On Sunday, October 26, Housing for All Watertown hosted a housing forum featuring the five candidates for Watertown’s four at-large city council seats: Caroline Bays, John Gannon, Theo Offei, Tony Palomba, and Tom Tracy. Forty Watertown residents heard the candidates discuss their visions for housing policy in Watertown (see the video recording of the forum here), and we were encouraged to see broad consensus on the importance of addressing our city’s critical housing shortage, even if the paths to get there varied across candidates.
What united the candidates was clear. The high cost of housing is a core issue for many voters in Watertown, and building more housing — and especially affordable housing — is an urgent moral imperative. Several of the candidates told moving personal stories about their own housing journeys, whether it was an experience facing discrimination from a landlord, going hungry in order to pay the rent, or needing to devise creative housing arrangements to keep family nearby.
Candidates also shared a strong condemnation of the results of this year’s fair housing audit study, which found that Watertown residents face rampant race- and income source-based discrimination. There was consensus that mobilizing resources from across the City, including our Human Rights Commission and Human Services Department, will be necessary to address illegal housing discrimination.
Finally, all five candidates committed to build on the model set by the Willow Park redevelopment and take steps to both renovate and expand Watertown’s public housing, such as the Lexington Gardens complex.
We heard more variation in the solutions that candidates proposed to addressing our housing shortage. Some candidates volunteered zoning changes, such as Tom Tracy’s idea that we reduce parking requirements, Theo Offei’s suggestion that we should shrink minimum lot sizes, and Caroline Bays’s orientation toward leveraging zoning to increase density in order to increase housing supply.
There was also a range of perspectives on how to encourage the development of more affordable housing in Watertown. Tony Palomba and John Gannon suggested that between 40 percent and 80 percent of Community Preservation Committee funds could be directed to the Affordable Housing Trust. John Gannon also suggested building several stories of affordable housing on top of municipal buildings, and Caroline Bays, Tony Palomba, and Theo Offei all indicated an interest in leveraging the results of the upcoming affordability incentives study to inform the possibility of an affordable housing overlay.
Housing for All Watertown is not endorsing candidates in this November’s elections, but we are encouraged by what we heard at this forum. We encourage everyone to vote on Election Day, November 4th (and be sure to look up your polling place, which might have recently changed).
As you prepare to cast your ballot, consult our candidate questionnaires to see where all the City Council candidates stand on housing, and watch the recording of our candidate forum to dive even deeper on the at-large candidates’ positions. Thank you to everyone who attended our forum on Sunday, and to all the at-large candidates for taking the time to share their views with the community. And don’t forget to go vote!
Submitted by Josh Rosmarin of Housing for All Watertown
“Tony Palomba and John Gannon suggested that between 40 percent and 80 percent of Community Preservation Committee funds could be directed to the Affordable Housing Trust.”
Just my opinion, but 80% toward one expense is too much. Community Preservation is a broad remit. There is a lot more to preserving our community than subsidizing housing costs for some. The CPC is dedicated to “initiatives related to open space, outdoor recreation, historic resources, and community housing.” With those responsibilities, any allocation over 25% needs to be justified. Perhaps 40% is justifiable, but for how long? And to the detriment of what other needs? I can’t even begin to consider 80% a reasonable figure. How will the community be preserved if our population density increases (already underway, more on the way), yet our open space and recreation suffer? Addressing one “crisis” at a time only creates new crises. The Somervillification of Watertown is not welcome.