The November meeting of the Newton Corner Neighborhood Association focused on three issues: Zoning Reform, Traffic, and Teacher Contracts. However, before we began discussing any of these issues, all of which have grown more convoluted over time, we considered how a Decision Making Framework would enable us to address the complexities of each issue in a meaningful and systematic way. The following framework was presented and then used to examine Councilor Marc Laredo’s public statements regarding rezoning.

The elements of the framework include:

1)  Defining the issue in terms of Goals and Objectives;

2)  Identifying which decisions are Mandatory and which are Optional;  

3)  Assessing the extent to which decision making is based on Facts or Assumptions; 

4)  Assessing the extent to which any particular issue interacts with or overlaps with other critical concerns.

In the best cases, the stated goals and objectives would be achieved through decision-making supported by available facts and agreed-upon assumptions. The interaction among the issues under consideration would be obvious. Sadly, this is seldom the case—this logical chain of analysis seldom holds.  

Councilor Laredo was not able to attend the meeting, but he had given us permission to use statements from his recent newsletters concerning zoning to illustrate how a Decision Making Framework would work.  (M.L.* means the following statements are quotes from Councilor Laredo’s recent newsletters.)

Issue #1:  Zoning Debate:

Councilor Marc Laredo’s positions restated within the Decision Making Framework:

Are the required rezoning decisions Optional or Mandatory?

M. L.*

“The Mayor’s Office and the City Council are engaged in two separate and distinct development efforts.”

1.  Meeting our legal obligation under the MBTA Communities Act.
Under the state law passed in 2021, Newton must rezone a portion of the city to allow for the construction of at least 8,330 housing units by right. I am pleased that we are on track to submit our MBTA Communities Act Plan to the state by the year-end deadline.

2.  Rezoning our Village Centers.

The Village Center rezoning discussion began prior to the passage of the MBTA Communities law and involves efforts to rezone additional areas of the city outside of the MBTA Communities zones.”

• I believe Marc would agree that the MBTA Communities Act is Mandatory, but the Village Center Overlay District (VCOD)  is Optional.  

•  What are the city’s stated development goals? How much of the decision-making is based on facts and how much on assumptions?

3. Unfortunately, Marc’s request for a clear statement of the city’s development goals, as well as facts and assumptions upon which the goals are based, has gone unanswered.

These requests have included:
 M.L.* 

“What is the ideal population size for our city in the coming years?  At the very least, what is the ideal range of population that we should target?”

“How many additional housing units do we need to build to accommodate the population growth we are ideally targeting?”

“What percentage of these additional units should be affordable for low-income individuals and families?”

Here are the answers Marc received from the Planning Department:

• We do not have any ideal population size;

• We do not know how many housing units we want to build;

• We cannot estimate how many units will be built in the Village Center Overlay Districts that are not included within the MBTA Communities Act zones (while claiming that using the state’s MBTA Communities Act methodology is not helpful because it is not accurate);

• We cannot estimate what will be built elsewhere in the city;

• Any changes will be gradual and over many years, and

• We will have plenty of time in the future to deal with infrastructure and city services issues.

4.  Lastly, it is important to consider how the results of decisions made regarding zoning will interact with or affect other critical  issues the city must confront.

To this end, Mark asked the Planning Department:

“What are our plans for providing additional classrooms and/or schools, parking facilities, and other infrastructure or city services for the significant population increases?”

The lack of a response to this and other questions led Marc to conclude that:

M.L.*

• “In order to effectively plan for the impact on our city’s infrastructures and services, as well as accurately measure our success, it’s crucial that we set specific targets and goals when discussing rezoning the Village Centers… (this means) creating a new zoning code setting forth specific goals for the next 5, 10, and 20 years and doing the necessary planning to achieve these goals.”

• “Until we get answers to the basic questions that many of us have been asking, we should not combine the MBTA Communities Act zones with the Village Center Overlay Districts.”
  

Councilor Alison Leary responded to Councilor Laredo’s remarks as summarized above. She strongly disagreed with his talking points. To begin, she believes he’s asking the wrong questions and the answers, if he received them, would be meaningless. She acknowledged that this is a very complex problem and many of these things are difficult to predict.  

She said that we do, however,  know the following:

• We have a housing crisis and a climate crisis;

• Young families can’t afford to move here;

• Seniors need to move out of large homes to elevator buildings.

