnected cities. 

And if housing is what keeps cities from being nothing more than extended shopping malls and office parks, then if we want to foresee the shape of multifamily residential properties, we ought to understand where and how our cities will grow.  If we can envision where the jobs and people will go, we can project what housing they will need, want, and be able to pay for.   

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How to keep students from leaving 

July 7, 2010

In case you missed it in the Boston Globe last week, Harvard’s Ed Glaeser tackled the question of what Massachusetts can do to make sure that more college students stay here, noting a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston report that said New England college graduates leave the region at a higher clip that other parts of the country. Glaeser thinks housing is part of the equation needed to keep them here:

Retaining talent requires us to fight the regulations that make entrepreneurship too rare and housing too expensive, but the state should also aim at winning students’ hearts while they are still in school.

Glaeser recommends more students might fall in love with Massachusetts if there was more public transportation at night (and hence a better, safer night life), more dormitories and even a student city for Greater Boston:

Would a consortium of private developers and colleges be interested in erecting large amounts of dormitory space if they could also put in connected retail space and bypass local land use controls? ... A collective student-city would give students a sense of place and lead to more regional identity.

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High housing costs seen as limiting job growth 

 June 24, 2010

The Boston Fed has also issued a research paper taking a look at whether high housing prices slows growth in local employment. Using data on California municipalities and U.S. Metropolitan areas and counties, researchers Ritashree Chakrabarti and Junfu Zhang conclude:

Cities with less-affordable housing tend to experience slower employment growth, because land rents are so high that the suppy of land must have reached some limit. These land supply limits are the ultimate restrictions on local employment growth.

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Region's affordability gains shortlived?

June 11, 2010

The Boston Fed's Robert Clifford has updated the Fed's 2006 affordability working paper, drawing on data through 2008 to see how housing affordability has been affected during the real estate market slump. Not surprisingly, the Fed found that as housing prices have declined, affordability in New England has increased more than in other parts of the country.

In Greater Boston, Clifford found:

Greater Boston has seen greater gains in affordability since 2006 than notable competitor metropolitan areas. For example, Boston has gained low-cost areas like Seattle and Raleigh-Cary, NC, and has continued to pull away from high-cost areas like New York and San Francisco.

Clifford cautions that Boston's affordability gains may be partially due to timing as prices peaked in 2005 and fell 15.3 percent through 2008. Meanwhile, prices in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Seattle continued to rise in 2005 and steep declines did not begin until 2007 and 2008. Clifford writes that Boston's affordability gains may dissipate as prices stabilize here while they continue to drop in competitor cities.

One of the interesting things about the Fed study is that it looked at housing affordability for three demographic groups, one of them being college graduates ages 25-39. Why?

Given the mobility of young professionals and the strong demand for their labor skills, the affordability of housing for this group could potentially indicate whether the cost of housing affects New England's economic competitiveness.

The Fed update found that young professionals in New England have more annual income and can afford median-priced houses in the region, but that they can get more "bang for the buck" in other regions and have less discretionary income after dealing with the region's high housing costs.