According to a recent Massachusetts Housing Partnership study of 155 municipalities inside I-495, the median lot size for a new single-family home produced between 2003 and 2012 was more than half an acre – significantly larger than any other region of the country.
This at a time when our region’s household sizes are getting smaller, the number of senior households looking to downsize is soaring, and the number of young families that either can afford to or that would want to buy that single-family home in much of our state is at an all-time low. We’re going in the wrong direction.
Massachusetts is one of the most difficult places in the country to build new housing, and that is hurting all of us. One of the main reasons for our high housing costs is that, based on local zoning rules, there is very little opportunity in most communities to build any kind of multifamily housing.
Now arrives an important bill with the most modest of titles, “An Act Relative to Housing Production,” introduced by State Rep. Kevin Honan, who is a big-picture housing champion in our state and is able, with the help of municipal leaders, to tease out the best elements of zoning reform. Strongly supported by the Citizens’ Planning and Housing Association and others in the housing community, it targets making provision for the commonwealth’s significant present and future housing needs, and it calls for some measures which have been previously considered but which have been difficult to enact: striking the balance between removing administrative barriers at the local level while safeguarding needed local control.
The timing is right. We have a new governor, a new session of the Legislature, and a relatively new mayor of Boston, the state’s leading economic engine, who has already produced a study with convincing evidence and encouraged bold action.
Individual communities such as Boston and Somerville have put forth some strong plans, but a broader approach is needed. This bill would not only help all communities become more economically competitive and able to attract young workers; it would also provide valuable new tools to help the communities seeking to add housing – especially much-needed multifamily housing, including apartments and condominiums.
Since 1980, Massachusetts housing prices have increased sixfold, more than in most other states, and Boston’s have gone up even faster.
The pace of housing production, which until mid-century more or less kept pace with the need, dropped over 50 percent between the 1960s and the 1990s. During that same period, multifamily housing production, the kind we need most now and in the near future, dropped by more than 80 percent. We are producing less housing than other parts of the country with which we compete.
Although we see lots of apartments going up today – multifamily housing production has tripled since 2009 – it is not nearly enough, and it needs to reflect different types and price points.
“Boston is being out-built, out-priced and generally out-competed by several regions,” concluded “Unlocking the Commonwealth,” the Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s comprehensive November 2014 study. It determined that Massachusetts was eighth from the top in adding new-economy workers between 2008 and 2012. All seven ahead of our commonwealth were building new housing units at double-digit rates. Greater Boston was down at 8.9 percent.
A Nuanced Approach
Broadly, the proposed bill would require that zoning ordinances and bylaws allow multifamily housing, but it would also offer the enhancement of expanding state aid to communities to share the true cost burden if additional school costs materialize. It would make state land available for low- and moderate-income housing. The bill would allow cities and towns to explore regional solutions and join together to set land-use regulations to balance the demands of population growth. And it would restore the Office of State Planning, absent since 1979, to coordinate analysis and policy regarding the progress the commonwealth is making.
This proposed legislation is broad and tries to tackle the key issues, particularly zoning and financing, but by no means advocates a cookie-cutter approach. It recognizes that different tools are needed in different circumstances – rural, suburban, Gateway Cities, urban areas – and tries to address those. And it promises help with addressing infrastructure and other costs – very real concerns of communities whose municipal budgets are already stretched.
The bill serves as a plan of engagement. It enables communities to play a critical role in ensuring the economic future of our state and our region. This is legislation whose time has come.
Susan Gittelman is executive director of B’nai B’rith Housing, a nonprofit, nonsectarian developer and operator of affordable and mixed-income housing serving families and elders in communities of Greater Boston. BBH is currently working on developments in Boston and Andover.
