Newly built homes in the Greater Boston area are taking up more land than they have in the past. This map, which includes condominiums as well as single-family and multifamily properties, compares the period of 1998-2002 to previous years.

Newly constructed homes in Greater Boston are taking up more land, with half of the region’s new single-family houses built on nearly an acre of land or more, according to a recent study.

The study, done by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and MIT Center for Real Estate, found that the median lot size for single-family homes built between 1998 and 2002 in the metropolitan region was nine-tenths of an acre – twice as large as the lot sizes of homes built in the 1970s and 1980s.

The analysis examined all new single-family homes and condos and apartments constructed during the five-year period in 154 cites and towns within or close to Interstate 495, and compared it to existing housing density.

Out of the 123 communities located outside of Route 128, all but five – Peabody, Chelmsford, Tewksbury, Lawrence and Hull – built housing on lots that were on average larger than parcels used before 1998.

Half of those communities (62 total) – including Dover, Sherborn, Framingham, Hingham and North Andover – had average lot sizes that were more than twice as large.

The study is one of the first comprehensive analysis of land use for single-family and multifamily housing in Massachusetts.

“Given all this discussion on housing affordability and commuting costs, I was just amazed that no one was keeping score on how we’re using land for residential purposes,” said Henry O. Pollakowski, director of the MIT Center for Real Estate’s Housing Affordability Initiative.

Pollakowski said the median lot size for new single-family homes in Greater Boston has grown from a little less than half an acre two and three decades ago, to three-quarters of an acre in the early 1990s, to nearly an acre today.

A total of 50 communities – including Boxford, Pepperell, Weston, Wayland, Norwell, Wrentham and Medway – have median single-family lots sizes that exceed an acre, according to the study.

In Sherborn, where only 37 single-family homes were constructed during the five-year period studied, the median lot size is 4.1 acres, while in nearby Dover, the median lot size for the 96 homes built is 2.36 acres.

Townsend’s median lot size is 3.1 acres for the 101 single-family homes that were built during those years.

The results were surprising to Pollakowski. “I have been asking educated friends of mine to guess [the median lot size] and nobody gets it,” said Pollakowski, noting that everyone estimates that lots sizes are lower.

The study revealed that the 30,387 single-family homes built between 1998 to 2002 used 62 square miles of land – the size of Boston, Brookline and Arlington combined.

‘Squandering Land’
Large-lot zoning has come under intense scrutiny in recent years. Many groups have blamed large-lot zoning for causing sprawl, reducing housing production and pushing home prices up.

The Massachusetts Housing Partnership released another study about four months ago showing that the average lot size for all residential units built within the Route 128 and Interstate 495 corridor was almost the size of a football field. Written and researched by economist Edward Moscovitch, the study concluded that building homes on smaller lots could significantly boost housing production and reduce home prices and land consumption.

A recent survey by the Pioneer Institute and Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard University also illustrated how one-acre and two-acre zoning and other land-use regulations in many Boston-area suburbs were restricting housing development.

“It is well known that we are producing far less housing in Massachusetts than needed to sustain our state’s economic growth,” said MHP Executive Director Clark Ziegler, in a press release. “This new data shows that we are squandering land on large housing lots and missing opportunities every day to provide more housing while preserving open space and respecting our New England character.”

Pollakowski said he didn’t want to “muddy up” MHP/MIT study by presenting any policy recommendations.

“The numbers really speak for themselves,” he said.

Compared to other regions of the country, Greater Boston’s median lot size is much larger. In the West, the typical new house built on about a quarter of an acre, while in the South, the lot sizes are one-third of an acre, according to Pollakowski.

The increase in land consumption has troubled planners and smart-growth advocates.

“We’re building bigger and bigger houses on more and more land, but we’re still not building enough housing to meet our needs,” said Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a regional planning agency that represents 101 cities and towns in Greater Boston. “In many communities, this is the only way you’re allowed to build anything. It’s a very serious problem because it means we’re consuming land at an unsustainable pace.”

Some towns have taken steps to rectify this because they understand the connection between housing and the community’s economic well-being, said Draisen.

“But we’ve got a long way to go. Zoning bylaws continue to make it very difficult to build housing in a more dense pattern,” he said.

As part of its effort to develop a comprehensive regional plan for Greater Boston, MAPC has discovered that 50 towns in the Boston metro region will exceed water usage limits set by the state in 25 years if the current development patterns continue.

“A study like this is very helpful in understanding the impact that residential development is having on land use,” said Kristina Egan, director of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance. “Large-lot zoning is a big reason for our housing crisis and is rapidly changing our communities.”

But Egan said that reducing average lot sizes isn’t the only solution. “We see that reducing lot sizes doesn’t do any good if it encourages more construction on the periphery of communities in the form of sprawl,” she said.

Instead, the state must provide incentives to cities and towns to develop housing close to jobs, transportation hubs and retail centers, which helps cut down on fuel consumption, pollution and traffic, she said.

“Studies like this are silent about the biggest reason localities make unwise land-use decisions, namely, our outdate system of municipal finance,” she said. “It’s not surprising that municipalities struggling to provide services and balance their budgets only welcome new developments that pay for themselves with tax revenue. This leads many municipalities to say ‘no’ to most housing and ‘yes’ to commercial development.”

In addition to single-family housing, the study examined all recent condo and apartment construction, which generally uses of less land than single-family home development. Only one out of four communities outside Route 128 had any multifamily developments of five or more units from 1998 to 2002.

The amount of land used for each multifamily unit was considerably less than for single-family housing. The median multifamily unit consumed an eighth of an acre, according to the study.

In communities outside of Route 128, the median amount of land use for multifamily construction was one-fifth of an acre per unit.

Condo developments account for considerably more land use per unit than rental apartments, according to the study. The new median condo consumed one-third of an acre in cities and towns outside of Route 128, compared to one-tenth of an acre for the median apartment.

The MIT Center for Real Estate and MHP plan to update the zoning data annually. All the data will be posted on both groups’ Web sites.