First, Brookline and Greater Boston are in an urgent housing shortage, which has only gotten worse since the pandemic. Housing availability and affordability threaten our communities’ vitality and our economic competitiveness.

The Commonwealth recognized the importance of permitting more homes at all price points when it passed the MBTA Communities Act. Brookline agreed to do its part when Town Meeting overwhelmingly passed the Consensus MBTA Communities Act Warrant Article a year ago. The Harvard Street rezoning is a major achievement, but, by definition, it permits more housing only in that one key corridor.

Second, Warrant Article 9 will help residents remain in their homes as their housing needs change. Most of Brookline’s T district homes are currently owner occupied. Owners could rent out an additional, more affordable, unit for extra income, or sell it as a condo to reduce their mortgage. They could create an accessible unit and age in place, or build an independent apartment for their adult children, a home health aide, a nanny, or for their aging parents. As Brookline confronts the need to raise taxes to support our schools and ensure basic Town services, residents could also use income from this third unit to offset those tax increases.

Proposals to limit the height and roofline of buildings are intended to encourage reuse of current buildings and, when teardowns happen, new buildings compatible with current architecture. We believe that the need to preserve neighborhood character is compatible with adding more homes. Indeed, these ideas have been discussed together for some time:

In the Fall of 2022, Town Meeting extended the demolition delay period, and added Section 5.09.2(o), which requires a special permit and design review before a full rebuild. It also passed a resolution directing the Planning Department to develop anti-teardown strategies, including adding a third unit in T districts.

In the Spring of 2023, Town Meeting changed the zoning in several T-5 districts north of Coolidge Corner (the “T-5 (NH)” districts). These changes, designed to discourage teardowns and preserve neighborhood character, included massing standards, depth limitations, and roofline restrictions. The pro-housing group Brookline for Everyone supported the T-5 (NH) proposal “as a first step,” with the explicit expectation that this zoning would be revisited soon to allow an additional unit. The Planning Board took a similar position.

Earlier this year the Select Board approved Brookline’s Housing Production plan, developed over many months of community engagement. It recommended adding units to T and F districts. Article 9 would permit a third unit by right if the building is substantially preserved, and our zoning already requires a special permit and design review if a property owner wanted to add a third unit as part of a full rebuild.

The housing crisis is severe and continuing. It will take time for any reforms to actually produce new housing. Our article, as is, can be passed with a simple majority, under the state’s “Housing Choice” rules, because it makes much-need housing possible without complicated restrictions. It complements current and proposed design standards in the T districts.

Our once-every-twenty-year Comprehensive Planning process, now just getting underway, will reveal our community’s vision and values for land use, and suggest approaches that can be implemented over time.We recognize the importance of the Comp Plan and respect its important work of bringing together all views to create a comprehensive Vision of Brookline’s future land use. But the urgency of the need and the time required for zoning changes to translate into new housing requires Brookline to act now.

Some Brookline residents fear that allowing three units in T districts will incentivize replacing an existing one or two family building with a boxy, flat-roofed three family building that might clash with existing architecture. Changing the number of allowable units will not contribute to such outcomes:

Warrant Article 9 does not increase the buildable envelope on any lot, merely the number of units.

If a building is on the market in a T-5 or T-6 zone, it can already be replaced by a new, larger building with two units. This proposal would allow the developer to add a third unit within that same built envelope, creating somewhat smaller homes than those we now get.

Current homeowners are unlikely to tear down their home and replace it with a newly built building. They are more likely to initiate a major renovation that maintains most of the current building, allowing them to increase their income, build an accessible unit so they can age in place, or they might add an apartment for a caregiver, an elderly parent, or their adult children. They could also sell the new unit to simply reduce their mortgage.

A homeowner is highly unlikely to create a full-footprint, flat-roofed third unit on their third floor because reconfiguring a roofline and adding a staircase and/or fire escapes to a third floor is difficult and expensive. A more likely scenario is for a homeowner to create a third unit by rearranging space and/or building out a basement.

Because many of the older two-family buildings do not entirely conform to current zoning, any change will typically require a special permit, allowing the Planning Board to weigh in on the design.

Many homeowners in Brookline prefer to age in place as long as they can. Our proposal would allow homeowners in T districts to supplement their finances by creating an additional unit, allowing them to age in place, perhaps in a smaller, newly created, accessible unit.

