Why Teardowns Hurt Us

"Well they're tearing down the 1950's house I used to live in And building two big houses on the lot And the old town square's transforming and the buildings are five stories I guess commercial development is hot...."

--from "Enough" by Linda Marks

I wrote the song "Enough" (which was released in November 2018 in anticipation of my 2019 In Grace album) in response to the teardown epidemic which is running rampant in Newton, Waltham and many other cities in the greater Boston area. The Newtonville house I practice therapy in located in "teardown central." Just down the street from my house, the Orr Block featured mom and pop businesses so many of us loved, before a commercial developer took over several literal blocks in the town center for a huge teardown project.

Instead of picturesque old buildings with first floor storefronts and a second floor with offices, a gigantic 5 story complex is being constructed. The mom and pop businesses were either forced out of business or displaced. And the cost of both retail and residential space in the new complex, once completed, will be many times the cost in the old buildings.

I was invited to share "Enough" at a meeting of the Ward 6 Democratic Committee in Newton last week, and what I learned about the costs of teardowns both deeply saddened me and sent my head and heart spinning in a kind of psychospiritual crisis.

The costs of the teardown epidemic include:

1. Displacement of current residents

2. Environmental costs of a larger construction footprint

3. A breakdown in the fabric of the existing community

4. Affordability challenges for seniors in the community

Let me address each of these costs:

DISPLACEMENT OF CURRENT RESIDENTS

When people sell their homes to developers, rather than families, the cost of housing in a community is driven up. Developers generally use the formula of 2.5 to 1. This means if they purchase a modest home for $500K, after tearing it down and building a larger home, they plan to sell it for $1.25 million. The kind of person who can afford a $500K home and the kind of person who can afford a $1.25 million home is very different.

Teachers, police officers and firemen who wish to live in the town they work in, human service workers and many other middle class residents cannot afford to purchase another property in a city that is tearing down modest homes and replacing them with much bigger and more expensive homes. This results in displacing middle class residents, who must move to other cities with more affordable housing prices.

ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF A LARGER CONSTRUCTION FOOTPRINT

While developers sell teardowns as a way to use more environmentally efficient technologies, the reality is that the new properties are actually costly to the environment in many ways:

1. It takes resources to tear down the old property and dispose of the refuse.

2. Even if there is a more environmentally efficient way to heat a new property, the fact that it is 2.5 to 3 times larger than the more modest property means that it takes much more energy to heat the new property.

3. If takes a lot of energy and environmental resources to make the construction materials used in the new larger home.

4. The new larger home will hold lots of "stuff" (including furniture, fixtures, rugs, other possessions), and it takes energy and resources to make all this "stuff."

When you add up all of these "hidden costs," the reality is that the new larger structure is far more taxing on the environment than the older smaller structure.

A BREAKDOWN IN THE FABRIC OF THE COMMUNITY

A community may have been known for its neighborhoods, including relationships amongst the people who live in the neighborhoods. When developers tear down modest or older homes and build new, larger houses in their place, the people who have comprised the neighborhood, are forced to leave. They can't afford the new homes. And they may want to downsize rather than upsize.

The density of the neighborhood can change if two large houses are built on a lot that once hosted one smaller house. Many of the new properties feature fences, where before there was open space. Fences suggest privacy and "keep away". messages to others in the neighborhood. A city councilor at the meeting I attended noted that many of the newer residents did not really care about the interests of the displaced people in the neighborhood. They were more focused on their own individual lives, with more investment in their own new home than in the history of the neighborhood.

In order to earn the money it takes to buy the expensive new houses, the new residents to the neighborhood very likely need to work long hours at high paying jobs. Even if families move in, the way of life of these contemporary families may be very different than the way of life the families in the pre-teardown neighborhood lived.

AFFORDABILITY CHALLENGES FOR SENIORS IN THE COMMUNITY

I was quite struck by the comments of an 82 year-old man at the meeting I attended. He was living in the house he was born in, having been away for a couple of decades and having returned. As property taxes were climbing, staying in his house was becoming more difficult. Living on a fixed income, there is not the budget space to absorb increasing property taxes and other related costs of home ownership. And yet, if this man were to sell his home, he would not be able to afford a smaller space in the community. Smaller residences are hard to find, and very highly priced. New construction of smaller residences such as condos are premium priced.

Even "affordable housing" that may be included in some of the new big construction projects, is costly. And the other residents must subside the costs with their already high rents. Too, the mix of people in these large new construction complexes may not offer the lifestyle that seniors seek if they wish to downsize.

In the face of all these issues, many seniors feel trapped in their longstanding residences, with increasing costs squeezing them, but nowhere else to go.

I was also struck at how easily pieces of a town's history could be torn down and forgotten. In Newton, the majority of the housing stock was built before the year 2000. And much of it is historical and beautiful. A lot is lost when these homes are torn down. Lots that once included lovely yards and gardens are turned into multi-dwelling structures with high rise homes. Yards are minimal. Sight lines are more limited. Older architectural styles can become extinct.

As more larger structures occupy a fixed amount of land, more people and cars crowd sidewalks and roads. A suburb starts to have a more citified feel. And this is not always good.

The teardown epidemic is very sneaky yet pervasive. In a matter of years, it is possible that all modest homes could be destroyed and replaced. The image of the frogs in a pot of boiling water very much comes to mind.

We need to realize we are in the pot of boiling water, and work together to see if there are ways we can get out before we boil to death. The same goes for the environment and the fabric of our communities.

Enough

I find it fascinating to see where songs come from and what sparks inspiration. A couple weeks ago, my singer/songwriter colleague John Mark sent me an article entitled "All I Want Is A Mediocre Life," and asked for my thoughts about what he might include in a refrain for a song on this subject.

Though I have never liked the word "mediocre," the article got me thinking how much I value simplicity and how important it is to have a sense of "enough." And then I got to reflecting on what is happening in my local village of Newtonville, as several big commercial development projects are changing the face and landscape of my long time stomping ground. One project involves building a mixed use complex on a popular parking lot. Another project, one the neighborhood tried to push back on unsuccessfully, has put beloved mom and pop businesses out of business, as longstanding buildings are being torn down to make way for a huge 5 story complex, which will dwarf any remaining buildings near the intersection of Washington and Walnut Streets.

Projects like these could make Newtonville unaffordable for people like me (and many others). And while many consider this kind of commercial development progress or just inevitable, beyond the inconvenience of detours due to months of construction, I grieve the loss of simplicity of life as it has been.

The shadows of commercial development have also been haunting me in Waltham. When I moved into my house there 3 years ago, a 1950's ranch sat on a corner lot at the end of my street, inhabited by an elderly woman. When she died, her family sold the lot to developers, who tore down the ranch house and built two large houses on the lot. My very own house, built in 2006, was the product of the same kind of development: a 1950's Cape house had occupied a large lot, and it was torn down and replaced by two houses. I appreciate my house. I appreciate having a small yard without the burden of maintenance that a larger lot would require. But I am sad to be part of a trend of tearing down houses that were perfectly adequate for a family to live in when I grew up, and squeezing multiple larger houses on postage stamp sized lots.

I love beauty. I love quality. But I fear we are losing perspective. We live in a supersized world, where we receive messages that bigger is better. That Starbucks calls a small coffee a tall, and a medium coffee a grande is a metaphor for what is becoming "normal." Somehow, I am afraid that the simple things are getting lost, either because we are too busy to have time for them or because there is no room for them with our new constructions.

I found myself moved to address this experience, and a song started to come through me. Simple is enough for me. And I hope I will not become an anachronism because I feel this way!