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Triple deckers in crisis
By adamg on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 9:18am
The Times (yes, not the Globe) reports triple-deckers are being foreclosed - and even abandoned - at a much higher rate than other types of houses. Blame out-of-town investors, who bought them up and repeatedly flipped many of them without putting much back into them, for simply abandoning the properties:
On some streets in New Bedford, tight rows of triple-deckers are now interrupted here and there by dirt lots, which impart the odd effect of missing teeth.
Dennis Lehane is interviewed and the Times declares all of Dorchester to be "tough."
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
How nostalgic
“When I see a three-decker, I immediately feel home..."
I wonder what he feels when he sees his actual home... Alienated?
Here's the part that caught my attention:
Does it strike anybody else that the problem here is with the zoning laws? Isn't this supposed to be a city? A lot of these triple-deckers are abandoned because they're absolute crap waiting to fall down at the next strong wind. They weren't built to last a hundred years, and they know it. And so we're stuck in the argument of "Yeah, they're crap that nobody wants, but we need to have lots of crap that nobody wants or where will the poor people live?"
It seems it would be a much better thing to allow someone to tear them down when it would really be cheaper to build a more modern, durable building in their place - with as many or more units - instead of putting lipstick on a pig at public expense.
Of course, that might ruin Lehane's nostalgia trip by making the poor less picturesque.
Amen
You said it, man.
Zoning Laws
Perhaps someone knows the answer to this, but I always wondered why modern zoning laws fail to consider historically successful patterns and simply try to copy suburbia, the wrong pattern for a thriving city. They don't allow for building at the density Boston has, which makes it such a great city. They also don't tend to allow, for instance, mixed use buildings, shops with housing above them. These structures create affordable housing and also curb crime by putting "eyes on the street" as I believe Jane Jacobs would say. Minimum setbacks and minimum parking for new buildings are some of the most offensive zoning laws, which fortunately are not in place in Boston to my knowledge.
What really scared me is Mr. Lang's opinion:
Mr. Lang hopes the demolitions make room for small parks, community gardens or parking lots.
“It might make sense to open up a little air, allow some green space, create a little more of a recreational-type pattern,”
Sounds to me like he's out to ruin the fabric of the city, paving over housing and creating dead space through likely neglected and underused pocket parks.
Concepts of Infill
Boston doesn't seem to have a very good concept for infill. I don't get why apartment complexes have to be set off from the world and entail three hundred units with everything around them paved. Why does everything in an area have to be exactly the same? Why not a mix? My dad lives in a late 19th century urban neighborhood of one to three family homes with 4-10 unit apartment blocks sprinkled in. The apartments are of varying eras of construction. People will start renting in the apartment buildings and then buy small houses or duplex condos and then houses as they move up in the world. That means neighborhood stability much more than every house being of the same type.
There also a bizarre pathologic fear of density in the region as a whole, which has given us destructive sprawl in the suburbs that California wouldn't tolerate and ridiculous restrictions on urban development. This fear of density runs counter to prevailing best practices in urban development and economic development. Hence the North Cambridge Stagnation Cabal demanding that only three houses should be built on an acre and a half that was as-of-right permitted at 51 and slated for a 32 unit set up. Never mind that the 32 units on 1.5 acres was par for the existing neighborhood and less than the density of other lots on the street as a whole.
I would agree on zoning
I would agree on zoning being an issue, if there was a triple decker there before, why not again? I can understand not wanting to ADD to the density in dense areas, but surely it is better to have a new building then a renovated building if costs will be similar?
I would disagree on the houses not being made to last 100 years. I know people who own triple deckers, and live in one myself and can tell you that they are quite durable if taken care of. I would venture to say some of them are much more durable then some of the modern cookie cutter homes we see now. My apartment is solid as a rock, and its well over 100 years old.
The bigger issue is in fact the fact that they attract "investor" owners who come in and fix it to minimum standards. They allow problems to develop over time that they would fix in their own homes because it is not an immediate issue for them. An example would be a leaking pipe that is causing a water spot on the ceiling of a room, of course that will lead to issues later but for many people the immediate issue is it looks ugly and I have people coming over for dinner on Sunday we need to fix it. Without this immediate reaction things develop over time. The same also goes for renters who ruin things, or fail to report to out of area land lords when something looks off because it is not their property and the land lord lives in Woburn/Florida/Cape Cod anyway and they never see them.
Zoning for jerks
There are too many jerks here for dense zoning. Maybe people were better neighbors back when these things were built, or they just tolerated more noise and bad behavior.
If people want dense living they need to learn to be more considerate. There's a lot of boozing here, it's what people do for fun.
Options for Low Density Living
People who dislike densely built areas can move to New Hampshire and shoulder all the benefits of that choice and all the costs of commuting and sprawl. Otherwise, living in a viable city means density that enables people to get from their jobs to their homes to stores and other destinations and provides an adequate tax base for infrastructure while maintaining affordability.
Then again, EM, you could move to Detroit and enjoy all the benefits of your low-density urban dreamworld. There is plenty of low cost housing and not much density there ... anymore.
Meanwhile, the North American cities of Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR have nearly doubled their populations within fixed metropolitan boundaries over the last 25 years (doubled the people in the same amount of area) while modernizing and upgrading their mass transit options, built diverse economies, and steadily improved their desirability and livability. If Vancouver can go from a sleepy west coast port to an internationally recognized and thriving jewel of a city while doubling the density, then density is not the enemy. If Boston has lost substantial population while pricing out most workers and stagnating economically, then maybe some managed growth within boundaries is in order.
viable city
If you really wanted a viable city you would enforce tougher community standards to raise the quality of life. That's the only way density will work when people can choose to move to NH.
Vancouver solution
or I could just smoke weed all day and then my neighbors wouldn't get on my nerves.
Hold on a sec - these 3
Hold on a sec - these 3 deckers i've liven in were built sturdy as hell, especially compared with the mcmansion-type recently built "homes" i've lived in
yikes, so now the Times is
yikes, so now the Time is the best newspaper for international, national, AND local news??? No wonder they are dumping the glob. Well I guess the globe is still good for finding out what restaurants or baseball teams Tom Brady has been into lately.
... not to mention which models ...
i'll be here all week. be sure to tip your servers.
Ew
But the Globe did ask for that, with those teasers a fixture in the right column.
It's too bad that we have so few outlets covering international news. Then again, whenever I want to engineer a war that leaves both sides in shambles, I need talk to only one newspaper, and Judith Miller will be right over.