Why Zoning in Brookline Prevents Building the Housing Brookliners Like!
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 "neighborhood character," right? Ah, well, the Zone of M-2.0 Apartment House covers only this building. Once you go next door, the zone moves to T-5 "Two-family & attached single-family." But ok, maybe you could get a single lot rezoned, right?
So let's take my building as an example of what we'd want to build. (Note, I'm not a lawyer, developer, or expert here, so everything here is my best understanding, there may be weird exceptions I'm unaware of).
The lot is about 5500 sq ft. Each unit is 1318 sq ft, the building is 3 stories tall with two units per floor. That's ~7,900 sq ft, plus a bit of common space. Let's count only the central stairwell, which is ~350 sq ft per floor adding an additional ~1000 square feet. The Floor Area Ratio is then 9,000 / 5,500 = 1.63.
Unfortunately, M-2.0 zonse have a maximum FAR of 1.5, so time to make the apartments smaller or have fewer apartments on the lot. A theoretical four-story building would be completely non-conforming despite really not changing the neighborhood at all.
There's a 50-foot height maximum so a 4-story building with the classic high ceilings people love would likely be banned on that criteria too.
Did you know Brookline has a minimum yard size? For this building, it's 15" in the font, 10 feet on the side, and 30 feet on the rear. There appear to be some exceptions for existing structures, but I cannot find anything obvious in the zoning by-law that would allow a new rowhouse style building to be built due to the side yard requirements. But let's say you can find the exception I missed.
Our 16 foot front yard appears to conform though, had we added a 4th story, it would no longer conform as 20" would have been required instead. There's a parking lot back there with complicated ownership (we have some spaces but don't own the entire lot) so it doesn't back right up to another building, but it is the same to us if there's 10 feet back there or 30.
This zoning district has a maximum FAR of 1.5, which means that we need 2.3 parking spaces per unit since each unit is 3-bedroom. That's 13.8 parking spaces. But, we're near the Green Line, so we get to use the lower ratios for the Transit Parking Overlay District, so only 2 spaces per unit, requiring only 12. Alas, in the complicated back lot, we have only 8 (of which only half are used!). Each parking space is ~150 sq ft, so adding those additional 4 spaces means 600 square feet less for living space, at 3 stories that's 1,800 sq feet of space that could have been used for more than one additional 3-bedroom apartment!
Going to 4 stories requires 16 spaces and finding an additional 1200 sq ft in the lot that could otherwise house people. Of course, we could build all that parking underground, but that adds millions of dollars to construction cost. Guess this is now a luxury building.
Now, there are special appeal and hearing procedures to get around one or more of these requirements, and I'm sure I missed an exception somewhere on something. But, generally speaking, someone cannot just buy a lot and build a building identical to my existing one right next door to it. Nor could we decide to add an extra story to our existing building.
So yeah, no specific law prevents the building of row house / town house / brownstones, but they're effectively banned in the zoning code.
Legalize them!
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 "neighborhood character," right? Ah, well, the Zone of M-2.0 Apartment House covers only this building. Once you go next door, the zone moves to T-5 "Two-family & attached single-family." But ok, maybe you could get a single lot rezoned, right?
So let's take my building as an example of what we'd want to build. (Note, I'm not a lawyer, developer, or expert here, so everything here is my best understanding, there may be weird exceptions I'm unaware of).
The lot is about 5500 sq ft. Each unit is 1318 sq ft, the building is 3 stories tall with two units per floor. That's ~7,900 sq ft, plus a bit of common space. Let's count only the central stairwell, which is ~350 sq ft per floor adding an additional ~1000 square feet. The Floor Area Ratio is then 9,000 / 5,500 = 1.63.
Unfortunately, M-2.0 zonse have a maximum FAR of 1.5, so time to make the apartments smaller or have fewer apartments on the lot. A theoretical four-story building would be completely non-conforming despite really not changing the neighborhood at all.
There's a 50-foot height maximum so a 4-story building with the classic high ceilings people love would likely be banned on that criteria too.
Did you know Brookline has a minimum yard size? For this building, it's 15" in the font, 10 feet on the side, and 30 feet on the rear. There appear to be some exceptions for existing structures, but I cannot find anything obvious in the zoning by-law that would allow a new rowhouse style building to be built due to the side yard requirements. But let's say you can find the exception I missed.
Our 16 foot front yard appears to conform though, had we added a 4th story, it would no longer conform as 20" would have been required instead. There's a parking lot back there with complicated ownership (we have some spaces but don't own the entire lot) so it doesn't back right up to another building, but it is the same to us if there's 10 feet back there or 30.
This zoning district has a maximum FAR of 1.5, which means that we need 2.3 parking spaces per unit since each unit is 3-bedroom. That's 13.8 parking spaces. But, we're near the Green Line, so we get to use the lower ratios for the Transit Parking Overlay District, so only 2 spaces per unit, requiring only 12. Alas, in the complicated back lot, we have only 8 (of which only half are used!). Each parking space is ~150 sq ft, so adding those additional 4 spaces means 600 square feet less for living space, at 3 stories that's 1,800 sq feet of space that could have been used for more than one additional 3-bedroom apartment!
Going to 4 stories requires 16 spaces and finding an additional 1200 sq ft in the lot that could otherwise house people. Of course, we could build all that parking underground, but that adds millions of dollars to construction cost. Guess this is now a luxury building.
Now, there are special appeal and hearing procedures to get around one or more of these requirements, and I'm sure I missed an exception somewhere on something. But, generally speaking, someone cannot just buy a lot and build a building identical to my existing one right next door to it. Nor could we decide to add an extra story to our existing building.
So yeah, no specific law prevents the building of row house / town house / brownstones, but they're effectively banned in the zoning code.
Legalize them!