The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports on forums JP Progressives held for the two main candidates for mayor this year.
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The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports on forums JP Progressives held for the two main candidates for mayor this year.
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Comments
So close, Marty
By Will LaTulippe
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 10:39am
He started off sounding like a smart, reasonable guy:
But then boom goes the dynamite:
Who's "we," you giant tool? What the (expletive) is a "neighborhood house?" Is that some obnoxious code word for desired social engineering? Is somebody not deserving of picking the location of their shelter because they're a customer of a college?
We dont want any young people
By DPM
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 10:48am
We dont want any young people moving here and having kids and filling that home with a family. That would be bad!
Tito saved bad teachers at BLA
By EM Painter
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 7:44pm
Tito saved some bad teachers of color and crucified the administrators who evaluated them. You know what it's like to get called a racist here? What administrator is going to evaluate them now?
The teachers will be there til they retire, wiping out years of learning. Repeat that 100 times across the system. No accountability, no evaluation, thats why there are few families staying in these houses.
What year is this again?
By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 10:52am
People no longer live with their parents unless they have to.
It sounds like the guy who lived on his own and waited a long time to marry expects that other people will only move out from their parent's house and buy houses when they get married, and only for themselves and their children.
It isn't 1970 anymore. That isn't how people live. Since the 1980s at least, young people teaming up to rent larger homes are doing so in areas where the families already do not want to live. They haven't pushed the families out - the rents are cheap due to a combo of families not wanting to live there and landlords not wanting children there (illegal, yes, but common and not well policed).
It's both, and it's fine
By anon
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 11:01am
Four young people with white collar jobs can, collectively, easily outpay two working parents who also face the costs of kids. That's just the reality.
That means that young people, living together, will in fact push families out in some places. That's A-OK. Fair is fair, and everyone is entitled to live where they want, provided they can pay for the home.
Want to release that pressure? Build more tall buildings near transit, and include microunits and other small 1 BR units. Those four folks living together may like each other now, but they don't want that lifestyle forever (if at all) -- it's the tradeoff they make because living alone is too expensive.
Make living alone less expensive Marty.
That would require too much building
By anon
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 10:19pm
Some building would help, but that's not going to work forever, and will continue to add to congestion. It is true that young people are transforming and are able to pay more for housing where families live.
Wrong
By Sock_Puppet
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 11:28am
More young people live with their parents now than did in the seventies or eighties.
www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/percentage-of-young-ameri...
That life you remember from when you were a young person? That's not how it is for young people anymore. It's harder now.
My kids are in their 20s
By SwirlyGrrl
Sat, 07/29/2017 - 11:29pm
I know absolutely and totally and more than you probably do what you are talking about.
The fact is, most of those kids will not live with parents until they form their own families. Not like they did in 1960. I know scores of kids this age - that is not their plan. They live with parents because they have to, not because they want to, and most of us parents are putting them on plans to get their footing and get out.
If you knew
By Sock_Puppet
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 1:26am
The truth about the matter - that young folks these days are more likely to live with their parents than at any time since WWII - you wouldn't have said what you did about people no longer living with their parents.
In hindsight, you always knew everything. Just like my kids. Difference is, most kids get over that.
You were grandstanding, you spoke outside your competence, and you were wrong. If you were more mature you could just admit it, get over your bourgeois assumptions, and learn something.
Pro Tip
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 10:03am
Never confuse one abstract statistic for an entire nation reported in a clickbait article with the ground-truthed reality of a single region.
I'm not making assumptions dear. I'm living it - and seem to be the "go to" parent for discussing the "what do I have to do so that I can move out" question (pulls out spreadsheet ...)
You just read some numbers and got proud, though. Congratulate you.
Crank tip
By Sock_Puppet
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 11:29am
If I saw a pro here, I would take a tip. All I see is a crank who thinks her personal anecdotes overrule the rest of the data in the world. You're special, honey, but you're not that special.
Um
By Waquiot
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 4:24pm
You might want to check out the trends that the Census Bureau found (table on page 6.) True, it is only a comparison of 1975 to 2016, but the numbers are a bit off from your anecdotes.
