Under Court Order, Boston OKs 204 Apartments Minus Affordable Units
An apartment developer won approval to build a 204-unit project at a Hyde Park woodland, bringing an apparent end to its legal battle with the Boston Planning & Development Agency.
Downtown Boston’s Crisis Demands Collaboration
Sometimes crisis creates opportunity: a chance for the real estate industry and both city and state political leadership to come together and create a new and better economic engine room for Massachusetts.
Transfer Taxes Not Ready for Prime Time
The latest proposal to let municipalities establish new, local-option sales taxes on real estate sales continues to be a bad idea. State legislators should strip the measure from Gov. Maura Healey’s housing bill until its problems can be remedied.
More Tolls Are in Our Future – and That’s a Good Thing
Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt found herself in an unfortunate political firestorm last week thanks to her willingness to say the truth: We should give a hard look at adding tolls to other highways in Massachusetts.
MCCA Made the Right Call
The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority has a chance to make a dent in several problems problem by rethinking what it does with its 6.5 acres of empty D Street and E Street lots.
Turn on the Taps at Ex-Bases
Money for a sewer and water connection isn’t headline news – unless it means unlocking 6,000 long-anticipated housing units near a commuter rail station.
Pay Attention to Train Electrification
The dream of frequent, electrified suburban trains in Greater Boston has long seemed perennially on the horizon. Could this time be different? Indications are, yes. And housing developers should start keeping an eye on the project.
Pull Together to Fix Downtown Boston
Is Boston headed for a fiscal cliff or a fiscal hiccup thanks to falling office utilization? Two things are for sure: no one should take fears of a calamity lightly, and everyone should use this threat as an occasion to fix what’s long been broken.
Sun Belt Wins, Mass. Loses in Housing Construction
Massachusetts politicians should look at Raleigh, North Carolina with a mixture of anger, envy and fear: Anger and envy that that metro has outpaced us in housing construction by miles, fear that it will help them steal our jobs and prosperity.
Why Milton’s Vote Ultimately Doesn’t Matter
Milton cannot lawfully refuse to allow higher density zoning around the Mattapan line.
Flooding Regs Generate Developers’ Concerns
Department of Environmental Protection officials did the right thing last week, bowing to a flurry of concerned letters by allowing significantly more time for stakeholders to review their sweeping update of stormwater, flooding and wetlands regulations.
What’s Changing, and Not, at the BPDA
Five years after initially floating the idea as a city councilor, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is closing in on key legal changes to eliminate the Boston Planning & Development Agency. And it’s leaving some in the real estate community scratching their heads at best about what it all means.
Setting the Record Straight on T Funding
For years, a pernicious notion has floated around certain corners of Beacon Hill that the MBTA is a black hole that tries to suck in any and all taxpayer dollars. Now the idea is threatening to rear its head again.
Legislature Has Hands Full with Housing Bill
Gov. Maura Healey’s signature piece of housing legislation got its first hearing on Beacon Hill last week, a marathon affair that suggested that many of the main battle lines are being drawn over policy, not the bill’s fiscal impacts.
Trust Gap Muddies Mayor’s Message
Wu is essentially asking developers to trust her over the next year as she tries to achieve things previously considered pie-in-the-sky dreams. But it’s hard for some parts of the real estate community to do that.
Bankers Getting Squeezed by Collective Action Problem
Anyone hoping for a big drop in commercial lending rates this year should find Nika Cataldo’s story in this week’s issue sobering. There’s only so far any one bank can lower its loan interest rates before eating too far into its already-shrinking profit margin.
Communities Are Rezoning. Now What?
It’s easy to fear these welcome developments will prove to be too little, too late for rapid, transformational change to our rental and for-sale housing markets. In this context, it’s more vital than ever that state legislators pass Gov. Maura Healey’s housing bond bill quickly.
Next Stop: Hard Transit Funding Choices
Massachusetts faces a huge question mark about how to fund the future of transportation in the commonwealth. Gov. Maura Healey gets first crack at laying out an answer next month.
Don’t Celebrate Fed Rate Cuts Yet
Top Federal Reserve officials’ predictions that they would have to cut interest rates three times next year sent a bolt of energy through markets last week. But no one, especially policymakers in town halls or on Beacon Hill, should think we’re about to get some kind of relief from current market conditions.
Has the Post-COVID Economy Broken Inclusionary Zoning?
Bravo to Mayor Michelle Wu and her team for thinking boldly about ways the city can get housing development unstuck. But her preferred solution – significant tax breaks – raises questions about the viability of high affordable housing mandates.
This Week’s Newspaper
