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In the midst of a national housing crisis, some cities have made the bold decision to get rid of single family zoning. Cambridge, Austin, and Minneapolis recently removed restrictions that kept multifamily housing out of certain neighborhoods.
New Bedford’s City Council did it last November — by accident. It didn’t find out until months later. Councilors consider the change a mistake, and plan to repeal it.
The body first realized what it had done at an ordinance committee meeting in April, where councilors were reviewing a proposed zoning district to promote development near the new downtown MBTA station.
Councilor Linda Morad scratched her head as she looked down at the city’s zoning table. Something wasn’t right — it showed that the huge district covering the city’s single-family neighborhoods also allowed for duplexes.
“That’s not the way it exists today,” Morad said to Jennifer Carloni, the city’s planning director.
Carloni looked puzzled. “That’s how it was in the use table, when we adopted the use table,” she said. The change was passed by the council and has been in effect since December, she explained.
Morad went back and forth with Carloni for a few more minutes, seemingly unable to believe that the council had decided to allow for duplexes in Residence A, the zoning district that historically allowed nothing other than single-family homes — it covers much of the city’s West End and Far North End. Morad asked for David Gerwatowski, the council’s attorney.
“I don’t recall that happening,” he said. “I don’t know if any of you — and by the looks on most of your faces, I don’t think any of you remember that happening.”
Now, the council is trying to hit “undo.” At its meeting this Thursday, the council will vote on a new ordinance to put the Residence A district back the way it was.
How it happened
Mayor Jon Mitchell intentionally proposed adding duplexes to Residence A to address the city’s housing affordability crisis.
“We’re trying to modernize our zoning, and that was an element of the modernization,” Carloni said in an interview with The Light. “We didn’t think it was that significant of a change.”
It made sense, Carloni said, because the state recently mandated that communities allow accessory dwelling units, better known as in-law apartments. If a single-family home could be built with an ADU attached, it’s not a stretch to allow duplexes in the same district, she said.
Carloni emphasized that a duplex in the Residence A district would still have to comply with all the other requirements that single-family homes are subject to, such as parking and setbacks.
The change that slipped past the council is easy for the untrained eye to miss — it was reflected by a single letter in the city’s table of uses, which dictates what types of buildings are allowed in each zoning district.
Each column represents a zoning district, and each row represents a type of housing. In the box that represents whether duplexes can be built in the Residence A zoning district, the proposal changed the “N” to a “Y.”
The change was part of a new ordinance overhauling the city’s table of uses, passed by the council on Nov. 26.
“This is more of a housekeeping item, more or less,” Carloni said when she presented it to the ordinance committee on Oct. 9.
Carloni told councilors that the ordinance would clarify gaps in the existing use table and add uses such as breweries, marijuana dispensaries, biotechnology manufacturing facilities, and self-storage businesses.
At the time, Carloni didn’t explicitly mention that the new use table would add duplexes to the Residence A district. But she showed councilors how to read the table, a video of the meeting shows. In an interview this month, she said she was surprised that none of them asked about the duplexes. The administration wasn’t trying to hide anything, she said.
It appears that the change to the use table was overshadowed by two other zoning reforms presented to the council at the same time last fall.
At the same October hearing, the committee was also reviewing proposed ordinances to streamline the approval process for new construction and set up a new zoning district around the North End MBTA station. The city was on a deadline to set up the MBTA zoning — if it didn’t create the new district by the end of 2024, it risked violating the MBTA Communities Act and losing state funding.
The committee spent about an hour of the 2½-hour October meeting discussing the three zoning ordinances, but that hour mainly focused on the MBTA zoning and new approval process. Councillors didn’t ask Carloni about the use table.
The committee’s mistake was treating the three zoning ordinances as a package and passing them all together to meet the MBTA deadline, said Councilor Ryan Pereira, who chairs the committee, in a recent interview with The Light.
Pereira said he didn’t think that allowing more duplexes is a way to address the city’s housing crisis.
“People who save up and work hard to purchase a home in a single-family, residential neighborhood, they’re expecting the zoning laws to reflect that,” he said.
Pereira said he was concerned that the state’s new ADU law and the city zoning change would allow someone to build a duplex with an ADU attached, effectively allowing a three-family home to be built in a neighborhood of single-families.
It’s not clear if any duplexes have actually been proposed in the Residence A district during the six months they have been legal there. The website that hosts the city’s official code hasn’t been updated to reflect the latest change — another element that added to the council’s confusion.
The city’s building department did not respond to two voicemails seeking information on permit applications. On Tuesday, a staffer in the Inspectional Services office, which houses the building department, said the office had no way of counting the number of permit applications the city receives.
Council plans a quick reversal
The Mitchell administration didn’t think having duplexes in the Residence A district was a big deal, but some councilors certainly did.
“I’m really outraged,” Morad said at the last ordinance committee meeting in May. “We should have a trusting relationship between departments and policymakers in the council chamber. Stuff like this shouldn’t be slid by.”
