NEW BEDFORD — City councilors say they want walkable neighborhoods with fewer cars. Just not quite as few cars as city planners are aiming for.
The city’s planning department is preparing new zoning rules that would allow for a dense mix of housing and businesses near the two new MBTA commuter rail stations. These “transit-oriented development” districts are designed to create less car-dependent neighborhoods, where stores and other services would be a short walk or bike ride away from where people live.
But some councilors are skeptical of a key provision in the proposed zoning that would only require 0.75 off-street parking spaces per housing unit in new construction. That’s far less than the two spaces per unit that current zoning requires. That means a new 20-unit apartment building in the proposed districts would only need 15 spaces in its parking lot, down from 40.
“I do not believe 0.75 is reasonable at all,” said Ward 6 Councilor Ryan Pereira, who chairs the council’s Ordinances Committee. “I don’t think that’s feasible for New Bedford.”
Car ownership for New Bedford households
Most households in New Bedford have at least one car, if not more, councilors said. They don’t believe the city’s current infrastructure supports a car-free lifestyle.
A tough ask
The council will have to approve the new zoning for it to become law. Pereira suggested changing the parking minimum in the transit-oriented districts to 1.25 spaces per unit.
Ward 3 Councilor Shawn Oliver, whose ward includes parts of both proposed zoning districts, said it would be a “tough ask” to not require at least one parking space per unit. He doesn’t think it’s safe to assume that some people will forgo car ownership just because they live near the train stations.
“You can’t take public transportation everywhere you want to go,” he said.
Other councilors agreed that SRTA, the city’s bus system, isn’t a convenient or attractive option. Councilor At-Large Shane Burgo added that there are already unmet transportation needs in the city.
“If we create a bigger burden in another neighborhood, I don’t feel confident that SRTA will be able to rise to the occasion,” Burgo said.
Advocates of transit-oriented development see zoning plans like this one as a key way to increase the supply of housing. They say that reduced parking minimums make new construction more affordable. And in a city like New Bedford, where there’s little developable land left, increasing density is one of the few ways to add more units. Transit-oriented zoning was one of the 22 points in the city’s housing development plan, released earlier this year.
But even Burgo, who has called for aggressive action to address the city’s housing crisis, said he was concerned that the plans go too far.
“Obviously, I would love to have housing on every single corner, but the logistics of it don’t work,” he said. “Parking is such an issue in our city already.”
Burgo said he’s concerned that dense housing developments will be built in neighborhoods that aren’t within walking distance of grocery stores or places to work. He fears that will cause residents of these new developments to bring more cars than the developments would be designed to accommodate.
Ward 1 Councilor-Elect and Zoning Board Member Leo Choquette said he wasn’t sure a 0.75-space minimum would work. But he was hesitant to suggest a higher number because he didn’t want to undermine plans already in place to help with development near the train stations.
“The goal here is to have your cake and eat it too,” he said. “You don’t want to drive out the developers, but you don’t want people sitting on top of each other with gridlock constantly.”
Choquette proposed looking into alternatives, like underground parking, though he acknowledged that the cost of building full underground garages would probably be too high.
Scaling up
Jennifer Carloni, the city’s planning director, said the 0.75-space minimum is based on a national standard for transit-oriented planning. She noted that it’s costly to build parking and it takes away space that developers could use for housing or businesses.
The new standard also reflects how much of the city was actually built. That is, most of New Bedford’s buildings don’t have two parking spaces for every apartment, so they couldn’t be built now, she said.
“In some ways, we’re just putting in place what exists in the community today,” Carloni said.
Carloni acknowledged that there’s no guarantee that the private sector will fulfill the city’s vision.
“I don’t have a magic wand — I can’t say, ‘Put this here, put that there,’” she said. “But we put regulations in place that allow for the things we want to see.”
Transit-oriented zoning is also a way of bringing New Bedford into compliance with the MBTA Communities law, Carloni said. The new law requires communities served by the MBTA to introduce zoning districts that allow for multi-family housing by right.
Carloni said her office would have to do some analysis to make sure that the city could still comply with the new state law if it adopted a parking minimum above 0.75 spots per unit in the transit-oriented districts.
Shayne Trimbell, the director of transit planning for SRTA, acknowledged that the bus isn’t the first choice for most of the service’s riders. But he hopes that one day, it will be.
“We want to be able to scale up and make transit in New Bedford a more viable option,” he said.
Trimbell said that the buses serve more of the city than many people may realize. Every one of the SRTA’s routes connects to a grocery store. He theorized that bus service goes unnoticed because most stops are only marked by a small sign.