With regard to the process followed, she feels the city has done the work it needed to get the information out and obtain feedback from the people. The city has done its due diligence and has worked hard to achieve some consensus.

Councilor Leary believes the city has met its goals. It has done a good job of planning for our infrastructure and is way ahead of most communities in terms of water, sewer, and other infrastructure needs. The city is also fiscally strong. Now, must plan for the future that we want by providing incentives to shape that future. A future that will need more housing, and green spaces and buildings that are more energy efficient and not reliant on cars.

Lastly, Councilor Leary strongly believes it is much better to have density in village centers where people can walk to amenities rather than spread them out across the city. She also believes that the market will guide developers and insure that peoples’ needs are met. As a result, no units will be built without parking.  Zoning, she acknowledged, will not in itself insure things get built. However, Newton’s last major zoning reform was in 1953, so zoning reform is overdue. She agrees that some past development was not well thought out, as evidenced by Newton Corner. She believes we can do better and thinks we are on the right track.    

Councilor John Oliver believes that as a city, we have to recognize that this conversation is not about “Do it or don’t do it”.It is about “How do we grow?” How much do we grow?” “How will it happen?.” He feels the city’s planning department is copping out when they say they can’t make predictions. No one expects them to have a crystal ball or come up with a perfect plan. He recognizes that they can’t plan the details; his primary concern is with the process. Councilor Oliver believes that the residents are being asked to vote on a proposal that hasn’t been researched in a way that is resilient. Given the complexities, he realizes that it’s hard to get it right but questions whether the planning process was sufficient. He also wants to see the MBTA Communities Law compliance issue severed from the Village Center Overlay District. He realizes that growth will happen in Newton but believes it won’t be as slow as people expect it to be. That is why we need to direct it, while continuing to make changes to zoning over time.

Councilor Oliver concluded by saying, “There are two words we are baking into this proposal, By Right”. This concerns me greatly in that what this does on every lot that applies to it is to put someone else in charge of whatever they want and they might not have there city’s best interest in mind. It takes the City Council out of the loop.”

Unfortunately, Richard Rasala—our rezoning guru—was not able to attend the meeting, but his thoughts, as detailed in a recent memo, we were presented to provide another option as we attempt to move forward.

Richard writes:

“The MBTA Compliance requirement demands that Newton enable 8330 housing units. The current VCOD Version 3.0 zoning enables 9300 housing units which is almost 1000 more units… There is no compelling reason to zone more of Newton until there is some substantial experience as to how well or how poorly VCOD is working out in the MBTA Compliance areas..

VCOD should be viewed as an untested experiment. How VCOD plays out should be determined. Only then, if success is certain, should VC zoning, (VC3 and VC2) be carefully extended to more village centers and should MRT zoning be extended to more residential neighborhoods”.

Among the problematic concerns with VC3 and VC2 that Richard noted were:
“There is…

• “No control of the number of bedrooms in the apartment units that will be provided in the buildings under the VC zoning code (VC3 and VC2)”

• “No provision for a supermarket in a village center even though it is unreasonable to assume that residents will eat all of the time in restaurants.”
• “No provisions for the full range of shops and services that people living in the village center …may need.”
• “No provisions for more versatile uses of upper story spaces uses other than residences.”

• “No parking requirements for either residents or for business users.”

What this means, Richard summarizes, is that “VC zoning is much more narrow than it first appears to be.”

After an analysis of what is offered at two recent mixed-use developments, 28 Austin Street and Trio,

Richard concludes: 

 “Remove all VCOD zoning from those Village Centers that are NOT required as part of Newton’s MBTA Compliance.”

More of Richard’s analysis is available at:  https://web.northeastern.edu/rasala/newton_zoning_docs/letter_council_zoning.html.

These documents also include references to the architect Daniel Parolek’s “Missing Middle” housing, https://missingmiddlehousing.com. “Missing middle” housing is generally assumed to be critical to increasing the number of small families in Newton (a presumed goal of rezoning).

Councilor Alison Leary responded that although she admires Richard very much for his thoughtful planning, she doesn’t agree with him about removing seven villages from VCOD zoning.  She believes that public transit will be improving in the near future, and increasing density is important for commercial as well as climate action. A reduction in the need for cars because of VCOD zoning will be accompanied by better pedestrian and bike lanes, more public green spaces and have positive impact on local business. We need to address Newton’s significant housing crisis and to act quickly on climate change. We are way past time to update zoning and can’t wait another 40–50 years.