Reexamine that history
By cinnamngrl
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 10:04am
Nobody lives with her parents unless they have to. In the 50s the population of Boston was so high that the really wasn't anywhere for a single professional to live affordably. So they either lived at home with their families or lived in a rooming house. In the 70s the cities of emptied out and in the 80s there were apartments available in the city that a young entry-level workers could afford. It is population density that dictates whether young people can afford to move out of their families homes.
In the context of college students
By bgl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 11:05am
Yes, it is rather a problem when 4-5 of them get together and rent out three deckers and landlords can jack the rents up (due to it being shared so many ways). If that is what he is talking about, then I agree - and the city is getting colleges on board to ensure that the colleges themselves have enough dorms to house their students so they don't have as much effect on housing stock in the immediate areas.
Rents
By anon²
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 11:08am
Those rents are not jacked up because of that. That's the market rate.
There's also the issue that campuses regularly get denied construction of new dorms.
Get out isn't a good policy and it's not going to happen.
Really?
By bgl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:25pm
Cause it certainly drove rents up in Mission Hill, and we even have a law specifically limiting the number of college kids that can live together (not that anyone gives a shit about it). Also, the City (under Marty) has fast tracked, implored, and set goals for colleges to have all their students in dorms, and colleges are all building them right now, including ones that should never have been approved (see Emerson). So, I am not sure what you are talking about.
Nobody gives a (expletive)
By Will LaTulippe
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:38pm
Because it's unenforceable. First, do you really want wards of the state, possibly carrying firearms, showing up at your residence and asking you whether or not you're a customer of a college?
What an asinine provision, largely because it's invasive of privacy, but also, how do you intend to make somebody prove that they are in college when it would benefit them to claim that they aren't? You aren't getting my name without a search warrant, and you're not getting one of those unless you've suspected that I've committed a crime, at which point, if I'm found guilty, you can put me in jail, and then I'm not bothering the neighbors anymore.
Maybe "we don't want college kids living here" is simply the lazy, wussy answer to "we want to punish these people for being loud and making lots of garbage." Those are civil infractions. If somebody's obnoxious enough, maybe jail them for one day for disturbing the peace.
Yes
By Tuckerman
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:48pm
College students are adults. Adults get to make adults decisions, e.g., where to live based on what they can afford, and have adult consequences for their behavior.
Huh?
By bgl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 1:46pm
It would be interesting to see if the law would hold up in court (and my gut tells me it wouldn't via City of Worcester v. College Hill Properties), but, I wouldn't say occupancy laws in general are terrible, as, yes, if you are squeezing 20 people into a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment it brings all sorts of problems and elevated risks (of fire), and, yeah, I wouldn't have a problem with inspection services being called.
Secondly, the point was to focus in on one tiny point - I didn't state students would be forced into dorms or anything else, just that colleges are aggressively building dorms to meet the requirement that they have enough room to house all of their students, and, one would think after that investment, colleges would have incentives for students to actually live in them vs. off campus housing.
Occupancy laws are good
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 10:06am
They should specify the number of occupants, though - not what they do for a living.
If the relative responses after fatal fires are any indication, obsession with occupation and not occupancy or even living conditions is the norm around here. Too many kids in a slum trap = big deal. Eight kids die in a one bedroom apartment = sad tragedy, don't question the lack of heat, move on ...
As for Emerson dorms
By Will LaTulippe
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:39pm
Why shouldn't they have been approved?
I find the destruction of the
By bgl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 1:33pm
I find the destruction of the alley way and business and sterilization of what was an interesting little nook of the city to be wrong, given it was almost one of a kind at this point. At least they aren't going to turn the Colonial Theatre into a cafeteria.
I'm a nostalgic person too
By Will LaTulippe
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 1:52pm
But not to the exclusion of creating human shelter.
Cause we should totally let
By bgl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 2:40pm
Cause we should totally let colleges and universities take over the city, right, and whitewash any remaining character?
I mean, it's frickin' Emerson
By Will LaTulippe
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 2:55pm
There's a finite amount of money to be spent on studying film.
LOL lookit this guy
By Marco
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 4:12pm
mad at Emerson for destroying an alley in the COMBAT ZONE. Is this where you used to make your drug deals or something?