Gerwatowski, the council attorney, said it was the biggest policy change he had seen in the city in at least 30 or 40 years.
Pereira said that he planned for the committee to take a deeper look at all the changes to the table of uses later, but first he wanted to fast-track an ordinance to fix the duplex issue.
At that May meeting, the committee referred an amendment to the full council removing duplexes as an allowed use in the Residence A district.
The council is set to vote on that reversal on Thursday night. Pereira said he believes a simple majority of councilors can advance the ordinance, but the council would have to vote again at a later meeting, where the ordinance will need support from a supermajority of councilors to be sent to the mayor.
Even though Mayor Mitchell originally proposed the change, he will sign the council’s reversal if it reaches his desk, according to Public Information Officer Jonathan Darling.
“The proposal was clearly presented and the City Council had ample opportunity to review it,” Mitchell said in a written statement.
Should the city go back?
Policies to eliminate single-family zoning have gained popularity in the last few years as communities try to cut red tape around housing production.
The idea has support in Massachusetts from the Unlocking Housing Production Commission, a group appointed by Gov. Maura Healey to study the state’s housing crisis. In a set of recommendations released earlier this year, the commission said the state should allow two-family homes on all residential lots, and four-family homes on all residential lots with the proper infrastructure.
Local zoning observers say New Bedford should think twice before it walks back the duplex ordinance.
“If we continue to try to freeze our neighborhoods in amber, we just exacerbate the housing crisis,” said Will Gardner, a Fairhaven-based neighborhood development advocate and leader of the group SouthCoast Places for People, which advocates for more housing and better public spaces.
The city should allow “natural and incremental” growth in its neighborhoods, Gardner said, which would mean allowing two-family homes to begin popping up in historically single-family neighborhoods.
Elise Rapoza, a New Bedford resident and housing researcher at the think tank MassINC, said New Bedford will have to add density to address its housing shortage. This policy would do that in a “gentle” way, she said.
“The government isn’t going to force you to tear down your house and build a duplex,” she said.
Instead, Rapoza said the city is more likely to see existing mansions split into apartments if the duplex provision stands. She downplayed concerns that the provision would significantly change the “feel” of existing single-family neighborhoods, saying current zoning doesn’t allow for dense development in those areas.
There’s support across the state for more relaxed zoning, she said. She pointed to a recent survey by the advocacy group Abundant Housing Massachusetts, which found that 71% of registered Massachusetts voters cared more about building affordable homes than protecting neighborhood character.
Both Rapoza and Gardner said higher density would add tax revenue so the city can better fund services for residents, and create more opportunities for local families to own a home and build wealth.
“Whenever you’re talking about change, it’s natural to focus on what we might lose or the potential negative consequences,” Gardner said. “We often forget that having additional neighbors might be a great thing.”
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org
In order to take a photo of the classic west end single-family Victorian homes at the top of this article, the photographer had to stand directly in front of 32 Maple St which is…A DUPLEX. The horror!
I’m a little unclear on this. My parents lived in the West End when I was in high school in the 1960s and many years afterward. It was a try-plex basically with the landlady living on the top smaller floor. We had about 7 rooms not counting the bathroom. Those houses are so huge, it seems that people might want to use some of the space for an in-law unit or unit that a home health care worker could live in, or maybe a unit one of their children could live in. We did live on Maple Street but I’m not sure if it’s the place someone is referring to. As long as the city is not adding too much congestion with too little parking, it seems that it should allow this kind of housing without allowing people to build onto something.
Do the tax rates go up, if a home is no longer classified as a single family? If not, who cares, some families have numerous persons living in the home anyway. As long as the tax rate didn’t cost more, this could help with housing.
Sounds like nimby-ism from the wealthier neighborhood. New Bedford needs to grow, stop coddling the wealthy in the city, they can live alongside their fellow citizens.
I live in the west end in a single family home. I am surrounded by both single family homes, 2 family homes and as many 6 unit buildings. I am suprised by the OUTRAGE of these councilors. This not a suburban community and most of us live in very mixed neighborhoods to our benefit.Allowing duplexes seems like a very reasonable option for increasing our housing stock.
Well said!
Can you call your council member please and tell them to not reinstate SFZ?
As a West End resident, I am really confused by the comment that it’s been historically single family residences and with no duplexes. I live on the dead end side of Loftus Street off Shawmut Ave, which according to the zoning map is supposed to be a Residence A Zone…single family residences; yet we have two New Bedford Housing Authority duplexes on the street.
They are probably taxed accordingly.
Why does New Bedford always have to build more affordable housing? We have enough affordable housing for our population. We’re well over our limit under chapter 40 while most surrounding towns are still well below the limits. It’s time for surrounding communities to step up and start allowing more affordable housing.
We should have them accidentally upzone even more. Legalize the production of quadplexes by-right on every lot. We need more housing.