Professors at Northeastern University believe their planned Web site will aid the creation of housing in Boston by serving as a guide for developers.
Just a week after a new report revealed that housing production in Greater Boston is lagging, professors at Northeastern University announced a plan to launch a tool that makes it easier to develop housing.
The university’s architecture department wants to create a housing Web site that will feature prototypes for different housing situations in Boston. The site essentially will serve as a guide for developers, with each housing prototype including information on zoning, acceptable site plans, setbacks, density, finishes, materials, costs and financial packaging and pre-approved loan types. It also will feature examples of good urban housing design that has worked in Boston neighborhoods, along with detailed descriptions of the housing characteristics found in each of the neighborhoods.
Complex regulations, zoning and difficulty getting financing for projects are just some of the “impediments” to housing development in the city, said George Thrush, chairman of Northeastern’s architecture department. Thrush, who met with architects and developers at Northeastern last week to discuss the Web site proposal, said the site will help to alleviate some of those challenges for developers by providing examples of acceptable housing models and financing vehicles.
But the Web site will be neither pro-developer nor pro-city. The ultimate goal is to increase housing production without destroying the city’s character, Thrush said.
“As the report card issued [two weeks ago] showed, there is a long-term shortage of housing supply,” said Thrush.
Thrush was referring to the “Greater Boston Housing Report Card” that was prepared by Northeastern’s Center for Urban and Regional Policy. The report, which looked at housing in 161 communities in Greater Boston, found that low housing-production levels during the last several years have led to a 50 percent increase in home prices since 1998. Rents also jumped 39 percent since 1995.
The report also showed that the region produced about half of the units that it needed to satisfy demand and meet the goals set in another report issued two years ago that called for the creation of 36,000 new housing units within a five-year period.
Valuable Tool
While many housing advocates praise Boston’s efforts to increase its housing supply and urge suburban communities to follow the city’s example, others point to rising home prices as evidence that the city must do more.
In some Boston neighborhoods, median prices for single-family homes have risen more than 20 percent during the first half of the year compared to the same period last year. Statistics from The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman, show that the median price for single-family homes sold in Jamaica Plain during the first six months of the year was $504,000, a 41 percent increase from the $357,500 median price a year ago.
In Brighton, the median price – $365,000 – for single-family homes sold during the first half of the year was 24 percent higher than the price posted during the same months last year.
The median price for single-family homes sold in Charleston was $415,000, up 13 percent from the $366,000 median price of last year. In more moderately priced Hyde Park, the median price for single-family homes sold in the first half of the year was $248,700 – a 9.5 percent increase from the $225,000 median price posted during the same period in 2001.
It’s not just homebuyers that are being priced out of the market. According to the report card issued two weeks ago, the median advertised rent for a two-bedroom apartment advertised last year in Boston was $1,700. In 12 out of 19 communities surrounding Boston, advertised rents surged over 30 percent between 1998 and 2001.
Northeastern’s Web site will initially feature six housing types: infill triple-decker, two-family home, small apartment building, large apartment building, row house and corner building. The Web site project will require a $60,000 budget for the first year, and university officials are currently seeking sponsors for the project. They also hope to partner with the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development, banks and developers.
A BRA spokeswoman said the Web site could be a valuable tool for prospective developers. “A Web site that shares information like this [can] make building in Boston accessible,” said Maureen Baumann.
Northeastern plans to have a functioning site by June of next year.
