City Councilors Raise Questions About Wu Tax Shift Plan
During a four-hour hearing Tuesday, most councilors didn’t take an explicit up or down stance, but voiced concerns about the long-term impact on real estate development or on small businesses.
Massachusetts Can’t Retreat on Housing Reforms
The push to build more housing in Massachusetts has reached a critical point. Gov. Maura Healey can’t give in to a vocal minority that wants fewer families to call the state home.
Legislature Has Hands Full with Housing Bill
Gov. Maura Healey’s signature piece of housing legislation got its first hearing on Beacon Hill last week, a marathon affair that suggested that many of the main battle lines are being drawn over policy, not the bill’s fiscal impacts.
Crush of Testimony Reflects Seriousness of Housing Crisis
The Healey administration’s plan to supercharge...
BERDO Turns Up the Heat on Landlords
Boston’s groundbreaking law cutting large buildings’ greenhouse gas emissions is set to gain a set of teeth, but a leading real estate group says the measure could drive up rents and make the affordability crisis worse.
Interest Groups, Advocates React to Healey Housing Bill
For some of the key players in the debate over how to fix the state’s soaring housing costs, Gov. Maura Healey’s $4.1 billion package of policies and spending, unveiled Wednesday, comes down to whether or not it’s a good compromise.
Wu Claims Some in City’s CRE Sector Back Transfer Tax
Despite vociferous opposition to the idea from trade groups, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu told a Beacon Hill committee Wednesday that many in the real estate community actually support her proposed transfer tax on property sales over $2 million.
Rent Control Leaves Housing Advocates in a Bind
Housing advocates know a supply shortage is behind our runaway rents. But their two closest groups of allies sit on either side of the issue, and each see the debate in existential terms.
Redouble the Effort to Support the Community Preservation Act
A few key reforms can help overcome the real obstacle to growing the number of housing units the CPA creates: the lack of local political will to seed new housing that CPA funds can be spent on.
State to Allow Mixed-Use in Transit Zoning, Adds Penalties for Snubs
State housing officials announced Thursday afternoon that they will let Boston-area towns and cities add a potentially controversial requirement for mixed-use buildings to zoning changes designed to comply with the MBTA Communities transit-oriented zoning law.
Second Chances Riding on GBREB-Backed Eviction Sealing Bill
With a champion for eviction record sealing now chairing the Joint Committee on Housing, tenants rights advocates are feeling a renewed hope for passage of the “HOMES Act” this session.
How to Overcome the Housing Crisis: Build, Build, Build
While the reason for high housing costs – a lack of supply – is broadly understood, the scale at which we’ve failed to meet production needs is stunning when compared to the rest of the country.
Boston Officials Push Back on Rent Control Critiques
Top officials in Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration pushed back against strong critiques of the mayor’s rent control proposal during a City Council committee hearing Wednesday.
GBREB Launches Anti-Rent Control Campaign
The oldest real estate trade organization in Boston has mobilized against Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s proposal to cap the rate of rent increases in the city.
Permits Paint Picture of Slowing, but Strong Lab Sector
New lab buildings are shouldering most of the load keeping Boston’s tax base growing, and city data shows the construction boom is still rolling. But not everything is OK.
Report: Wu to Seek 6 Percent Rent Cap
Wu administration officials have presented a plan to a commission of tenant activists and real estate industry figures that would see a rent cap return to the city for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Lab Developers, Nonprofits Clash Over Linkage Hike
Nonprofit housing developers said higher fees on development in Boston would help ease the city’s affordability crisis, while commercial developers warned an increase would have the opposite effect by making projects harder to finance.
This Month in History: Margaret Carlson Breaks the Glass Ceiling
Margaret Carlson broke barriers throughout her life: a career-minded woman who started her own business in the 1950s, and the first woman to sit on Boston’s powerful “Vault” committee in 1977.
This Month in History: Boston’s First MLS Founded
If you wanted to buy or sell a home in Greater Boston before the summer of 1955, you were in for a struggle, “hot-footing it from one broker to another.”
Wu, Real Estate Lobby Scrap Over Transfer Taxes
Michelle Wu became the third Boston mayor in a row to to hear leaders of real estate industry trade groups blast the idea of a real estate sales tax before a panel of state legislators.
