Good Intentions Bad Outcomes:
Why Newton’s Housing Rules Aren’t Working -
and How the City Is Beginning to Fix Them
Wednesday, June 17 at 7pm
Hybrid Event: Congregation Dorshei Tzedek/Second Church
60 Highland St, West Newton & live-streaming on Zoom
Why does building a home in Newton often require years of special permits, committee hearings, and appeals? And why does this exhaustive process so often produce expensive McMansions instead of the diverse housing options our community needs?
The answer lies in both the zoning regulations and the permitting process itself. Over time, Newton’s complex rules were designed to give neighbors and City Councilors a voice in planning and design decisions. But together, they have created a system so lengthy, uncertain, and costly that builders are often forced to pursue the largest and most expensive projects simply to make them financially viable. As a result, the process actively discourages the smaller-scale, more attainable housing types that many residents say they want.
In recent years, Newton has adopted as-of-right, form-based zoning for infill sites in village centers, as well as for smaller “missing middle” and adaptive reuse projects. Important questions remain, however, about whether these new rules are succeeding in expanding housing choices while preserving the character of the city’s neighborhoods.
Join Newton for Everyone for a deep dive into the city’s current permitting pipeline and the new zoning approaches intended to improve it. To help frame the conversation, urban designers and planners from Utile will discuss their collaboration with Newton’s planning staff on recent zoning reforms, as well as the innovative zoning initiatives they are leading in Somerville, other Boston-area suburbs, Cape Cod, and Vermont.
Tim Love is the founding principal of Utile and leads the firm’s urban design and planning practice. He is also a Lecturer and Senior Fellow in Real Estate and Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he teaches courses that focus on topics at the intersection of design, policy, and real estate development. In addition, Love is the Assistant Director of the Master in Real Estate program.
Loren Rapport designs at the intersection of architecture, infrastructure, and urbanism. She is particularly interested in patterns of mobility and their impact on urban form. Since joining Utile as an urban designer in 2021, she has leveraged her design sensibilities for projects at multiple scales: managing the zoning redesign for Newton’s Village Centers, leading a graphic toolkit for the MBTA that proposes strategies for bus priority implementation, and creating architectural test-fits for sites with diverse urban conditions.
Camille Wimpe joined Utile in June 2025 as an architectural and urban designer. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and a Master of Architecture from Northeastern University. As a Boston-based renter, Camille has become fascinated by the varied residential typologies found in the Northeast. Her thesis explored rethinking the rights of renters in the context of Boston, envisioning a world where renters might be granted the power to individually or collectively repair and modify the building they occupy.