SteveR: initial revision

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= Friday, September 21, 2018 =

== Opening Plenary ==

''Ed Glaeser (Economics Professor & Researcher, Harvard University)''

I arrived towards the end of the talk, but noted two points in the
middle of a slide.

* Zoning multi-family housing out of Cambridge has had the effect of pushing out poor and black residents.
* High housing costs redistribute wealth to older generations, particularly those who bought properties when housing costs are low. Most of their family wealth comes from housing.

Next, Mr. Glaeser talked about using Yelp to measure
gentrification. There turns out to be a strong correlation between
gentrification and Yelp reviews, particularly Yelp reviews of
laundromats. Apparently yuppies are more likely to write laundromat
reviews. The number of Cafes, Starbucks, and college-educated
individuals are also proxies for measuring gentrification.

A company named Streetscore ran a survey, where participants were
shown a pair of pictures and asked "which makes you feel
safer". People tended to pick gentrified areas. An MIT computer
scientist used these photos and survey results to train a machine
learning algorithm. This is potentially a way to measure
gentrification on a much broader scale, using machine learning and
images from (say) Google Street view.

City life has an impact on the environment. City residents tend to
have smaller houses, and drive shorter distances. There's less
environmental impact when you move people closer together. We have a
lot to gain by building up rather than building out.

Temperate areas have a lower carbon footprint than non-temperate
ones. Less energy is used for heating and cooling.

Most importantly, cities generate ideas. They allow people to meet and
get together.

Question: Should municipalities modify local regulations to require
environmental impact assessments?

Yes. And these environmental impact assessments should consider the
site, local, and national environments.

Comment: Harvard has an educational program about cities. It's called
Cities-X.

Comment: 97% of the cities in California don't meet state-mandated
affordable housing requirements, but there are no penalties for
failing to do so.

I'm big on penalties. But that means we have to litigate.

Question: How do you respond to the criticism that infill development
increases prices?

Increasing the amount of a commodity never caused its price to go
up. The goal isn't cheap land. The goal is allowing people to make a
cheap landing.

Question: Should we say yes or no to Amazon?

Well, I'll just say that the community that gets Amazon's HQ2 probably
deserves Amazon's HQ2.

== Modern zoning for Modern Times ==

''Andre Leroux (Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance)'',
''Brian Hanlon (California YIMBY)'',
''Dante Ramos (Boston Globe)'',
''Rachel Heller (Citizens Housing and Planning Association)'',
''Victoria Fierce (California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund)''

The yimby movement arose from dissatisfaction with local laws. But if
you can't get anywhere at the local level, where do you go next?

Is the climate in Sacramento getting better or worse? It's getting
better. For decades, California had no interest in housing, but now
they're starting to.

Why put the burden of proof on cities to reject housing? We can fine
local governments that don't meet housing production requirements. The
money from these fines would go into an affordable housing trust fund.

The MA legislature supports housing. Local governments can be less
supportive. There's broad support for creating housing incentives in
Massachusetts, but fewer people think of housing as a moral
obligation. Incentives need both a bar and a floor.

The MA state senate is pro-housing. The governor proposed a housing
bill to make housing production easier. The house was more
conservative, because of the potential for challenges at the local
level.

Where should housing policy be decided?

Cities are about land control; where housing goes and cannot go. We
only have one planet and we need to sustain it. Moving up the
legislative chain helps. Do whatever the nimbys do. If it worked for
them, it can work for us.

Massachusetts needs to produce 17,000 units/year for housing
stability.

We have to shift tactics on housing. Make arguments about building
great neighborhoods (transit-oriented development, for example). We
have to get more involved with local matters. That will make it easier
to push initiatives at the state level.

How do you engage people in local decisions and the planning process?
How do you create opportunities for people to weigh in?

Planners have spent decades been trying to figure out how to involve
people in the planning process, and we've failed miserably. Maybe we
should just stop having meetings.

We need a moral framework. Cities shouldn't have the opportunity not
to provide a human right.

Our yimby organizations have a rule: show up.

SB 827 was a California bill that would have allowed upzoning near
mass transit. What went wrong with SB 827?

