Home prices have hit record highs again in Eastern Massachusetts, leaving a widening swath of middle-class buyers priced out of market. September’s modest decline offers a breather, but hardly a solution.
But you wouldn’t know it listening to the leading candidates for governor, who have all but ignored the state’s growing housing crisis as they focus on other issues far more compelling to both everyday voters and the business community.
Martha Coakley has focused on proving to voters she’s not a robotic product of the old Democratic Party machine. As for Charlie Baker? The Republican candidate has been bending over backwards to keep his cool and distance himself from the cranky, EBT-card bashing Charlie who turned off voters big time back in 2010.
But as this sorry excuse for a gubernatorial race comes mercifully to an end, both major party candidates might have made up in substance what they lacked in charisma if they had focused on the high costs that make the Bay State an increasingly tough place to live, with housing at the top of the list. The fact that both major party candidates basically blew the issue off is hardly an encouraging sign of where we are headed over the next four years.
“It’s a major disconnect,” Evan Falchuck, the independent candidate for governor, said of how the two leading contestants failed to even pay lip service to the state’s housing woes. “It’s a total failure of imagination.”
“We have people who can’t afford to buy a home, yet we are not discussing that,” he said.
In fact, the situation is even worse than relatively mild words like “disconnect” and “total failure of imagination” might suggest.
Not only have Coakley and Baker ignored any substantive discussion of the housing issue, Falchuk can’t recall either candidate even mentioning the two words “home prices” in a single sentence at any of the major debates.
Falchuk should know. He’s made the Bay State’s crazy real estate prices – and the need to build more homes, condos and apartments – a centerpiece of his campaign.
He’s also been there at many of the debates – at least the ones independent candidates weren’t locked out of – and countless smaller forums.
A Generous Interpretation
The local media frankly hasn’t been much better, sadly. I had the honor of being the first reporter to call to talk about the housing issue, Falchuk told me.
Nor have there been any housing questions at the debates – rather we get softball questions like asking the candidates what movie stars they would like to portray them.
“The people in the press are not paying attention to what is going on in the real world,” Falchuk said. “There hasn’t been a single question yet on housing.”
To be fair, even if they have been reluctant to mention apparently risky phrases like “home prices,” the candidates have dribbled out here and there fragments of what could be generous described as potential housing policies.
Coakley focuses almost exclusively on “affordable housing,” with not much to offer for strapped, middle-income families. OK, there is some talk of “smart growth” – as in encouraging development of new condos and apartments near train stations. But not everyone wants to live near the train tracks – it’s a small solution to a big problem.
She did mention that she thinks “it’s time to look at zoning reform,” or some such phrasing, at a forum put on by an affordable housing advocacy group. Given that zoning reform bills have been proposed for years on Beacon Hill, only to go nowhere without a peep from Coakley, that’s hardly a confidence-inspiring statement.
Baker also hints at zoning reform, but it’s hardly something he has been emphasizing. And the devil is in the details – especially if it’s a wimpy, opt-in plan.
The whole problem right now is getting communities who want little, if any, new housing to open their doors to it – opting in simply gives them a pass on the whole issue. The Bay State needs tens if not hundreds of thousands of new homes, condos and apartments over the next decade or two – and we just can’t get there relying on urban areas and a smattering of more progressive suburbs while everyone else chases away developers with pitchforks.
After The Win
But does anyone truly believe that Coakley, or even Baker, after barely giving a nod to the state’s housing crunch on the campaign trail, will suddenly turn into a tiger on the issue after winning the corner office?
The odds of that happening are slim to none, but one can always hope.
Some of this is just politics as usual. Neither side sees votes to gain by highlighting an issue – rising home prices – for which there is no easy answer and with potential solutions verging into politically hazardous territory, argues David Begelfer, chief executive of NAIOP Massachusetts.
The biggest barrier right now to getting more homes, condos and apartments built in Massachusetts is the growing housing phobia on part of towns and suburbs across the state. And the only effective way to grapple with the issue is to bring those restrictive zoning barriers down, which only a willing governor working with the Legislature can do.
Yet that means taking on the power of local towns and suburbs in a state where home rule is practically a religious principle.
“I am not sure whether anyone would gain votes by that – you have a lot more to lose by bringing up a third-rail issue, and home rule is a third-rail issue,” Begelfer said.
Still, third rail or not, is it too much to ask of the major party candidates for governor to show a little courage, especially when dealing with a major issue like housing? If we can’t talk about the reasons why home prices are so high, then what can we talk about?
Sure, there’s political risk in taking on a third-rail issue like home rule, but there is also the potential for an even bigger gain for the candidate who handles the issue deftly.
Who knows, voters might think all sorts of crazy things, like mistaking one of the candidates for a statesman.
Email: sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com
