The Massachusetts House of Representatives chambers. Legislative leaders are pushing back on an effort to make a even more significant dent in the state’s housing shortage. iStock photo
Home prices and rents are hitting astronomical heights in Greater Boston, with the median price surging towards $1 million in a growing number of suburbs and coveted urban ZIP codes.
But lawmakers on Beacon Hill are apparently living on another planet given the lack of urgency in dealing with this escalating real estate catastrophe.
There’s been some telling pushback at the State House amid lobbying for another round of zoning reforms aimed at revving up construction of new apartments and condominiums.
House and Senate leaders apparently want to take things slow, now, after passing Gov. Charlie Baker’s Housing Choice bill last year, which made it easier for new multifamily projects to win local approvals, housing activists say.
All of which would be rather funny given it took years for legislative leaders to finally give a green light to the governor’s proposal, if the state’s housing market wasn’t such an unaffordable disaster.
Baker first unveiled Housing Choice in December 2017, only to see it languish in the legislature for more than three years. It finally passed in early 2021, with another piece of zoning reform, known as “MBTA Communities” added amid last-minute negotiations.
Over those three-plus years, the median price of a house in Massachusetts jumped nearly 37 percent, hitting $500,000 in December.
“We did Housing Choice and MBTA Communities and ‘we are not going to see anything big on housing for a long time,’” said one housing activist of the pushback he is hearing from some on Beacon Hill.
New Bill Ups the Ante
Abundant Housing Massachusetts and the Citizens Housing and Planning Association are throwing their weight behind a new pair of bills that could be called House Choice/MBTA Communities 2.0.
Passed a year ago, Housing Choice got rid of the two-thirds margin needed to local zoning rules to allow for new housing, changing it to simple majority vote. MBTA Communities uses the threat of the loss grant money to prod cities and towns within a certain distance of MBTA commuter rail, bus and subway stops to open the door to hundreds and in some cases thousands of new multifamily units.
Backed by the two nonprofit housing groups, Housing Choice/MBTA Communities 2.0, or H.1448/S.871 to give the bills their official names, would expand this multifamily-zoning requirement to all communities across the state, while setting a 2025 deadline to comply. If cities and towns refuse, the new apartment and condo zoning will simply go into effect without their input.
The bill would also set community-by-community housing production goals.
The MBTA Communities and Housing Choice laws Baker got through the legislature last year were a big step forward.
But new legislation, and MBTA Communities in particular, is not the end-all, be all, with significant issues already starting to arise that raise questions about its long-term effectiveness and whether it truly be able to generate a promised 200,000 new housing units at the end of the decade.
Pushback Already in Evidence
Some local officials, not eager to see large numbers of new apartments built, have questioned whether it would be worth it to not comply and simply lose the state grant money.
The most prominent example involves Newton City Councilor Chris Laredo, who wound up taking heat on Twitter after a clip was posted online of his comments at a public meeting.
In particular, Laredo said the rules would limit the city’s ability to “manage and control what gets built here” since developers would be able to build apartments and condos in a few city-designated areas by right, instead of having to obtain a special permit.
Scott Van Voorhis
Officials in Milton, Belmont and Arlington having engaged in similar discussions, apparently feeling their communities are already densely built-out.
Meanwhile, smaller communities in the outer edge of the MBTA service zone are pushing back as well, arguing, from the other end of the spectrum, that they can’t handle lots of new housing as well.
Of course, passing another round of zoning legislation might seem like a lot at this point, what with ink not even dry yet on the regulations implementing the MBTA Communities law.
But Beacon Hill has effectively slow-walked efforts to solve the housing crisis for two decades now, and just look where it has gotten us.
For House and Senate leaders, it’s time to try chewing gum and walking at the same time.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
