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.
Speaker after speaker praised the governor and her team for bringing forth the bill. Phrases like “meets the moment” were thrown around. Many recounted the horrors and major social problems the state’s absurd rents and home prices create.
From individual stories of homelessness to a state senator joking about needing to find a rich husband in order to afford to own a home in his district, the personal toll on Bay Staters was on full display.
And the weight housing problems place on the state’s economy were put in stark relief by the governor and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll themselves in joint testimony. The inability for workers young and old to find reasonably-priced homes pushes many out of state, and businesses follow – threatening the state’s prosperity.
Something, everyone appears to agree, must be done.
But in addition to the challenge of figuring out how to pay for $4.12 billion in bonding without raising taxes – a recent report by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation highlighted the tough political choices legislators will face – legislators will have to balance demands from different factions.
Some of the same positions that earned strong support from one faction are near-anathema to others.
The Massachusetts Municipal Association, for example, strongly backs the idea of letting towns and cities levy a sales tax on commercial and residential property worth over $1 million to help raise money for affordable housing funding.
But the commercial real estate industry strongly opposes the idea, with leaders of trade groups NAIOP-Massachusetts and the Greater Boston Real Estate Board saying it could pile further distress on an office real estate sector struggling with declining occupancy – a trend that threatens a bedrock piece of many cities’ property tax base.
Eviction sealing is another major fault line. Progressive groups see it as vital to make life fairer for renters who may find themselves in Housing Court after losing a job or a health crisis. But trade group MassLandlords, in written testimony, saying the measure would gut a vital tool landlords use to protect their tenants from a small number of troublemakers.
As vital as it will be to pass the governor’s bill as soon as possible, no one should be under any illusions that it won’t require significant horse-trading and debate – possibly lasting into the last hours of this year’s legislative session.
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