Hahahaha
Lol.
By bgl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 8:14pm
Off by a few decades, but, for the record, I sold over on Lower Washington* - hopefully make enough to get a date for the night over on Tyler, Hudson, or Cortes.
But in the past, well almost two decades or more, that alley has had a bunch of interesting and viable nightclubs and bars, and was one of the only places like it in Boston that heralded back to European cities.
*Just kidding - I would never demean myself to selling on the street
I think we're talkin different alleys
By Marco
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 9:54pm
I assumed you meant the building behind the Majestic, which miraculously Emerson was able to cram in what was, basically, an alley on Tremont st, a nice dark one.
I believe you are referring to THE alley, where all the bars are. There are still bars there and DBs pouring out of it at 2am. Is Emerson taking it over? I hadn't heard...
Aw....I miss the hookers on Cortes...
Hold your horses
By Roslindaler
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:52pm
Although I agree that calling something a "neighborhood house" sounds a bit like nativist v newcomer silliness, what he is talking about here, in practical terms, is requiring college students to live on campus. Marty is a real supply and demand guy when it comes to the cost of housing in Boston, and just as he believes (and I tend to agree) that we will greatly lessen our problem by increasing supply to meet demand (we are 30-40K units short right now!), in this one sector, he is also trying to actually reduce demand in certain areas by taking prospective renters (college kids) out of the market all together. A bit of an "attack it from both sides" approach. Whether the increase supply side of things can work, I don't know, as the demand is extremely high and our economic success as a region is driving much of that. However, for certain neighborhoods where there are many off-campus students, taking them out of the market seems to stand a good chance of freeing up housing for other renters and thus potentially causing pricing to fall. As for rent control, just a terrible idea unless you want to dissinsentivize investment/maintenance in existing property and cool the incentive for building any new rental property, which in turn would likely only drive the cost of ownership even higher by chilling new supply.
it misrepresents single family houses
By cinnamngrl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 2:40pm
When I was a child in the 70's, everyone fled the cities because of crime. During the years after that you could afford a single family home in boston.
In 1985, the house across the street was worth 63k and the population of boston was 563k. That same home is worth 515k now and boston's population is 673k. This the same amount of people that lived in boston in the 1960's. In the 50's the population was 800k. Back then, families were bigger and most single professionals lived at home or in a rooming house.
What I am saying is that even if you make a single family home affordable, the population is too high to think that you could have these neighborhood houses.
6 to 16 twenty somethings in house make awful neighbors. But young people that live alone go out to socialize. We need more affordable single units in Dorchester to bring down rent prices in a natural way.
If you mean units that are
By anon
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 10:24pm
If you mean units that are restricted as affordable, that's one thing. Adding density everywhere to try to keep prices affordable isn't the best solution though.
No I don't mean restricted
By cinnamngrl
Sat, 07/29/2017 - 9:59am
Putting microunits in the Back Bay and the Seaport will never have an affordable market rate. Dorchester has very few one bedroom apartments despite and overall lower rate per square foot.
There are 3 vacant lots with crumbling structures on them on popes hill alone. Profit is the problem. We don't need more luxury condominiums in Dorchester. We need efficiencies for entry level workers. Building units that could be rented for under a thousand won't make much profit but they wouldn't lose money either.
The problem with that is you
By anon
Sat, 07/29/2017 - 8:36pm
The problem with that is you can't really control how much demand there is, so you will always just be building without any long term affordability. Some restricted affordable units would be better.
Actually you can control demand
By cinnamngrl
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 10:23am
That is what this whole debate is about. The fantasy that single family homes are a moral value communities use zoning to prevent new building. That intensifies demand until people and businesses give up and move away.
We need more housing for entry level workers. If those young people could live in a micro apartment for 700-1000 then rents would come down.
Rooming houses
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 10:53am
We could use more rooming houses. Realtors hate them, of course, but they were the norm for single adults in urban areas for centuries.
Boston has adequate zoning codes for them (some university residences fall under that code). They were seen as antiquated and squalid during suburban expansion, but there seems to be a need for them today. Other cities refer to these as Single Room Occupancy.