Most developers in T zones find it more profitable to sell buildings to homeowners, not hold or sell them as rental properties. Allowing a third unit would reduce the size of the redeveloped units, mitigating the risk for the developer while also creating somewhat more affordable homes.

The Planning Department’s focus on design standards for adaptive reuse will also encourage adding small rental units to unfinished basements and rebuilt attics.

The new State ADU law also applies to single family homes on T parcels, permitting those homeowners to add an ADU if they wish. Imposing an ADU-like size limit for a third unit, however, would deny homeowners and developers the flexibility to reduce the average size of new units, and could limit the ability of an existing homeowner to rearrange space, or use unfinished space, while preserving the building.

If an existing homeowner can create an affordable family sized unit rather than a more expensive teardown and rebuild, then we want to encourage that option to create new housing and allow the homeowner to remain.

Brookline’s small residential districts, including two-family districts, have high percentages of owner occupants. Adding a third unit provides existing homeowners with additional financial and lifestyle flexibility.

There is no evidence of private equity buying up small residential properties in Brookline for rental. Nearly all developers in the small residential zones are merchant builders, meaning they create condominium units for homeowners rather than a rental building. This is due to the established market premium of being a homeowner occupant in Brookline. Therefore, an investor-owner of a three-family building will also be highly motivated to resell to owner-occupants rather than remain as an absentee landlord.

Given these market characteristics, deed-restricting a third unit, which would require the Town to add regulatory monitoring and enforcement for a very small number of units, is unnecessary and impractical.

Yes, three residential units in the same building triggers commercial building code requirements for automatic sprinkler systems and egress stairs.

A NFPA 13D tankless fire protection system using PEX piping satisfies this important safety requirement for a new or gut-renovated three-unit, three-story building. Estimates to install this in a 6,000 square foot building are $30,000, or $5 per square foot. If an existing homeowner adds a third unit within the building without major work to other units, Deputy Fire Chief Cantor wrote that he very much doubts that the remainder of the building would need to be sprinklered, but the specific circumstances would need to guide that decision.

Egress requirements will vary depending on interpretation by the Building Commissioner and the size and configuration of the building and lot. The Commissioner has indicated two egress stairs, one at the front and one at the back, serving all three units, may be allowed.

Would any home upgrades made to convert a single or 2-family dwelling into a 3-family dwelling prompt a re-assessment, and would the increased property value be considered new growth?

Yes. New growth is derived from the cost of upgrade investments such as a renovated kitchen or adding an addition.

Would single- and two-family dwellings in the T-5 and T-6 districts appreciate in value because they now have more options to rent or sell off portions of the dwelling? Without anyone doing any home modifications, would those valuations lead to higher assessments, and thus higher taxes on those dwellings and – due to Proposition 2.5 – corresponding decreases on other properties in those districts as well as all dwellings in all other districts?

Over time, any value associated with a third unit will likely be reflected in assessments but only once there are comparable market sales. Assessments of T zone and three-family buildings are based on sales data, not rents.

In the existing by-law, use 4A is a combination of two different building types: “Dwelling on a separate lot for three families or attached dwelling on a separate lot for two families.” Our Warrant Article proposes to allow only detached homes to become three family homes. It was therefore necessary to split the use “4A” into 4A and 4B, so that the allowed uses for “attached dwelling” (the new 4B) remain unchanged.

In T districts, there are 1081 parcels large enough for a three-family building that don’t already have three dwelling units. These parcels contain 1736 dwelling units. In the unlikely scenario that these 1081 parcels contained three-family buildings, they contain 3243 dwelling units, an increase of 1507 dwelling units.

But that will never happen. Of these 1081 parcels in the T districts, 79% have owner-occupants, so change will be gradual, as these owners move to different life stages and need more or less space. When an owner’s space needs change, this WA permits existing single- and two-family homeowners to add a unit (or two) without selling their homes for demolition and rebuilding. This income-generating opportunity helps homeowners stay in Brookline. Additionally, 287 of these parcels contain two-unit condo buildings, which are unlikely to be redeveloped due to separate ownership.

Likewise, most parcels that are not owner-occupied will only be converted slowly, as the profits from redevelopment outweigh the income being generated.

Where there is at least one owner occupant on a parcel, redevelopment, especially a teardown, is unlikely to happen quickly. The following charts show the preponderance of owner occupancy.

Across the T districts, 86.4% of single family homes are owner occupied, 86.1% of two unit condos have an owner living in them, and 65.5% of two family buildings have an owner living in them.