There were some very loud voices in opposition to SB 827, and they
weren't necessarily representative of the population.

Intentionally design your groups to include people of color, women,
and so fourth. It helps to have a diverse coalition.

What about media?

Media formats make it difficult to have meaningful empathetic
conversations. But we need to use both social media and traditional
media.

As a non-profit, we need our own media platform, so we have a
traditional website. But we also use social media and face-to-face
interactions.

Different forms of media come with their own audiences and
demographics. We need to reach people where they're at. Different
audiences might require different forms of dissemination.

Sometimes, getting people to tweet at their legislators helps.

The United States is 50 different labs of democracy, so it's helpful
to look at what's happening in other states. Vancouver and Portland
recently legalized duplexes, which was a step forward.

What about incentives? Incentives aren't sufficient by themselves; you
need a mix of carrots and sticks. For example, in Massachusetts 40B is
a stick and 40R is a carrot. However, if new development is coming,
incentives can help move that along.

Strategies that tie housing production to local aid for schools and
roads can be effective. Massachusetts has a law that does this, but
the law hasn't been enforced in 30 years.

One of CaRLA's goals is public impact lawsuits. But these cases can
take a long time to litigate, and can be very expensive. In CA we have
a fair housing act, which we can use when housing laws create
disparate impacts.

== Before you say "Yes in My Backyard": How to Develop without Displacement ==

''Dan Bartman (Senior Planner, Somerville)'',
''John DePriest (Director of Planning, Chelsea)'',
''Carlos Espinoza-Toro (Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation)'',
''Angie Liou (Asian Community Development Corporation)'',
''Karina Milchman (Metropolitan Area Planning Council)'',
''Dave Traggorth (Traggorth Companies)'',
''Scott Hayman (Somerville Community Corporation)''

What protocols can improve diversity while expanding growth?

Angie Liou talks about gentrification in Chinatown. Major cities have
experienced economic growth, but the benefits are not spread
equally. Cities are generally not prepared to deal with income
inequality and the displacement of low-income residents. Once the
combat zone was cleaned up, developers saw opportunities in Chinatown.
They built 3,000 units of luxury housing; rising rents and evictions
priced out longtime residents and businesses. When Chinatown CDC
formed, there wasn't enough housing to go around, period. Our first
project was a 250-unit high rise, with 46% affordable units.

We did another project in 2015, with 40% affordable units. This
project was criticized over building height, and the decision to
include market-rate apartments. In Chinatown, trying to fight
development is like trying to fight back a tide. It's better to
leverage housing for affordable development.

How is gentrification an issue? Who benefits, and who gets hurt?

West Somerville used to be called Slummerville, but it's become
popular during the last few years. The Green Line extension has made
it an especially hot market, along with the close proximity to
schools. The impacts are absurd. Lots of foreign money is coming
in. The Somerville Community Corporation started buying houses to take
them off the market. People often move out when their building is
sold, because they expect the rents to go up. Housing affordability,
gentrification, and displacement are big topics. Somerville's housing
market is way out of balance. People offer $50-100k over asking price,
and pay cash. Properties are getting sold via blind auctions, where
they buyers don't get to see the bids.

In JP, we think it's important to keep small retail spaces affordable,
not just housing. Developers buy commercial spaces and raise the rent,
just like they do with apartments.

Chelsea redeveloped a former industrial complex near city hall. This
was followed by the Silver Line extension. Chelsea is becoming a hot
market, and people are feeling it. What happens in a hot market when
it's not a hot market? That's the time to think about
gentrification. We built 300 units, 50% of them affordable, before the
market started to heat up. We couldn't do that kind of a project now.

What regional forces and factors contribute to housing cost increases?

People in Chelsea were receptive to the silver line, but things are
different now. We have wealthy communities that want to keep people
out, or ones that are afraid of any development at all. Some of this
is driven by demographics - people move into the area for work, and
there's not enough housing to go around. We built much more housing in
the 1960s and 1980s. Today's households are smaller. We have empty
nesters, and couples delaying having children. Even without a
population increase, we need more units.

Who opposes new development? What are you seeing, and from whom? How
do you achieve consensus on what's acceptable?

