Boston Indicators

Losing these students could mean hollowing out “the next generation of researchers, entrepreneurs, and neighbors who study in our classrooms, enrich our local culture, and contribute to our economy.”

To learn more, check out the brief.

But President Trump’s harsh immigration policies have created a hostile environment that could depress the number of international students who choose to study here.

Students who come from other countries are a vital part of this state’s higher education community, as we explain in our brief, “Brain Gain: International Students in Massachusetts.” buff.ly/VgffiZ0

The good news, Dain says, is that state officials could pass new zoning laws. “The Commonwealth can bring this best practice to scale.”

To learn more, check out the brief.

The challenge is that the MRT districts only cover a few small areas in Newton. And on a larger scale, town-by-town zoning changes happen too slowly to meet the demand for more housing.

“Newton is rewarding retention of existing buildings with permission to build more homes, near village centers. Under this preservation incentive, eight buildings are undergoing renovation and gaining additional housing units.”

“Newton has shown a way to align historic preservation with housing abundance and multi-modal mobility,” Amy Dain, who wrote the brief, says.

In MRT districts, the zoning allows four housing units per property plus additional units when the existing building is preserved.

Our new brief, “A Modest Zoning Reform That Works—and Should Be Scaled,” buff.ly/gbAVV7B looks at how Newton—in response to the MBTA Communities law—created Multi-Residence Transit (MRT) zoning districts that preserve existing housing and allow for new construction.

To learn more, check out the report.

There’s still, however, more work to do. While the MBTA Communities law has produced much more “adoption of as-of-right zoning for multifamily housing than decades of advocacy and incentive programs,” the law does not create enough as-of-right capacity to meet the demand.

So far, the strategy of encouraging as-of-right zoning has been successful. As the report notes, “Most communities have adopted as-of-right districts that cross multiple properties. Projects within these districts are moving through permitting with greater predictability.”

To address this challenge, the MBTA Communities law requires as-of-right zoning for multi-family housing. The “as of right” designation “removes some of the zoning barriers to multi-family housing development,” according to MBTA Communities implementation regulations. buff.ly/dbQDlz9

“For much of the past half-century, the permitting of multifamily housing in Massachusetts steadily became more discretionary, time-consuming, political, and unpredictable,” as we explain in our report, “An Early Look at the MBTA Communities Permitting Pipeline” buff.ly/hxiBlre.

“And immigrants living in Greater Boston paid $17 billion in local, state, and federal taxes, according to estimates by American Immigration Council.”

These contributions come from immigrants who work in both low-wage and high-wage jobs.

To learn more, check out the report.

“Immigrants contribute roughly $103 billion annually, or 21 percent of the regional GDP, which is equivalent to their share of the population (21%),” the report says.

Immigrants play an important role in Greater Boston’s economic prosperity, as we explain in our report, “Global Greater Boston: Immigrants in a Changing Region.” buff.ly/ds44N6W

In addition to understanding distance, Dain notes, “We also need to think about whether the region should be improving the frequency of trips on certain rail lines. And we’ll need strategies that combine land use reform and transportation upgrades.”

To learn more, check out the report.

“Not all train stations are in walkable, mixed-use, amenity rich hubs. And not all mixed-use, walkable, amenity-rich, transit-served hubs have train stations, especially in our historic downtowns like Watertown Square.”

“The longer distances aren’t a failure,” Amy Dain, the report’s author, says providing context.

• approximately 60 percent of projects and 30 percent of units are within ½ mile of a station, and

• 20 percent of units are within ¼ mile of a station

...in adding housing that’s close to transportation.

The interactive map can be filtered by municipality and by distance from an MBTA station.

Among the findings on distance:

• approximately 57 percent of units are within one mile of a station, as the crow flies

The MBTA Communities Act has sparked more than 100 housing projects. How far are these projects from MBTA stations? According to our new report— “An Early Look at the MBTA Communities Permitting Pipeline” buff.ly/jXJVwEK — and a related interactive map, there has been success...

As the report explains, “This concentration of units in a small number of large projects raises a central question for estimating future impact of MBTA Communities: How much potential remains for large-scale development within MBTA Communities districts?”

To learn more, check out the report.

Under MBTA Communities zoning, 102 housing projects are in the pipeline, 83 of which are small projects that on average have fewer than 19 units per project.

In contrast, there are 19 larger projects that each have more than 100 units. These account for 80 percent of all the units in the pipeline.

Most of the housing projects in the MBTA Communities pipeline are small- or medium-sized projects that will produce fewer housing units, as we explain in our report —“An Early Look at the MBTA Communities Permitting Pipeline” buff.ly/jXJVwEK.

"The next step is to use the levers of state democracy to reform Chapter 40A, the Zoning
Act, to bypass local zoning in tailored ways and to adjust the rules of local zoning to facilitate more approvals."

As the report says, "The MBTA Communities law’s method of setting mandatory performance benchmarks for local zoning accomplished more than recent state efforts to persuade or incentivize municipalities to undertake voluntary reform."

Our new report — “An Early Look at the MBTA Communities Permitting Pipeline” buff.ly/Qvxi23l — points to the way that zoning creates the potential for housing production.

As Boston Indicators' Amy Zain, the report's author says, "Zoning reform isn't destiny. Zoning reform gives housing a chance."

As the report explains, a preliminary state list of projects “includes 102 developments containing 6,898 housing units, across 34 communities. The 6,898 units represent 6,804 net new units, as some projects replace or incorporate preexisting housing.”

Our new report—"An Early Look at the MBTA Communities Permitting Pipeline” buff.ly/jXJVwEK —looks at the impact that the MBTA Communities law is having on housing production.