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Too narrow a focus?
That’s the big question about the Healey administration’s efforts to tackle the housing crisis to date, which have been skewed towards apartment projects, with little mention of new home construction.
The homeownership rate in Massachusetts? That’s nearly 62 percent.
And the single-family home is by far the preferred form of ownership, with sales of homes outpacing that of condominiums by a margin of over 2 to 1 according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.
That’s even the case as new-house prices in the Boston area surge into the seven-figure range, with construction of new single-family homes having bumped along now for decades now in Massachusetts at chronically low levels.
Yet the Healey administration, in its drive to boost housing production, has focused almost solely on multifamily construction, especially rental, sparking a backlash in some suburbs and towns.
Bring Back the Starter Home
That glaring mismatch between government policy and market demand has not gone unnoticed by housing developers and some housing advocates.
A large commission of housing experts empaneled by Gov. Maura Healey just released its list of ideas Friday for how the state could meet her goal of ramping up housing production.
The 108-page report has a lot to digest, but it wisely recommends eliminating minimum residential lot sizes and allowing lot mergers and lot splits when building housing outside of environmentally sensitive areas.
Officially, it’s just a menu of ideas Healey could pursue.
But all eyes will be on whether, going forward, she takes seriously the issue of declining production of single-family homes, especially the reasonably priced starter home that was a staple of new construction in the suburban boom days of the 1950s ’60s and ’70s.
In particular, it will be interesting to see whether Healey embraces the report’s lot-size reform recommendations, with 1 or 2 acres common now for decades in many towns.
Large lots all but guarantee expensive homes.
“I think there is stuff in play and discussion happening around single-family homes,” Clark Ziegler, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and a member of the unlocking production commission, told me.
“I would argue zoning is still a huge impediment,” he added.
That, of course, would require new legislation, and whether leaders on Beacon Hill are up for another major housing policy bill after last year’s multibillion-dollar housing policy-and-finance bill is anyone’s guess.
Not Just Zoning Reform
That said, the barriers to homebuilding in Massachusetts go well beyond zoning.
Restrictive septic and wetlands regulations also make it more difficult to build, with local officials sometimes going beyond even state requirements – reining these in is another report recommendation.
Time is money as well, especially for developers who are having to lay out lots of money on the front end for everything from land to traffic consultants, ultimately driving up the cost of the homes, apartments and condos they eventually build.
Overall, the approval process for new housing on the local level can drag on for years, according to a new report by the Pioneer Institute, “How to Streamline Housing Permitting in Massachusetts.” Unfortunately, this is one area the Healey panel’s report doesn’t address.
The researchers interviewed a couple dozen people involved in the local approval for new housing.
One official reported attending 150 meetings over an 18-month period.
Scott Van Voorhis
“In Massachusetts, public hearings are often continued many times,” the report notes. “As a result, a single hearing may stretch over multiple years.”
It would be hard to argue that all this process has produced wonderful results.
It certainly hasn’t produced lots of housing, with Massachusetts grappling with one of the most severe housing crises in the country.
The end result? Young families are too often forced to either move out of state, go the exurbs or stay put in a home or apartment that isn’t big enough for their needs, said David Crowley, a strategic real estate advisor at One Boston Luxury Living|William Raveis Boston.
“The lack of reasonably affordable, market rate single-family housing in the suburbs has been a deterrent to young families either looking to stay in a suburban town, maybe even the town they grew-up in, or it’s deterrent to younger, city families looking to move to for more living space, a yard, or better schools,” Crowley said.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist and publisher of the Contrarian Boston newsletter; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