People seem to feel entitled to pretty much everything. Everyone wants
something different, and nothing gets done. It's difficult and costly
to get projects off the ground.

Somerville has few resources to build affordable housing. We proposed
a transfer tax to raise funds, but that idea was rejected. One
affordable housing project was sued by an abutter. The project height
was reduced by one floor, and then the abutter moved away. Their
objections cost the city an affordable unit. Special permits and
lawsuits make it hard to build, and every project ends up being a
negotiation. Sometimes due process and equal protections get thrown
out during the special permit process. For example, people oppose
projects simply because the developer isn't local. Luxury condos are
becoming a vehicle for money laundering. I don't think people should
be able to do this.

People in JP really try to engage. It's not always about stopping
development. Every neighborhood has to renew itself. Development needs
to be fair and equitable.

A lot of nimbys are long-term homeowners. They have long-term
stability, and are more concerned about change.

Some affordable housing advocates oppose projects because they don't
think they're affordable enough. In the end, this winds up killing the
project.

We should focus on policy, so it's more affordable to build.

Why do cities have to solve these problems by themselves? In some
places, a lot of planning decisions are made at the county or regional
level.

For developers, figuring out who to partner with is key. What are the
needs of the community? Sometimes these are different from your
original idea, but that's okay.

Talk to your neighbors, and build projects that are more responsive to
the community.

How does maintaining small businesses help maintain a neighborhood?

When you have a small business, money stays in the area and pays for
things in the area. Small businesses often work together, which
multiplies their economic development. They support local events, and
often show healthy social aspects.

What kind of anti-displacement efforts has Somerville been thinking
about?

We have tenant matching services, and some services for small
businesses. Development doesn't always cause business
displacement. For example, Davis Square has a higher rate of turnover
than Union Square, even though Union Square has seen much more
development.

What about tenant protections in Somerville?

We have a new department to deal with tenant/landlord disputes. This
department has four case workers and a director. We're trying to
institute a flippers tax; this would apply to property bought and sold
within one year.

Fighting displacement isn't just a matter of building more affordable
housing. You can buy buildings in order to keep them affordable. We
also educate tenant's about their rights. We just passed a 20%
inclusionary zoning provision. We try to get developers to build
affordable housing in a project, so those units are available first.

Question: Could you talk about efforts and successes to provide
affordable housing for the undocumented?

Somerville's Hundred Homes Project was motivated by the needs of
vulnerable people. This sort of thing needs to be done at a larger
scale.

Question: What happened with the zoning provision to end
triple-deckers in Somerville?

When we started to rewrite Somerville's zoning laws, we went around
the city to survey what was there. We wanted to write regulations that
reflected the physical fabric of the city. Somerville has lots of
triple-deckers, four-plexes, and six-plexes in our two-family zone. We
tried to have the new zoning law reflect that, but people pushed back;
they were concerned about people building triple deckers where there
currently aren't any. As the housing crisis has worsened, people have
become less concerned with aesthetics. The next iteration will include
triple-deckers, and a range of other housing options. Zoning is a
reflection of the political climate.

Question: Could you talk about business displacement? For example,
warehouses being affected by a high cost per square foot.

Boston explicitly zoned for this, especially in the New Market
area. Somerville zoned for arts and artisanal fabrication. The
Mercardo Model is a way to protect small businesses. Get together, buy
a building, and share it cooperatively.

== Solving Housing Politics to Win: the UK Experience ==

''John Myers (London YIMBY Alliance)''

London YIMBY's web site is https://www.londonyimby.org.

London has 2% of the land in the UK, but 40% of the total housing
value.

London has more renters than homeowners, but homeowners tend to be the
ones who care about things like land use and zoning. Most zoning wins
wind up creating more homeowners, and that makes the next steps
harder.

There are two questions I like to ask

# What would winning permanently look like? And,
# How would we get there?

"A core goal of public policy should be to facilitate the development
of institutions that bring out the best in humans." (Quote from Elino
Ostrom).

The challenge is to find solutions that address people's concerns.

Housing prices cause lots of damage to peoples wages.

