In Gateway Cities – where housing production is already only half of what it needs to be to meet rising demand – increasing the cost of construction materials threatens an already tenuous housing market.
One set of housing advocates wants voters to repeal the statewide ban on local rent control laws. Another wants to lift yet another big barrier to building moderately-priced homes.
It’s a rare Trump policy aimed at lifting poor communities, but it’s unclear how much it’s doing locally.
The fate of short-term rentals on the small, wealthy island of Nantucket is, for now, treading water.
The massive package of tax and spending cuts President Trump signed into law on July 4 eliminates a federal grant program that set aside $335 million for the nearly $2 billion I-90 Allston highway-and-transit project in Boston.
With several towns opting this week to finally get into compliance with the MBTA Communities housing law, some municipalities who claim the law asks too much of them are still looking to the courts and the Legislature for relief.
A project that would keep floodwaters out of Everett’s booming Commercial Triangle development zone and Chelsea’s Mystic Mall could be dead due to Trump administration cuts.
Prices are ballooning, unit construction is stagnating, populations are declining and a housing crisis deserves to be treated as such, Barnstable County’s legislature said last week.
At some point between February and early March, as seasonal wind and rain hammered New England coasts, a relatively new but enthusiastically embraced tool for predicting erosion slipped off the Federal Emergency Management Agency website.
His abrupt reversal comes after his entry into the race was all but assured last week, and leaves the field to Mayor Michelle Wu and other challengers hoping to topple the first-term incumbent.
The survey indicated residents remain in a fiscally conservative mood, but they are open to studying other ways to pay for transportation upgrades and improvements, such as congestion pricing.
Tom O’Brien, the developer who once worked inside Boston City Hall under Mayor Thomas Menino, is now weighing a campaign for the top job.
The declaration dropped like a grenade into the controversy over state rezoning requirements, and it sent some towns scrambling straight for the courthouse.
Vacation home-owners once rented to year-round residents in the off-season. Now they lean toward short-term rentals, and it’s pulled at least 9,000 homes off the rental market.
Auditor Diana DiZoglio drew a sharp rebuke from Attorney General Andrea Campbell, a top defender of the zoning law that eases regulations for multifamily housing in neighborhoods close to public transit.
A quiet fight played out earlier this year over accessory dwelling units, also known as ADUs, in-law apartments or “granny flats.”
A big challenge looms for the MBTA as it tries to move its commuter rail lines into the 21st century: Picking who will operate the sprawling system for the public transit agency, how will they do it, and for how long.
Greater Boston’s acclaimed universities, hospitals, and affiliated research institutions are the fuel that made the region a juggernaut of the 21st-century knowledge economy. Now they are making it a target.