Myra Ferree, a retired social scientist, also took issue with exempting villages from VCOD, including Newton Corner. She feels there is a need for zoning that discourages teardowns and encourages conversions.

Department of Transportation / Newton Corner Improvements

The DOT presentation presented optional lane redesigns for each of the 4 quadrants of the Newton Corner rotary. After hearing descriptions of potential design changes and a review of what this would mean for traffic flow, participants were asked to vote on which option they preferred for each quadrant. No numbers were presented during this discussion—either in terms of traffic flow (current number of cars and projected impact) or cost. A great deal of information was presented very quickly by people familiar with the theory behind the project to an audience unfamiliar with the theory but all too familiar with the reality. 

The responses were as follows:

Nate Gibson: There seems to be no vision for Newton Corner presented here. There is no discussion of reconnecting the neighborhood, no safe route to school for children who live north of the Pike, and no consistent bike paths—they seem to appear and then disappear (although one can argue that no bike is safe on the rotary). This presentation focuses on how to make vehicular traffic better but what about making the rotary more walkable?  We know that just adding street lights is not the answer because we’ve counted up to 6 cars going through a red light at the same time. Also, we worry about the “induced demand” effect; the easier it is for cars to go through Newton Corner, the more people will use if for that. Lastly, there was too much information presented in too short a time. It seems as if the presentation was designed to give DOT the answers they wanted.

Myra Ferree: For those of us using these intersections, we want to see how each of the pieces of the puzzle works with the others. There was no information presented on how the quadrants fit together. Did they see the big picture? In terms of transparency, the overall process of Newton rezoning was much more open and transparent than what the DOT has provided.

Pio Lombardo:  While this was a respectable technical presentation for improving the situation in the short term, what is really needed is long-term improvement. The major concerns are about “safety” and “flow”. He suggested a sign on the turnpike to warn drivers of the “impending doom” of exiting at Newton Corner.

Keith Jones:  What we really need is another exit, not a second lane for the Mass Pike. What happened to the proposal for the Brook Street exit in Brighton? That would relieve pressure from Newton Corner.

Teacher Contract Negotiation:

The updates on teacher contract negotiations were presented by Michael Burtch, a teacher at Bigelow Middle School and NTA (Newton Teacher Association), negotiator and Alison Lobron of the Parent Educator Collaborative. Unfortunately, we were not able to have a School Committee speaker at this meeting.

The current state of negotiations is troubling to Michael because the presence of the mediator means that the two sides are not sitting in the same room. Excluding the educators from negotiation makes them feel the city doesn’t want to hear their voices. The School Committee is also not bound by any offer they make during mediation. Michael believes that this is not really about money, since the city has a surplus. “We are negotiating against an ideology of merit… that teachers don’t deserve more money.” He is troubled that the School Committee has had no public discussion about negotiation. “There has not been a single question from any members of the School Committee regarding updates… there is no public discourse among School Committee members regarding settling.”

Alison Lobron noted the staffing crisis happening in the schools right now. There are 100 vacant positions in the Classroom Aide category. In a recent example, she cited, a teacher with 20 students had 5 students who were the responsibility of an aide. When that aide got Covid-19, there was no replacement available. That teacher had to devote herself to the 5 special needs students for two weeks while the other 15 students received no instruction from her at all during that period.

Some numbers of interest:

2020-21 Teachers Salaries Report
(among peer communities)

District Name                    Average Salary

(1)   Concord/Carlisle                   $117,960

(7)    Brookline                              $101,158

(12)  Newton                                 $ 93,031

We will look at salary differentials in greater depth at our next NCNA meeting. It is interesting to note, however, that only 20% of Unit C (including teacher aides) stay long enough to earn a longevity check (11 years). This is probably because the pay starts at $27,000 per year.

A special thanks to all who have read through these extensive notes. The meeting ended promptly at 8:30.  We look forward to seeing you at the next meeting of the NCNA on Thursday, December 7 at 7:30 PM.

Warm regards,

Robin Boger, President

Newton Corner Neighborhood Association

Join the NCNA Facebook group athttps://www.facebook.com/groups/214498274674458/