Massachusetts Triple Deckers as "Missing Middle Housing" -- triplexes
A triple decker is a three unit, three story residential building. They are pretty common in Massachusetts communities such as Boston, its suburbs, and outstate cities like Worcester. There are regional differences in the name, in Worcester they're called "three deckers"
According to "Q & A: The Triple-Decker: New England Icon," today's zoning codes have made such types illegal, with too much density compared to current allowable ("MASSACHUSETTSThe Rise, Fall and Rebirth of the Triple Decker," New England Historical Society, "What Happened to the Three Decker?," MIT Masters thesis).
So long before recent times, affordable housing types (including SROs and rooming houses) such as the triple decker were outlawed.
In 2012, comparable to Chicago's support program for bungalows, and Toronto's Tower Renewal Program for high rise residential buildings, Boston created a small financial support program for triple deckers ("City moves to preserve iconic three-deckers," Boston Globe).
A triple decker is as if a DC rowhouse was built as three separate apartments, one to a floor. The Boston version has three reasonably commodious units. They can be converted into condos, or managed as three apartments. Some "triplexes" in Worcester have been divided into as many as 18 units. (I seem to recall a form in Cleveland that is the equivalent of two side by side triples as one apartment building.)
Sometimes the owner lives in one unit and rents out the others, making rental income to pay off the mortgage. This is common for Montreal's five unit plexes (below) also--the owner lives in the larger unit on the ground floor, and rents out four units, two on each floor, above.
Massachusetts is running a competition to come up with ideas for weatherization and other improvements ("A Triple-Decker For The 21st Century: Airtight And Solar-Powered," WBUR-FM/NPR), "Triple-deckers can rise again for the 21st century," Boston Globe).
40% of greenhouse gas emissions come from existing buildings, so energy weatherization is an important element of GHG reduction planning.
Labels: affordable housing, building regulation, housing market, housing planning, missing middle housing, neighborhood planning, zoning
posted by Richard Layman @ 3:28 PM&Permanent Link
7 Comments:
are they normally detached as shown here? interesting! seems like an ideal housing type...
Yes. All detached. I need to find a photo of the doubles.
Some of the links have a lit of other great photos.
Also the two-family houses of the Cleveland suburbs. The ones in Cleveland Heights typically have upper and lower porches and so look a bit like triple-deckers in style, but in Shaker Heights, which was developed with very strict architectural standards, they look exactly like single-family houses in the approved styles of the late 1920s. I used to live in this Tudor Revival, which is part of a whole street of purpose-built two-flats that look for all the world like single-family houses. They are definitely family-sized units, with three-bedrooms units up and down.
Two- and three- family houses seem to be common in a number of inner suburbs in the northeast (I'm only going by my experience). I rented a floor in a two-family house in an inner suburb of Boston for 5 years. The houses all look like, well, houses, with small yards and all (the houses were build around 1910-1930 or so). The only difference was two front doors. Was kind of handy, with a trolley bus stop going to Harvard Square right in front of the house and a 1/3 mile walk to the Star Market (a supermarket). One floor was maybe 800 sq ft, and the upstairs maybe 950 (including the 3-season porch). Even had half of the basement.
I really have no clue why people could think they wouldn't blend into Takoma Park, Silver Spring, etc. Especially in Takoma Park there are a number of houses that are plenty large (2500 sq ft+) where no one would notice the second front door at the porch.
But... There was a lot more of a culture of someone owning the entire house, living in one floor and renting the other 1 or 2. At the time I moved out of that house, there was a move to turning them into condos (I thought it was weird; how does a 2- 3-unit condo work?). In addition to less of an owner-renter culture, I also wonder what sort of a market there would be if some builder were interested in building such houses, including mortgage issues.
A manual for property owners on how to make income from an ADU, published by two DC advocacy groups.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/17/new-manual-offers-dc-homeowners-guidance-earning-rental-income-through-accessory-units/
Salt Lake has a lot if interesting duplexes. I plan to start creating a photo album. And in the core there's a lot of intermixed of apartments at least on main streets.
Intra house apartments in the core do exist, and by the colleges.
Mortgages are definitely an issue. With ADUs too. There was a show on DIY TV for awhile, set in Canada, about creating legitimate up to code second units in houses, to generate income to help pay the mortgage.
Given the precipitous rise in pricing, I see this perhaps coming back.
.... one of my only jokes.
"Did you hear that polygamy is going to be legalized?"
"That's outrageous!"
"You need at least three incomes to buy a house."
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