Boston Mayor Tom Menino has announced ambitious new plans to increase the amount of housing in the city before his term runs out at the end of the year.

The new proposals flesh out the “Housing Boston 2020” he announced in March, which called for 30,000 new units to be built in Boston before the start of the next decade. Today’s announcement puts a 16.5 billion price tag in all, and calls for substantive steps to move forward on the plan’s goals over the next few months, including selling large parcels of city property.

“Boston 2013 is thriving and well positioned to meet its bright future,” Menino said in a statement. “But one thing has not changed: in order to fulfill its promise, Boston needs to continue its relentless focus on creating housing, because this is an issue that affects every Boston resident. We do not simply need to put roofs over peoples’ heads; we need to think carefully about the right kind of housing for our changing city.”

The plan’s priorities include accommodating growth, expansion of the middle class, affordable housing for Boston’s workforce and college and university housing.

Before the end of the year, Menino plans to:

• approve up to 3,600 units of new housing which are awaiting BRA approval,
• commission a study on housing costs in Boston to find ways to cut red tape,
• create new zoning which allows for smaller units,
• launch a homebuyer assistance program for middle-class purchasers,
• put 500,000 square feet of city-owned real estate on the market, intended for middle-class home building
• boost fees paid by developers to increase the funds available for affordable housing (make up for federal funding cuts)
• create a new program to help finance affordable rental housing  

Over the next several years, the advisory group that helped develop the plan calculated that 100,000 net new jobs will be created in Boston by 2020, spurring a demand for 28,800 new units. The mayor’s plan calls for 25,000 of those to be private market rate units, requiring $10 billion in new investment, along with the creation of 5,000 new units of affordable, deed-restricted housing. The affordable units will be funded by a combination of government and private financing.

The mayor’s plan also calls for $1.5 billion fund to be created to help subsidize 5,000 units of housing which is affordable for middle-class residents and $1.5 billion in investment to build grad student housing for 10,000 full-time students.

The plan acknowledges some profound challenges for the city’s housing market: Boston’s home prices are among the most expensive in the county, and housing prices for the middle class are rising at double the rate that incomes are growing. Further, Boston’s stock of affordable housing is threatened by federal funding cuts and expiring affordability restrictions. Much of the implementation will depend on the choices of Menino’s successor.