In London, we've had a lot of success with single block upzoning
initiatives. These initiatives work in two ways: applying to an entire
block, or applying to block face (both sides of a street). The idea is
to give residents the option of upzoning themselves, by adding height
or allowing multifamily residences. In terms of height, upzoned
blocks often go from three stories to four or five stories.

Many Victorian homes were 4-5 stories tall, so these changes actually
fit in well. London YIMBY has written a handbook. You can find it at
https://www.londonyimby.org/handbook

== Closing Plenary: Building Equity Through Home ownership Solutions ==

''Chrystal Kornegay (MassHousing)'',
''Leslie Reid (Madison Park Development Corporation)'',
''Jarrid Green (Democracy Collective)'',
''Joe Kriesbert (MADCD)''

Why is home ownership still a core part of the American Dream?

Home ownership is pivotal to building wealth, and it's what we've
internalized as success. Communities of color have not had this
privilege.

Rent stability is as important to urban areas as home ownership is to
the suburbs. The FHA started as a massive transfer of equity from the
government to private individuals. The mortgage interest deduction was
one of the biggest transfers.

What tools are available to expand home ownership?

Some examples are community land trusts, resident-owned cooperatives,
housing cooperatives, community benefits agreements, land banks. The
cooperative economy has been around for over a hundred years, when
black folks tried to own their own homes.

Massachusetts has a framework to deliver regulated (aka affordable)
housing. There are resources at the state, federal, and local level
for developers of affordable homes. The challenge is that equity is
passed on to the next owner; the current owner can't take that equity
with them.

Part of the challenge is determining the goal of home ownership. It's
really about community, family, and stability. A program to narrow the
wealth gap would look very different. We can create loans and products
to help on the buyers side. It's hard to pull yourself up by the
bootstraps when you've got no straps, and no boots.

We need different notions of what a starter home is. We have a lot
less land than we did in the middle of the twentieth century.

When trying to create more housing and more diverse housing, how are
the politics different between rental and owned units?

The market decides. If people want rental units, you'll get rental
units. Large households are a challenge, because many market units are
1-2 bedrooms.

Community control can involve rental or owned housing. It can be less
about the market and more about local control. What power do you have?
The top 10% of earners in the US have 90% of the wealth.

What about the suburbs?

That's one of our challenges. As a country, we have not been building
enough housing. In the suburbs, most of the conversations are about
views. The issue is figuring out how to build anything at all.

Suburban residents tend to dislike anything different from what they
have at the current moment in time. The person who owns a piece of
land thinks they have a say in everything within a four mile
radius. We have to start thinking about `and' rather than `or'. We
don't need rental housing or owned housing - we need both.

What are some tools for mitigating displacement?

Back in the day, you had generations of families living in triple
deckers. That was stability. Even limited income housing allows
building of equity.

What are some of the challenges with inclusionary zoning?

I haven't seen inclusionary zoning as an obstacle. Multi-family
buildings have shared systems that can be expensive to replace and
maintain. The challenge is balancing cost between market rate and
affordable units.

Any closing remarks?

I question whether home ownership can prevent
displacement. Displacement has been baked into our public policies for
centuries. Exclusion and discrimination are built into the system.

In 2008, black and brown families lost 50% of their wealth, and
they're still struggling to get it back. White folks came back much
more quickly. We can't have policies that favor specific groups.

Housing and zoning have become contact sports. Showing up is half the
battle.

Housing is a basic human need, but we keep treating it as an
asset. It's commodified, and commodification is what makes it
expensive. Some our our pains started with the end of rent control. A
wealth transfer via a tax on wall street would be a good start.

Question: How do we fight the money?

First, you have to define who is "we" and who is "the money". Then,
you have to be in for the long game. Stick together and stick to your
strategy. The challenge is changing capitalism.

To fight money, look at history. We need to fight our short-term
memory. Twitter is good for talking, but not for showing up to
hearings, or commenting on public policy.

= Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018 =

== Equity and Winning ==

''Angela Park''

You can't win without embedding equity and justice in everything you
do. Equity plays out at multiple levels:

* individual
* group identity
* institutional groups and organizations
* social structures. These are things that enable us to function as a society.

Equity has to happen at all of these levels. What happens at the
higher level affects people at the lower levels.

