Area Around Medford MBTA Stops Leaves Room For Development: Study

MEDFORD, MA — A new study of housing around transit stations in Massachusetts says there's an opportunity to build up to 253,000 new units, which would ease a growing housing shortage and ease traffic.

The Massachusetts Housing Partnership study looked at 261 stations in the area — including Boston subway stops and all MBTA stations — and found that the average housing density is about 6.5 units per-acre.

The area around the Wellington Orange Line stop has 980 units, or 3.8 units per acre. The West Medford Commuter Rail stop aligned closer to the average with 2,715 units, or 6.6 units per acre.

The study, however, suggests that residential concentrations of at least 10 homes per acre are "sufficient to support rail service." That figure comes with a caveat: the 10-home rule is not one-size-fits-all and some station areas should aim for "greater levels" of housing activity, according to the study.

An ideal housing density could be as high as 12 to 26 units per acre — a number only seen in dense areas like Roxbury and the South End.

Density is higher than Wellington at other nearby stops along the Orange Line. Malden Center has a whopping 20.5 units per acre, while Assembly was closer to the average at 5.2 units per acre. Oak Grove met the study's optimal residential concentration with 10.4 units per acre.

Meanwhile West Medford was on the higher end of stops on its Commuter Rail line. Wedgemere has 2.9 units per acre and Winchester Center has 4.6 units per acre. Woburn's Commuter Rail stops are under 1 unit per acre.

The study highlights low-density areas as "squandered opportunities" because housing is in short supply. The numbers are just estimates, and the authors acknowledge barriers to housing in some neighborhoods, like commercial zoning. The presence of a rail yard at Wellington, for example, would likely hinder development.

"While this math is incredibly simple and ignores some important neighborhood factors, it does show the potential that re-imagining these high-access neighborhoods could have in terms of better supporting transit while simultaneously making a huge dent in our chronic housing supply problem," the study says. "Of course, every station area is different, and there are places where even greater levels of density make sense, and surely some places where market demand may not support large numbers of additional new units."

See a map of stations and read about the methodology on the Massachusetts Housing Partnership website.