A common practice in Newton real estate development seems to involve taking an average-sized house and knocking it down to build a gigantic, palatial estate on the lot in its place.
In addition to keeping home prices high and wiping out housing diversity, the practice also impacts groundwater and stormwater runoff, both of which are causing problems and creating flooding in residential neighborhoods all across a region with an already high water table.
“We have a situation that’s just out of control in terms of what developers are building, and despite what we have and our best efforts to have our engineering department control, this, it’s not working,” City Council Vice President David Kalis said. “It is bad out there when it comes to flooding and the impact that these houses are having.”
Now, City Hall is looking at potential zoning ordinance changes to curtail this McMansion boom.
Raising the grade
On July 22, the Zoning and Planning Committee voted to change the zoning ordinance so that building size is measured using the lot’s original grade if the property’s grade has been raised, effective Jan. 1, 2025.
The change is one recommended by the Planning Department.
“The recommendation is that if a project or a parcel is developing or redeveloping and it is raising the grade, then the measurement of height from a zoning perspective of that building is taken from the original grade, the existing grade before that work was done,” Zachery LeMel, long-term planner with the Planning Department, said.
The amendment would not impact any redevelopment that lowers a lot’s grade.
Why does this matter? From a zoning perspective, it’s about floor area ratio.
Floor area ratio determines how much square feet of living space a property can have in relation to the lot’s total size.
Newton’s FAR formula is the property’s gross floor area divided by its lot size.
LeMel presented an example of a single-story house on Spiers Road that’s going to be demolished and replaced with a much larger house. The original house has a basement, and so does the bigger house set to be built in its place.
The lot is being raised to accommodate the new house, and under the proposed changes, that basement would become a first story.
“They’re raising the grade with a retaining wall, about a foot and a half,” LeMel explained. “You can see what that means for what’s considered a basement, how many stories and how tall the building is, and how much square footage is counting toward floor area ratio, or FAR.”
And the proposed changes to the ordinance would make the new house 3,700 square feet in the FAR formula instead of 2,874 as current rules would deem.
“What would happen if the current rules were in place is this home would have a basement—they could still do that—but instead of a two-and-a-half story building above that grade, it would only be allowed to have one-and-a-half story above that grade [by right],” LeMel said. “It’s just choosing where you put your 2-and-a-half stories, because zoning allows two-and-a-half stories [by right].”
“I think this a worthwhile proposal that will remedy some of the abuses we have,” Zoning and Planning Committee Chair Lisle Baker said. “It won’t remedy all of them, but I think it’s a positive first step.”
There are 86 active engineering site plans in various stages of review, according to Deputy Planning Director Jen Caira.
“I don’t know how many have recently been completed that have not yet applied for their building permits, but I do think that Jan. 1 is a fair time given that there are quite a few that are already in progress,” Caira said.
The ordinance amendment will now head to the full City Council for a vote.
More to come
The Planning Department also recommended other changes to the ordinance relating to residential construction, including adding an earth moving ordinance.
Earth moving ordinances regulate how much earth can be removed from or added to a lot. The rules are meant to mitigate soil disruption and protect natural habitats.
Concord, Wayland and Weston all have earth moving ordinances.
The department is also recommending the City Council amend the recent ordinance limiting by-right retaining walls so that the ordinance can give more leniency to multi-family homes.
Those ideas are expected to be discussed with experts and the public before the Zoning and Planning Committee discusses them over the next several months as part of a comprehensive look at zoning and housing diversity.
The committee was in agreement that more steps are needed to tackle the invasion of castle-sized houses popping up on small lots and dramatically changing the city’s environmental and cultural landscapes.
“I guess I don’t have anything against these large houses, but when I see them completely taking over Oak Hill Park or other places where there were modest houses, it saddens me,” Kalis said, noting that Newton used to have more housing diversity. “It seems like there’s not a place for people that are starting out or not at the upper echelons of firms making money, and I want Newton to be better than that.”