 Last summer this house was torn down and replaced with this house. Article 38 came about because I watched this house go up and decided that after seeing this happen many times. It was time for me to do something about the future of the community I love. One of the things I have always loved about Arlington is that it was a community like the one I grew up in. In my hometown middle managers like my dad lived on the same street as the families of guys like our next door neighbor, who worked on the assembly line. Here in Arlington, my kids went to school with kids whose parents were nurses and lawyers and teachers and computer programmers and beauticians and plumbers among many other occupations. They had friends who could visit their grandparents or family friends by going upstairs or downstairs in the two family houses they lived in. If you had asked me when my kids were little what the character of my community was I would have told you about these things. I am not a Luddite and I love that we are becoming a more racially and ethnically diverse community. At the same time we are losing the economic and generational diversity, I believe makes Arlington the place where, despite its flaws, I was proud to raise my kids. Why is this happening? It's happening because there is a regional housing shortage in the greater Boston area. We are an entering suburb with great schools and good public transportation. And on the majority of residentially zoned land in town, a detached single family home is the only type of house you're allowed to build. The cost of land makes small homes really expensive. If a small home is in bad shape or outdated and the land cost to the property is higher than the value of the structure, the property is attractive to a builder looking to redevelop it. It's less attractive to a family who can't afford to buy the house and renovate it. Right now on most of the lots in town, a builder has only one option. Build a single family home and build it as big as needed to maximize profit. Article 38 gives them another option. Instead of building a single family home, they could build something like this. Article 38 is not about affordable housing. Half of a two family in Arlington is never again going to be an affordable option, according to the federal definition. It is about creating a new stock of smaller homes that allow more people to get a start here or long term residents to downsize and stay in town. It is about filling in the missing middle. I would urge anyone who also wants to see more affordable housing in town to vote yes on articles 39 and 41. Legalizing two family construction and all of our residential districts is not a radical change. There are already two families in these districts that were built before we outlawed them in 1975. The effect of article 38 would be incremental over time. Last year there were approximately 300 single family homes sold in Arlington. On average, there are 27 tear downs a year. The effect of article 38 would be for some of those tear downs to result in two family construction. To choose to build a two family, it would have to make personal sense for a homeowner or economic sense for a builder. It would also have to make sense on the lot. Given the size restriction in the article, it will not make sense on a very large lot that can't be subdivided. Given the restrictions on non conforming lots in general, it would have to make sense within the footprint of the current building on the lot. Not all home sales result in tear downs and not all tear downs are builders building on spec to sell the home. Under article 38, I believe that gradually neighborhoods will come to have a mix of housing types. This has been the experience in Minneapolis, according to the staff member I talked to in their planning department. Article 38 is not going to solve all of our housing issues. It will add one tool to the toolbox we will use to shape the future of our town. Two family homes are more sustainable than single family homes. If a single family is redeveloped as a two family in Arlington, the home itself is more environmentally efficient per occupant than a single family. A new home in Arlington close to major job centers with accessible public transportation is more sustainable than a new home built further from Boston on what is now open land. Because of current building codes, any new construction is going to be more energy efficient than older homes in Arlington that may not be well insulated or have triple pane windows. Article 38 does not make any changes to zoning other than allowing two units in the newly constructed home. All the zoning regulations that protect open space and limit impermeable surface when a new single family home is built still apply. The tree by law has the same requirements whether a builder is building a single family, a two family or a duplex. This is true in the R2 district as well. Our current zoning did not prevent the builder who built the house I showed you from considerably increasing the building footprint in the paved area. From a governmental perspective, if a builder is going to tear down a small home and build something new, a two family or duplex is preferable. Questions have also been raised about the impact on various aspects of the town's infrastructure and capacity. We have had a much higher population in the past and our infrastructure handled it. Article 38 would not result in so many more housing units that our population will reach or exceed its previous peak. What's beneath these questions is the idea that we have reached some limits to how many people can live in Arlington, that new residents will only cause deterioration and our quality of life. Given that the population is lower now than in the past, our community can handle growth and welcome new neighbors. This is the question I hope you will ask yourself as we debate this article, since our community will certainly evolve what direction do we want that evolution to take. We will be one of the first communities to make this change if we do it. Certainly we will be the first in Massachusetts. I think that is who we are. We are leaders, not followers. This is one small step we can take to do our share to increase the supply of housing in the region, bolster regional environmental sustainability, and hang on to the real character of our community, which is created by diverse the diversity of our neighbors, the structure of our homes.