Preliminary Election Day is Today!

The Somerville preliminary election is today, September 16. Elections like this have low turnout, so your vote is especially important. The next few years will be very important for the city’s overall direction and growth, so please be sure to show up and vote for:

Mayor: Willie Burnley, Jr.

Councilor at Large: Scott Istvan, Ben Wheeler, Jon Link, and Will Mbah

Councilor, Ward 7: Emily Hardt

And of course, please see our calendar for get-out-the-vote opportunities and canvassing.

Parking Math

With an eventual redevelopment of the Porter Square shopping center on the horizon, it’s worth doing a little back-of-the-envelope math about parking.

1. A typical parking space takes up 166 square feet by itself, or about 275 if you include the lanes for traveling within the lot.

2. A small studio apartment is about 500 square feet. This means a studio apartment takes up about as much space as 2.5 parking spaces.

3. In any given city, there are around 2.5 parking spaces per car — you need to have lots of open spaces to move cars around from home to work to stores and so on.

4. Each car requires about one apartment worth of parking space.

Just sayin’.

State Action Opportunity

The Joint Committee on Housing is hosting a public hearing on September 17th that will feature (H.1572 / S. 962) An Act to Promote Yes in My Backyard, along with several other important housing related bills. This is a top priority for Abundant Housing MA, so please help them out here.

Recommended

Home Prices Decline in a Growing Number of Markets as Inventories Climb: Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies reports on YIMBY success in several locations.

Here's what happens when private equity buys homes in your neighborhood: Key detail: “The best way to stick it to Blackstone and private equity, to prevent Wall Street firms from profiting off the housing crisis, is to make it easier to build more homes.”

New York’s Airbnb Crackdown, in Force for Two Years, Hasn’t Improved Housing Supply: Regulation of short term rentals isn’t a bad idea, but we also need to build more homes.

These Delays Are Making Housing Less Affordable: Strong Towns outlines key procedural factors that make it harder to build new homes.

Curbing Rising Housing Costs: A Model-Based Policy Comparison: The Journal of Economic Perspectives has an academic deep dive for you!