Service and security make good rooming houses
By cinnamngrl
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 1:30pm
Like a stripped down b&b. And usually stricter rules about guests, curfew and partying.
Would it be crazy for colleges to share dorms? Put them in central locations and have colleges pool their money?
That's not controlling demand
By anon
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 6:50pm
That's arbitrarily declaring that other people's single family homes' are somehow the primary reason for high housing costs, while ignoring things like speculators. You are the only one attempting to make a moral argument. Someone could question the morals of someone who demands that everyone else compromise on their modest single family homes for the newest arrivals who demand immediate housing in an extremely expensive area.
Well no
By cinnamngrl
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 11:01pm
Anyone with enough money can I have a single-family home in Suffolk County. Preventing other people from developing vacant lots with condemned buildings is contributing to high housing costs. Boston is a city, at this population level single-family home is a luxury not immoral.
Vacant lots is something else
By anon
Mon, 07/31/2017 - 8:43am
Vacant lots is something else.
The exact number of housing
By anon
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 10:23pm
The exact number of housing units needed can be debated. More would help, but there's also congestion issues to worry about. There's other things that can be done like requiring affordable units.
Offsets aren't helping.
By cinnamngrl
Sat, 07/29/2017 - 10:09am
Boston is only congested for cars. There used to be 800k people in this city. In ten years there could be more. You can't stop it. Unless you want people living in garages and campers and tent slums popping up you have to build for it.
They pay into a fund instead of building offsets
By anon
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 6:54pm
Developers just pay into a fund instead of including affordable housing on their location. There's only going to be vastly more residents if you keep adding more housing. You can reduce it by limiting how much housing you build. Not every area can be made affordable by adding market rate housing. You brought up congestion, and more housing adds to that.
Limited housing will reduce the economy'
By cinnamngrl
Sun, 07/30/2017 - 11:09pm
When you grew up (anon) the city was empty. Twenty somethings could afford apartments downtown and existing single family homes were available for people that wanted to stay in the city. Limiting housing will hurt economic growth. If employers can't fill positions they will leave.
Growth is different than living standard
By anon
Mon, 07/31/2017 - 8:48am
It was not empty. Some places get more expensive, you can't keep them affordable for everyone with just construction. Employers won't all leave, they will just expand elsewhere. You are with focusing on growth instead the residents.
Expand elsewhere
By anon
Mon, 07/31/2017 - 9:12am
In other words, leave.
Sorry, but you don't own the city - it continues along without your permission.
The average teacher?
By Tuckerman
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 11:00am
The average teacher in Boston makes $100,000 per year?
How does 88K sound?
By whyaduck
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 1:15pm
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/09/14/avera...
Well
By bosguy22
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 1:41pm
It sounds like that data is 3 years old...and still sounds pretty close to $100k.
Last year's article
By whyaduck
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 4:17pm
citing 2014-2015 figures. Probably a bit higher now.
And?
By bosguy22
Mon, 07/31/2017 - 11:32am
2014-2015 is 3 years old data. So, if it's "a bit higher now", then the poster who said "$100k" is even closer. Why bother with the snarky response?
What's your point?
By BostonDog
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 10:17pm
Teaching kids is hard. In Mass it requires additional education yourself. If you think teachers are overpaid why don't you become one.
In a better world teachers would make more money then investment bankers, the latter of which is just gambling on someone else's talents.
Gambling?
By bosguy22
Mon, 07/31/2017 - 11:32am
You don't really know how investment banking works, do you?
Looking back to 2008
By Waquiot
Mon, 07/31/2017 - 12:37pm
Yeah, it was basically gambling that year. Perhaps not the slots, but the ROI at that time period for your average investment banker working in real estate was significantly worse than my ROI at Suffolk Downs, and I'm a crappy handicapper.
Neighborhood houses?
By anon
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 11:04am
Because of student debt, low wages and high rents young people are forced to live together in modern day rooming houses. The good news for Mayor Marty is that young people don't vote.
Whereas in MY day...
By Sally
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 3:23pm
they lived in luxurious studios.