SRTA is already working to expand its service, Trimbell pointed out. The SRTA board recently voted to add buses on Sundays, filling a “glaring hole.” And there are plans to add more buses or vans to serve the new MBTA stations.
Viable alternatives
To Ben Marshall, the Boston-based housing developer who plans to build 35 new apartments at 1061 Pleasant St., providing 0.75 parking spaces for every unit is not only forward-thinking — it’s realistic.
“I think the cost of vehicle ownership is extremely high,” he said, “and I’m surprised that when there are viable alternatives, that everybody sees it as a necessity.”
Marshall said he was drawn to 1061 Pleasant St. because it sits within one of the proposed transit-oriented zoning districts.
His plans include 14 off-street parking spots on the property and another 13 spots leased from his other property across the street, for a total of 27 spots — exactly the minimum number to be required under the proposed transit-oriented zoning.
Residents of the surrounding neighborhood have wondered where Marshall’s tenants will get their groceries. The nearest grocery store is Market Basket, a mile and a half away.
“The answer is, you take a Lyft,” Marshall said.
Young professionals who work from home or commute to Boston on the MBTA may only need to make a couple of trips around the city every week, Marshall said. The cost of an occasional rideshare or bus trip is much less than the cost of a car payment, insurance, and gas, he noted.
That may seem unattractive to lifelong car owners, but “if you’re 25 years old today, it’s not a given that you have a car,” Marshall said. “Many 25-year-olds don’t have their own cars.”
But Gayle Dayton, who lives near 1061 Pleasant St., said Marshall’s project would cause a “nightmare.”
“He’s saying people won’t have cars,” she said. “I beg to differ. They will.”
Dayton and dozens of her neighbors have pushed back against Marshall’s project. Parking in this neighborhood, just north of downtown, is already tight, they say. They fear that the increased density will make it even harder to find a parking spot near their homes.
Marshall also faced pushback from the Zoning Board of Appeals at its meeting in September. Members were skeptical of his plan to lease parking spots from his other property, because Marshall could sell one or both properties in the future. The board’s chair also told Marshall it can’t consider zoning that doesn’t exist yet.
Dayton said she and her neighbors support redeveloping the existing office building at 1061 Pleasant St. — but they disapprove of Marshall’s plan to build a four-story apartment complex next door. They think it would add too many residents and tower over surrounding homes.
This parcel shouldn’t be included in the transit-oriented zoning district, Dayton said. But she wasn’t necessarily against the new zoning for other parts of the city.
“For the density right here, it really doesn’t work,” she said.
Nick Durant, who also lives nearby, shares that view. He said he wanted to see new development, but he pointed out that the plans for 1061 Pleasant St. aren’t mixed-use and don’t put residents within walking distance of stores or other amenities. He spoke to The Light on a train back from New York City, where he described seeing bodegas on every corner — a pattern that doesn’t exist in his neighborhood.
“Currently, this development does not include anything other than just cramming new units into a very small space,” he said.
Another neighbor, Mark Hess, said he supports the new zoning, but he doesn’t know whether the 0.75-space minimum is the right number.
Hess wants the city to study what traffic and parking will look like in these districts when they are fully developed. He said it would be a mistake to enact new zoning without looking at that.
“I don’t know if the parking problem that everyone’s worried about is a perception that everyone has, or if it’s real,” he said.
Carloni, the planning director, said she was open to studying future parking needs.
“We can certainly look into anything,” she said, “to reassure people that it’s the right number.”
Open for business
Councilors, despite their reservations about the parking minimums, were optimistic that the zoning districts could improve the city.
Choquette hopes the zoning will help revitalize Kings Highway Plaza, a run-down commercial area near the North End train station. He expects to see a cluster of housing and retailers pop up in the area, much like what now exists near the Middleboro/Lakeville MBTA stop. This, he hopes, would generate more property tax revenue to decrease the tax burden on homeowners.
Oliver said he supports the zoning districts because he thinks they could help restore a sense of community to his ward. The proposed North End zoning district would be near the Hicks-Logan neighborhood, which Mayor Jon Mitchell has called “the most distressed neighborhood in the city.”
“We can really set the tone here to let developers know that we’re open for business,” he said.
Pereira said he hopes the districts will provide affordable retail space, making it easier for locals to start businesses, create jobs, and help families build wealth.
The councilor, who chairs the Ordinances Committee, said he didn’t want to rush the zoning through the council. He predicted it would be discussed through a “lengthy process” across multiple sessions, with plenty of time for residents to learn about the proposed changes and voice their concerns.
Carloni expects that process to be complete by the end of 2024 and said she was open to discussing changes to the plans with councilors and residents.
“We’re still in a phase where we’re open to public comment,” she said. “We’re here to work with the community.”
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org
