FIRST PUBLISHED IN FIG CITY NEWS

In recent years, teardowns have become pervasive in Newton.

Older, smaller single-family homes are increasingly being demolished and replaced with much larger and more expensive ones. These oversized replacements, often derided as McMansions, have become a persistent concern for the Newton City Council.

For the past two years, the council’s Zoning and Planning Committee has spent considerable time looking for ways to reshape our zoning rules to discourage increasingly large homes, with limited success.

This year, voters can consider a different approach through Question 7.

Question 7 would cap minimum lot-size requirements at 5,000 square feet, roughly the size of a basketball court, for qualifying lots served by public water and sewer.

Today, Newton’s minimum lot-size requirements generally range from about 10,000 to 25,000 square feet, or roughly half the size of a football field.

Those large minimums help create the economics behind the teardown problem. When a homeowner or developer pays a premium for a large lot that can accommodate only one home, there is a strong incentive to maximize the size and value of that house. That is why the city’s current approach of tinkering with setbacks and other dimensional requirements can accomplish only  so much.

Question 7, on the other hand, would change that calculation by embracing, rather than fighting, the underlying profit incentive. Where a site allows, a property owner could subdivide a larger lot and build multiple smaller homes, creating another way to maximize value without replacing one modest house with one much larger one.

Those homes would still be expensive by the standards of the era when many Newton residents bought their homes. But they would likely be smaller and therefore less expensive than many of the replacement homes now being built across Newton’s 13 villages.

They would also increase the city’s housing supply, giving younger families more opportunities to find a home in Newton.

Question 7 is not a panacea. Other proposals could more directly discourage teardowns, including an idea from City Council President John Oliver that uses the same financial incentive to preserve existing homes.

But Newton’s large minimum lot-size requirements remain a key part of a system that encourages McMansions, higher prices, and housing scarcity. Changing those rules is a necessary step toward making our city more beautiful and more welcoming.