Housing demand is changing. Is Brookline keeping up? Massachusetts has been grappling with a housing crisis since the 1980’s, and there is more demand for housing than there is available housing.
Background
According to ULI Boston/New England, Brookline’s housing crisis is rooted in outdated zoning policies. Brookline Development Professional Sandi Silk said that Brookline’s zoning laws cater to housing norms from the past. Over the past 50 years, traditional family models have become less dominant. So, while Brookline has more housing than it did in the past, fewer people are living in each unit. In fact, according to the 2020 census, the fastest growing household type is single persons younger than 62.
According to Silk, much of Brookline’s architecture is extremely old. Construction of urban housing and buildings began back in the 1800s, when public transportation in Brookline was horse-drawn omnibuses.
“In addition to having single family homes, most of what people think about Brookline is what they see along Beacon Street in particular, right along the streetcar routes, which is a lot of multi-family housing that dates back, you know, 100 plus years,” Silk said.
In addition to old pre-existing architecture, Silk said zoning laws have made it difficult to build the new types of homes, ones with two or more units, that meet today’s needs. The core challenge is aligning policy with the population we have rather than the one we used to be, according to Silk.
What has Brookline done so far?
Brookline has begun to make changes to stop the housing crisis. In 2021, Massachusetts passed the MBTA Communities Act, and in 2023 Brookline town meeting voted to comply with the act and rezone certain areas.
“What Brookline rezoned under the MBTA Communities Act is a lot of parcels along Harvard Street and other areas that are really not that big in and of themselves,” Silk said.
While Brookline has passed these new zoning laws, in reality, there hasn’t been much development since the new parcels along Harvard St, according to Brookline Architect Alan Christ, which Silk said she agreed with.
“[The parcels] are owned by a lot of different owners so you don’t have a lot of continuous ownership, where somebody could sit, could assemble, like three or four parcels, all adjacent to one another, to get a larger parcel,” Silk said.
Brookline real estate agent Chuck Silverston said he has noticed a shift in developer interest and investment patterns in recent years, especially since the MBTA Communities Act passed. The term “zoning unlock” is the new buzzword that is being used to describe this trend.
“Feasibility studies, density projections and land assemblies are happening behind the scenes. I’ve seen more calls in the last year from midsize development firms and investment groups asking about multi-family potential than I did in the five years prior,” Silverston said.
According to Silverston, while many are shifting their gaze towards the re-zoned parcels, it remains a challenge to obtain them.
“Brookline’s not going to turn into a developer free-for-all; the barriers are still real,” Silverston said. “But the interest is up, and the game has changed.”
The limits of the land and the weight of history
According to Silverston, despite some changes, obstacles still exist. In exploring the development in Brookline, Silverston said that there are two major barriers in the development of our town: a lack of physical land availability and maintenance of historical character.
In the 20 years of Silverston working as a real estate agent, he said Brookline has developed, while largely maintaining the colonial prestige, Victorian character and mid-century bones. More generally, the housing story in Brookline has been a constant evolution, not a revolution.
“Think: condo conversions in classic triple-deckers, mid-rise buildings near Beacon Street, and the occasional modernist wild card pushing boundaries in Chestnut Hill,” Silverston said.
Christ said that while it’s important to adapt and not remain rooted in the historical ways of Brookline, a slow progression of adapting architectural styles is key to moving towards a developed town smoothly. When designing these new homes, Christ said that he largely lets the materials and technology they use inform the designs for the new home.
“For example, if you designed a house to accomodate solar panels, you would end up with a very different house than you would if you designed a big Victorian house 100 years ago that has all kinds of different roof pitches and angles,” said Christ. “But I also try to make sure that the scale is in keeping with the neighborhood.”
While people have expressed concern about the development of Brookline and the destruction of Brookline’s character, Silk said the concern about the “mom and pop” stores is not valid, because in reality, the properties cannot be sold without the consent of the owner of the store. According to Silk, essentially, as long as the “mom and pop” chooses to remain in business, they are not at risk of closure, and the charm of Brookline will go nowhere.
However, bigger than the problem of maintaining historical integrity, is the fact that there really isn’t much space to develop, said Silk. In the urban areas of North Brookline, single floor shops take over the area, where there is huge potential for building up with more units. The houses that span all the way into South Brookline, while less densely fit, cover most of Brookline’s land, said Silverston.
“Brookline is landlocked and largely built out,” Silverston said. “There’s no blank canvas here—only existing neighborhoods with deeply rooted identities and highly engaged residents.”