We need to think about "equity for whom". You can't talk about equity
without talking about identity.

Diversity is an ambiguous term. It could refer to gender, age, race,
or income level. Don't try to hide behind the ambiguity, and don't
use the word unless you say what you're referring to.

Diversity is a measure of similarity or difference in a system. You
must be clear about the system and the thing you are
measuring. Diversity applies at the system level; it's not an
individual attribute. Diversity only matters if it's crucial to your
mission, and if it's something you're missing.

Some attributes are visible at first sight, like age and gender and
class. There are many invisible attributes that cannot be detected
from a person's appearance.

Any single person can have many group identities. What are the most
important group identities that shape the issues facing yimbys? Class,
family size, renter vs owner, income level, long-term vs new
residents, and race.

Housing policy is deeply steeped in race. You can't talk about housing
policy without talking about race.

Group identity comes with power dynamics. You can be one-up
advantaged, or onedown disadvantaged. Power dynamics will put you into
a dominant or a subordinated group. Members of the dominant group get
the benefit of the doubt, simply by being part of the dominant
group. Members of the dominant group tend to see things through an
individual lens, while members of the subordinated group tend to see
things through a group lens. For example, at a conference, a woman is
more likely than a man to notice a lack of female speakers.

Society gives us a lot of different messages about groups. People in
dominant groups normalize that dominance. Members of subordinated
groups tend to rely on society's messages about their group. Both
groups collude with the status quo. We tend not to interrupt messed up
stuff. People tend to be conflict averse. We're a societal species
that depends on collaboration for survival. Members of subordinated
groups tend to collude for survival (i.e., don't rock the boat, and
don't make trouble).

It's important to pay attention to intent and impact. Members of
dominant groups tend to fall back on intent ("I didn't mean it like
that"), rather than acknowledging the impact to a subordinated
group. To members of a subordinated group, the impact of thoughtless
comments is cumulative.

The way an individual is perceived often depends on power dynamics and
group identities. By definition, societal change can't happen without
support from the dominant group. Subordinated groups don't have the
power to do it themselves. Members of a dominant group have an
obligation to give space and voice to subordinated groups. For
example, ensuring that people who are working three part-time jobs
have a way to give feedback.

At a high level, what are your values and what are you trying to
accomplish? Is your job to create housing for wealthy white people, or
is your job to create housing for everyone who needs it?

You can't sustain diversity and inclusiveness without attention to
power dynamics. Inclusion means that people have a voice and input
into decisions. It means being valued, encouraged, and supported to do
your best work.

Belonging means more than having access. It means having a voice, the
opportunity to participate, being respected at a basic level, and the
right to contribute and make demands.

Equity and justice are about incomes and disproportionate
impacts. Equality and equal are not the same things. Power dynamics
prevent equality. The only way to achieve a universal good is to focus
on people who are furthest away from it.

Requirements for justice and equity:

* Procedural fairness. Do people have a say in things that affect them?
* Distributional. How are benefits and burdens distributed?
* Structural
* Transgenerational

Structuralisms are biased across institutions and societies. They are
cumulatively compounded effects that systemically privilege dominant
groups, and disadvantage subordinated groups. For example, education
is funded by property taxes. Therefore, where you live has a big
effect on the education that you receive.

If you're not actively thinking about building equity in your
community, then you're probably undermining it. To the degree that you
have power, think about clear framing and goals. Revamp policies with
a lens toward equity. Recruiting and hiring policies should have clear
priorities. Assess your workplace culture. Ask yourself why you care;
you have to have a business case. Look at how you function, your
policies, and when you have meetings. What do you build in as
qualifications for the hiring process?

Be clear about what equity means for your success. This needs to be
part of everything you do.

Question: What's the importance of being perceived?

Be aware that people don't see you just as an individual. Perceived
group identity is always a factor. This applies to you, to your
coalition, and to your work.

Question: What if your organization isn't paying attention to equity?

Figure out who the influential people are, and build relationships
with them. Ask about effectiveness. Make the business case. You have
to be able to name dynamics, and what's getting in the way of being
successful.

[[Category: Notes]]

Yimbytown 2018 - Revision history

SteveR: initial revision