Some Things I Think You Should Know

Note: In the time since I first wrote this, some more research has come up which indicates that building an underground spot in Brookline is closer to $100,000 in 2020 dollars.   So you can take all those quantities below and multiply by 3 .  A lot of folks who complain about new development argue both a) that it's only "luxury" apartments being built and b) that there isn't enough parking. What gets lost in this conversation is that parking (especially in dense, urban areas, well served by transit, person-sized vehicle infrastructure, and places in walking and rolling distance), is that no amount of granite countertops can make up for the price of the required parking space(s). For example, this study (http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/HighCost.pdf) from 2014, with data necessarily predating even then puts underground parking spaces in Boston at $31,000 each just to build. This doesn't include the cost to maintain or ventilate the garage nor does it factor in any of th...

This is a repost of something I've written elsewhere, but I think it's useful context for why we get the kind of buildings we do. Zoning codes have effectively banned the kind of highly desirable rowhouse/townhouse buildings that line many of North Brookline's streets. These buildings, very much in line with the "neighborhood character," that have space for families, enable dense neighborhoods, and support car-free living basically cannot be legally built, even next door to existing buildings of this type. I live in a wonderful rowhouse built in the 1890s. Property values have doubled since we bought our unit in 2011, so clearly they are desirable to others too. I wish there were a lot more like it. So why isn't anyone building them? The aren't legal to build under local zoning. I live in a brownstone at the top of <not saying it here> Street. Maybe someone else on the street would want to build a similar building. It certainly fits with "...