Former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh delivers remarks at the State House in 2016 as former House Speaker Robert DeLeo, right, and Attorney General Maura Healey, second from right, look on. Photo by Don Harney | Boston Mayor’s Office
The Massachusetts housing market, distorted by a chronic shortage of homes, condominiums and apartments and plagued by ever-more-obscene prices and rents, needs a new champion.
Gov. Charlie Baker has done a reasonable job pushing construction of new housing over the past seven years, but he’s opted out of running for a third term.
Now, with former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh seemingly eyeing a run for governor, the state’s next cheerleader-in-chief for new housing construction may be waiting in the wings.
As governor, it’s probable Walsh would be like Baker on steroids when it comes to getting new apartments and homes built.
Boston Punched Above Its Weight
Let’s get a little wonky and dig into the numbers.
Massachusetts has been averaging more than 17,000 new apartments, condos and single-family homes over the past few years under Baker, a definite improvement over the early 2010s, Census Bureau stats show.
However, at least a quarter of those new units come from Boston, or on average 4,000 a year during the Walsh years, which ended this spring when the former mayor was sworn in as federal labor secretary in March.
Considering the city accounts for not even 10 percent of the state’s 7 million residents, Boston has been punching well above its weight.
In fact, if a Gov. Walsh were able to raise the level of housing production across the state to Boston levels, that would more than double the number of homes and apartments built in Massachusetts each year to 40,000.
That would bring the state back to a level of new housing construction not seen since the 1980s, when the state was about average on this front instead of near bottom, as it is now.
Of course, the population has grown by more than 1.2 million since then, but we’ll take what we can get.
More than doubling the amount of housing built each year in the Bay State would be a huge feat.
Yet would it even be possible for Walsh to replicate what he did in Boston across the entire state?
That’s a tough question given the fierce, NIMBY resistance to new housing of any kind in the suburbs of Greater Boston.
A Boon to Workers
That said, as a former top executive of a major city and a one-time construction worker-turned-labor leader, Walsh likely understands the pitfalls of construction and permitting far better than Baker, a former state health insurance executive.
And Walsh would surely couple any drive to dramatically boost housing production with an effort to raise the wages of those doing the building.
Even a moderate Republican like Baker won’t go there.
Unlike Boston, most new residential construction outside the city and its immediate environs is built by nonunion contractors, too often relying on vulnerable, undocumented laborers to whom they can pay rock bottom wages and provide no benefits.
While it’s unlikely we are ever going to see mass unionization of the state’s construction industry, there are other levers, carrots and sticks that a creative and determined governor could use to both boost wages and improve working conditions.
The carpenters’ union for years has worked with different wage structures beyond the metro core, for example.
The prospect of decent employment might even give more voters in local suburbs and towns a stake in housing projects that too many see as simply another drain on local resources.
Could He Beat Healey?
We don’t know yet whether Walsh will run, so this may all be just idle speculation.
But the former Boston mayor, while officially staying mum on the issue, has sent clear signals to the local media that he is indeed taking a good hard look at a potential run.
And if Walsh does decide to take the plunge, he may face a formidable, maybe even insurmountable opponent in the Democratic primary, regardless of the millions of dollars he has in his campaign account.
Scott Van Voorhis
Attorney General Maura Healey, a rising star of the party’s progressive wing, is also weighing her gubernatorial prospects and would automatically be the frontrunner.
Along with a fired-up progressive base, Healey has the kind of undeniable charisma that Walsh lacks.
But I also suspect Healey would bring a more legalistic, regulatory approach to the issue, one that views housing mainly as another front in the antidiscrimination fight, coupled with support for more money for affordable housing.
Not to say that those issues aren’t important – they are crucial. But neither will bring down rents and prices. Only making housing less scarce will do that.
And for that, a Gov. Walsh may be just the ticket.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