Reality check--student housing has never been better. In the past most students lived at home, or boarded with families, or yes, in various other crowded and fairly crummy arrangements. I hear you on the loans, etc. but student life has never been particularly luxurious or comfortable.
When my parents and aunts and
By DPM
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 3:32pm
When my parents and aunts and uncles were young they lived in tenements. The tenements got banned, yet they still exist in some form.
Rent control doesn't work
By anon²
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 11:06am
I know it's good policy for politicians to give away free lunches, but every data point on rent control says it makes every problem worse.
Finding a way to build affordable housing is harder with the BRD, zoning, and Nimbyism, so I get why they're not tackling it. But the hard path is the only path out in a city that expects 130,000 new residents by 2030, and even more jobs and businesses.
Rent control does work.
By Lee
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 11:45am
And Boston needs it back.
We lost it due to a statewide referendum where the real estate industry put megabucks into anti rent control propaganda.
The majority of Boston residents voted to keep rent control but the absentee landlords and a misled public who don't live in Boston voted against it.
No we have a housing crises and more slumlords than ever.
I'm neither
By Patricia Roberts
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 11:56am
an absentee landlord nor a member of the misled public (and I live in Boston) and I voted against rent control. I think there are many of us living in Boston who were here when there was rent control, and decided it was a bad idea. We aren't misled--we just don't agree with you.
Why?
By Crankycoffey
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:11pm
I can see why it was good for renters. Why was it bad? Full disclosure : I am a landlord.
It removes all incentive for
By bgl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:31pm
It removes all incentive for landlords to make any investment (or upkeep) on their properties when they basically can not raise rent. It also artificially depreciates the value of multi-family housing as an investment, so, existing landlords would be further screwed as their property values would go down. It go to the point where entire sections of Fenway, Roxbury, and all of they city there were tons of "mystery" fires as landlords simply torched their buildings for insurance value vs trying to keep them going (or even selling them as they were probably underwater).
Furthermore, it disincentivizes building any new rental properties, as everything is basically capped, thus making the return on the capital investment not that appealing. So what we ended up with was nothing new being built and existing housing stock falling apart/being torched.
"It removes all incentive for
By anon
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:41pm
"It removes all incentive for landlords to make any investment (or upkeep) on their properties when they basically can not raise rent."
Most landlords don't really upkeep apartments anyway and they still jack the prices. I've seen some shitholes during my apartment search.
I keep up my properties, and
By bgl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 1:34pm
I keep up my properties, and most around the city I have seen do, too, unless you are going into student slum housing ala Anwar Faisal. We are also talking about things like upkeep enough to not get it condemned/fall down.
Tired argument
By anon
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 10:27pm
The old appearance of many of the apartments out there suggests that many people don't feel much intensive to upgrade the the rooms they rent out.
Lol.
By bgl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:27pm
Just, no. Every city voted it down, and it caused massive issues in Boston.
Rent control was voted down
By anon
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 4:44pm
Rent control was voted down in 1992 because Cambridge ruined it for everyone.
No, not quite
By adamg
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 7:08pm
It was voted down because the small-property owner's group that opposed rent control and stabilization did a smart thing: They got the question on a statewide ballot even though only three communities (Boston, Cambridge and Brookline) actually had those measures - and so the rest of the state effectively vetoed a program in just those three communities.
If Cambridge hadn't been so ridiculous
By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 8:14pm
Maybe they would have been able to revamp their program. But even the mayor was sitting on a large pile of money in savings while living in a rent controlled apartment. Meanwhile, landlords struggled to do even emergency maintenance because the rents were too low to support even painting the damn houses.
When I was looking for a place after graduation, I saw frequent "reward - $1500 for a rent controlled apartment". Sad. That's why Cambridge and the abuses in Cambridge led to a statewide revolt.
Rent control in Boston =
By anon
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 12:50pm
Rent control in Boston = Landlords have no financial incentive, don't maintain buildings until they either fall down or are toched by arsonists to collect the insurance
There was virtually no residential construction in Boston since rent control was enacted and look how much was built in the decades following the repeal.
However
By Meg
Fri, 07/28/2017 - 2:36pm
Most of that has been Luxury Condos, which no one can afford anyway.
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