“Bold” and “controversial.” Those are two of the words used to describe a Boston proposal that would stick it to dastardly real estate speculators and pay for more affordable housing.
Real estate speculators who rack up big gains flipping multimillion-dollar condominiums would be hit with a 25 percent tax under a proposal being pushed by a pair of Boston city councilors representing Roxbury, Charlestown, East Boston and the North End.
City councilors or state lawmakers proposing to hit up wealthy condo buyers and sellers – or better yet, nameless “flippers” – for affordable housing cash are hardly profiles in courage. However, there is something local pols could do that would both stake real political courage and might also help put a dent in housing prices, and it doesn’t matter whether they represent urban neighborhoods like East Boston or posh suburbs like Wellesley.
Go before residents and voters and making a case for letting developers build taller buildings and projects with more apartments and condos. Better yet, call for an end to what often are arbitrary and subjective zoning caps on height and density and let the market decide.
If someone buys a site in West Roxbury or Dorchester, or for that matter Wellesley or Watertown, and believes a 30-story tower would fill demand for new apartments or condos, let them go ahead and build it.
With Greater Boston in the grip of a terrible housing crisis, surely 300 new units are better than 30?
Boston and the suburbs need hundreds of thousands of new homes, condos and apartments by 2040 – and that’s just to meet current demand. Yet the reality is we are nowhere near putting up the kinds of big housing numbers needed to meet that projection, let alone bring down prices.
In fact, in most cases, a developer would be lucky to approval for an extra three units, let alone 30 or 300. Instead, there’s a knee-jerk reaction both in Boston and across the region against just about any new development, especially housing.
Stand Strong Against the NIMBYs
Our elected leaders are wary of confronting this ingrained NIMBY sentiment that stifles new housing construction and keeps prices trending ever upwards.
Case in point is Lydia Edwards, one of the two Boston city councilors pushing the luxury condo speculators’ tax, as a well as a 6 percent levy on all commercial and residential deals.
Edwards last spring came out against a proposal that would have added a fourth floor as part of a proposal to rehab a decrepit triple-decker in East Boston. The owner had scaled back his original plan, which would have added seven additional units to the back of the building. Apparently, that was to no avail in trying to win support from Edwards and other neighbors.
Edwards, according to Universal Hub, said she and other neighbors of the triple-decker were worried about traffic and height, four stories apparently being a bit over the top.
Meanwhile, in South Boston, Rep. Stephen Lynch and other elected officials are playing to the NIMBY crowd as well, banging away against plans for a large development at the site of the old Boston Edison plant.
Developers Hilco Redevelopment Partners and Redgate Capital apparently have the gall to propose 1,344 apartments on a 15-acre site that for generations offered the rather picturesque vista of a soot-belching power plant.
Hilco and Redgate shaved a couple hundred thousand square feet off the proposal, bringing it down to 1.93 million square feet, but that apparently wasn’t enough for opponents.
Scott Van Voorhis
In a letter last fall, Lynch warned of fear that the project would potentially “overwhelm the area.” No mention was made of the sky-high rents and condo prices that have arguably already overrun South Boston, and which are fueled by the very dearth of new housing project the developers hope to address.
There’s nothing particularly bold, courageous or even controversial in deep blue Boston about pushing a tax on luxury condo sales or, for that matter, pressuring developers to downsize proposals for badly needed housing.
But here’s something that would truly be bold and controversial – standing up to the NIMBY whiners who complain about every proposal, whether it’s for three extra units or 3,000.
Now that would be something to see. But then again, I’m not holding my breath.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
