Discussions on the fate of Chapter 40B at an Urban Land Institute (ULI) forum on the measure and its effectiveness this morning prompted some to ask employers to offer more help to workers looking for affordable housing and calls for more money to help defeat a ballot measure seeking the end of the state’s affordable housing law.

Housing that is close to major employment centers remains unaffordable to a large portion of workers in the Boston metropolitan area, according to new research from the ULI’s Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing.

Even though the household median income for the Boston metro area ranks relatively high compared to other metro areas in the country, ($81,180 for a family of three, $90,200 for a family of four), there is a shortage of about 25,000 housing units affordable to workforce households near each of the six employment centers (Downtown Boston, Route 128 North, Route 128 West, Framingham, Route 128 South and Route 3 North), according to the report. This number is expected to rise over the next 10 years by an additional 11,000 units, as growth in workforce households continues to outstrip the region’s ability to build housing that is affordable to those households.

The problem is most severe among family households, or those with at least three people living together. For-sale housing that is affordable to the workforce tends to be geographically concentrated on the periphery of the metro area, and located farthest away from both job centers and transit, the report found.

The report found rental housing is more accessible to workforce households in close proximity to employment centers; however, the rents that workforce households can pay are not high enough to support new high-rise or mid-rise construction – the product types that current land prices require to be economically feasible.

A panel discussion and question and answer session discussed the need for affordable housing and the potential impact of the repeal of the Masschusetts affordable housing law, 40B, which is up for a vote this November.

Some audience members expressed concerns that not enough was being done to educate and persuade the general public about the need for affordable workforce housing, and suggested emphasizing the need for affordable housing to help young people stay in the areas where they’ve grown up.

If the repeal should pass, panelists seemed to think alternatives for increasing affordable housing were limited in scope. Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Association, emphasized that while ideas like "inclusionary zoning" were valuable, so far such efforts had produced only about 1600 affordable units, primarily in six communities — Boston, Cambridge, Sommerville, Brookline and Lexington — several of which have already met the 10 percent affordable threshold that 40B mandates.

"The typical new home [in many parts of the state] is on 1.1 acres," Gornstein said. That’s "the size of a football field, including both end zones."

The panel also discussed the possibilities of support from the business community to help employees afford housing near work, but Eastern Bank CEO Richard Holbrook and Mark Thompson, president and CEO of Boston Private Bank & Trust, said felt that given the tax impact of providing such a benefit, employers would be reluctant to embrace such programs.

Ellen Feingold, treasurer of the campaign to protect the affordable housing law, stood up during the question and answer session of the meeting to plea for further donations to the campaign, saying the campaign’s polling reveals that the vast majority of voters don’t understand how the law works and in such conditions the campaign needed to be able to afford broadcast media buys during the final weeks.

"If you want it to be defeated, the campaign — sorry — needs money," Feingold said. "I need you to go back to your businesses, and I’m not talking about two and three figure checks."