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With both the state House of Representatives and state Senate having passed versions of Gov. Maura Healey’s blockbuster housing-and-policy bill, the action’s shifted to a committee of legislators from both chambers that will negotiate a final, compromise bill behind closed doors.

These negotiators face an end-of-July deadline before the legislature goes on break for the rest of the year, meaning any bill voted on in so-called “informal sessions” can be stopped by any one senator or representative for any reason.

So, what differences will this conference committee have to iron out, in this year’s attempt to address an issue that’s forcing residents to leave the state?

Money, and Lots of It

First, there’s the issue of how much borrowing the legislature will OK to fund housing programs. While a separate state body will actually decide whether bonds get issued, legislators get to set upper limits on how much gets borrowed for what purposes.

According to an analysis by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, the House, Senate and governor agree on $5.35 billion worth of bonding across 19 different programs.

Also in both the House and Senate bills: dozens of earmarks for local projects and a little over $900 million each in additional money for programs the governor proposed, like public housing renovations and a “momentum fund” that’s supposed to offer flexible cash to get large-scale housing developments moving.

However, the Senate has three programs it funded to the tune of $150 million that the House didn’t include in its bill,like a $50 million in grants and subsidies for “seasonal community” housing developments to help ease the crunch in the Berkshires and on Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

For itself, the House has $1.27 billion across five programs that the Senate didn’t include. That larger figure is mostly driven by a $1 billion allocation for expanding MWRA water and sewer service to towns on the South Shore to unlock development proposals from New England Development and Brookfield Properties for around 6,000 new homes at the site of the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station.

Another big-ticket program the House included, but which the Senate didn’t pick up: $150 million in grants to finance office-to-residential conversions, with the rules for the money to be set up later by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.

Policy Agreements

While both the House and Senate notably passed on a chance to authorize local-option real estate sales taxes to fund housing, both versions of this major housing legislation include lots of policy proposals. And a review of both laws by Banker & Tradesman shows the House and Senate have some pretty different sets of policy proposals in their bills that negotiators will have to either trade or leave out, entirely.

First, a roundup of the most important policy areas where both sets of legislators agreed:

• Accessory dwelling units by-right on most single-family lots, while also blocking some of the common “poison pill” laws towns could pass to try and nullify the measure.
• Creating a faster way to sell off or lease state land for housing development.
• Requiring the governor to make a “written comprehensive” statewide housing plan at least every five years that’s grounded in regional needs plus housing supply, demand and affordability data.

The House’s Policy Ideas

The House’s bill includes several policy ideas the Senate didn’t propose, including:

• A requirement that contractors on $2 billion of new public housing construction and repair projects funded by the bill offer apprenticeship programs. Reporting by the Boston Globe suggests this might lock small contractors out of public housing work.
• Tenant opportunity to purchase (also known as “TOPA” and “tenant right of first refusal”), which would force landlords to entertain offers from tenant groups if they wanted to sell their building. Supporters say it’s necessary to help put so-called “naturally occurring affordable housing” that isn’t deed-restricted in the hands of tenant associations and affordable housing developers. Landlord groups say the measure would dramatically curb the value of rental properties and deter investment in new housing.
• An extension and expansion of the state historic tax credit program, which is often a key source of funding for housing being converted from older buildings, like ex-mills and turn-of-the-century offices.

The Senate’s Policy Ideas

The Senate’s bill includes several policy ideas the House didn’t propose, including:

• A ban on landlords making tenants pay the leasing broker’s fee. Tenants will still be allowed to hire their own leasing broker to help them find an apartment.
• Letting any town or city vote by a simple majority, instead of the current two-thirds majority, to require housing developments make up to 13 percent of their units affordable housing.
• A “crumbling concrete assistance fund” for homeowners whose foundations were made of concrete contaminated with the mineral pyrrhotite, sourced from certain Central Massachusetts and Connecticut quarries. Connecticut officials tackled the same problem in their state around five years ago by creating a “captive” insurance program to fund homeowners who wanted to rebuild their foundations.
• A ban on homeowners requiring buyers to waive home inspections as a condition of the sale.
• Housing-related judicial reforms aimed at deterring frivolous, anti-development abutter lawsuits, including boosting the bond required for anyone who sues to overturn a zoning appeals board decision from $50,000 to $250,000 and requiring people whose appeals are unsuccessful to reimburse the defendants’ damages and expenses.