Wu Drops Proposed Ban on Gas Hookups
Boston won’t pursue a ban on fossil fuel-burning building systems in new developments, a key element of Mayor Michelle Wu’s environmental sustainability platform.
Boston won’t pursue a ban on fossil fuel-burning building systems in new developments, a key element of Mayor Michelle Wu’s environmental sustainability platform.
Why not let posh suburbs like Wellesley and Lincoln pass all the green mandates and regulations they can dream up? But there’d be a catch: Get serious about helping Greater Boston fix its housing affordability crisis.
The goal is to stop that climate-warming gas from entering the atmosphere. And there’s a dire need for reducing emissions from skyscrapers like these in such a vertical city: New York state’s buildings also emit more air pollution than any other state’s.
Real estate analysts have started to warn building owners that their property values will fall if they don’t wean themselves off fossil fuels. Now, Gov. Maura Healey is proposing a ‘green bank’ to do just that.
A commission that spent the last 11 months studying ways to help real estate meet its emissions reduction requirements couldn’t come to an agreement in the face of “strong opinions” about bans on natural gas use in new and existing buildings.
It will ultimately be up to the next administration to decide how a new program allowing a group of cities and towns to restrict fossil fuel infrastructure buildings will operate, but the outgoing Baker team will propose its own plan all the same.
Neither Boston nor San Francisco are likely to cede their top spots in the life science ecosystem to challengers with lower costs and more affordable development sites, even as the sector enters a contraction phase.