Due to the difficulties of developing on the land in Brookline, the most change that architects and real estate agents alike have seen is unit conversions. Christ explained that these conversions commonly keep the exterior of the house the same, but modernize and sometimes split up the interior. Another popular addition being built according to Christ are accessory dwelling units (ADUs), small homes or apartments built on the same property as a main house.
“I’m a huge proponent of accessory dwelling units,” said Christ. “They can take a garage or a basement and put a unit in there and those are going to be more affordable because they are typically smaller–one or two bedrooms.”
According to Silverston, these units are ways to add more housing into Brookline to combat the housing crisis, while also bringing in more affordable housing. The constant increase in housing prices in Brookline has been a problem for years.
“Let’s call it what it is—Brookline used to be expensive. Now it’s elite,” Silverston said.
Affordable housing, or lack thereof?
Brookline’s steep housing prices have created a lack of affordability, according to Silverston. In response, the town has begun the construction of affordable housing units. This was done in large part with the Brookline Housing Authority, who have added over 290 new affordable housing units through major redevelopment projects at locations like 32 Marion Street and the Walnut-High site. These projects replace outdated buildings with energy-efficient apartments for low-income seniors, disabled residents and families, said Christ. The numerous new units are designed to meet both housing needs in terms of price and sustainability goals.
According to Christ, these affordable buildings are great opportunities for more housing at lower prices in the town. In fact, the push for affordable housing has been so strong that, according to Christ, developers have used it to justify building new projects, often with full-priced units and a portion set aside as affordable, even before the MBTA Communities Act passed.
“Developers were, and they’re still doing these, [projects] called 40Bs, where they’re providing affordable housing per state law 40B that allows them to accede the zoning for the neighborhood if they’re providing a certain number of affordable units [in the buildings],” Christ said.
The 40B developments are being built in Brookline’s high-demand urban areas. These large new apartment buildings are helpful for people looking for both affordable and market-rate housing in a prime location.
“One of the real benefits of the MBTA zoning, and why there have been a handful of 40Bs [on Harvard Ave], is that you have all these goods and services and infrastructure already there,” Silk said. “It makes it a really attractive place where people want to live, and there’s room; the density can easily be accommodated with existing infrastructure.”
In Brookline, the 40Bs are mostly extra stories of apartment buildings above the existing street level shops. Christ and Silk both said that building up from the various single level stores across the urban areas of Brookline is the key to successfully developing the town with as little disruption as possible.
Despite all the effort to build more housing units by way of apartment buildings, ADU’s and unit conversions, Brookline housing prices remain excessively high, Silverston said.
“Is it more accessible? Compared to a $2.5M Colonial with a slate roof and a winding driveway, yes,” Silverston said. “But when your new 2-bed condo still costs over a million bucks, we’re not exactly solving affordability. We’re easing the exclusivity.”
Building forward, carefully
According to Silverston, Brookline is not suddenly going to turn into a new, modern town with daunting buildings that are taking over. The truth is, the town has preventions from that in order to hold on to the history of the town and the classic characteristics of Brookline.
“Will it change Brookline’s look? Maybe in pockets,” said Silverston. “But the law doesn’t override historic protections. It nudges growth into areas that can handle it—close to transit, near commercial zones and outside the tightly protected historic districts.”
As Christ said, houses, in comparison to apartment buildings, are seeing very different changes. Development is largely avoiding the residential areas, as ADUs and unit conversions are extremely minor, and often not even visible from the street. In South Brookline, where land is more accessible, houses themselves are bigger, and less development is emerging, said Silk.
“Brookline in some ways is two towns. [In] south Brookline you get into much larger houses in large lots that are virtually all single-family. And that is not changing,” said Silk.
The town is not standing still—new zoning laws, ADUs, 40Bs and affordable housing developments signal a willingness to evolve—but the pace is cautious, and the barriers are real, according to Christ. With small parcels, historic character and fragmented ownership limiting sweeping transformation, Brookline’s approach is incremental, Silk said.
Still, the foundation for change has been laid. As developers, architects and policymakers respond to new demand, the real question becomes whether these early efforts will be enough, said Silverston.
Silk said that building more housing is essential to keeping Brookline a place where people of all ages can live, and affordability is what allows that. In her job as a developer, she said she strives to build an accessible town for people, but one project can’t solve everything.
“Brookline needs places for seniors to move into and for new families to move into and for people like you to come back to when you graduate college and want to move close to home that you can afford,” Silk said. “But it costs a lot, and you each have to be willing to give something and collaborate with people towards that end.”
