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Banker & Tradesman publishes a lot of opinion pieces charting the challenges, innovations, ideas and criticism in the real estate, banking, housing policy and urbanism worlds.

But that means you probably missed some important perspectives on some important issues this year.

Do you have an idea for an op-ed in our weekly edition or a guest column in one of our monthly CRE Insider special sections? Contact managing editor James Sanna.

Contrarian Views on ADUs

It might seem like everyone in Massachusetts housing and political circles is in love with accessory dwelling units. The pint-sized homes were legalized on most residential lots statewide in February, and already nearly 1,000 have been proposed according to the Healey administration – which estimates some 8,000 to 10,000 might get built over the next 10 years under current laws.

Gov. Maura Healey, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and state Housing Secretary Ed Augustus even took a whole morning out of their busy schedules earlier this month to announce an ADU design competition and a moderate-sized pot of money to help lower- and middle-income homeowners build ADUs on their properties.

But two op-eds that appeared in Banker & Tradesman earlier this year argue the enthusiasm for ADUs is a little overblown.

• Planning consultant Judi Barrett’s take: We won’t get enough, and they wont’ deliver deep affordability
• Housing scholar Andrew Mikula’s take: State laws and regulations missed a lot of ways towns and fire codes are blocking ADU construction.

A pair of three-deckers being modernized by developer Civico in 2020. Photo courtesy of Civico / File

Overlooked Levers to Build More Housing

Housing seems nearly impossible to pencil these days if you don’t have access to subsidies, doubly so if you’re trying to build in Boston or other urban core neighborhoods. And even after the big housing reforms embedded in the 2024 Affordable Homes Act and 2021’s MBTA Communities law, it can still feel like wading through molasses to get new homes built in the suburbs.

Several op-ed writers floated intriguing ideas in Banker & Tradesman this year to tackle both those problems.

• Affordable housing developer Susan Gittelman: Don’t just look at Cambridge’s citywide legalization of multifamily building. Look at how they built the consensus to support it.
• Contractor and multifamily developer Joshua Brandt: From single-stair rules to the definition of a “high-rise,” the state’s building codes are getting in the way.
• Real estate attorneys Dan Dain, Douglas Troyer and Nicholas Shapiro: Faster zoning litigation, a shot clock for development approvals and modestly looser variance standards sound small-bore, but they’d have a big impact.
• Housing scholar Amy Love Tomasso: Re-legalizing “missing middle” housing types in Massachusetts will need more than just zoning reform.
• Top CRE lawyer Jenn Schultz, engineer Mitch Green, architect Todd Dundon and developer Mark Mascia: It’s a myth that Boston’s high-rises can’t make good housing conversions. Here’s the deep analysis to prove it – and to show you don’t even need to convert whole buildings at once.

MBTA General Manager Phil Eng hands out MBTA souvenirs to passengers on a Boston-bound commuter rail train following a press conference Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo by James Sanna | Banker & Tradesman Staff

The T Is Fixed. Now What?

You might be tempted to look at the MBTA these days – no longer literally or figuratively on fire, and with a plan in progress to replace its unreliable and antique Red Line trains – and see it as a solved problem.

But to two longtime transit advocates, that’s far from the case. Instead, as they see it, the T still faces a big, but different challenge: Charting a new path so it serves the suburbs and the inner city more reliably.

• Former TransitMatters head Jarred Johnson: The T’s next long-range plan could unlock new possibilities if the agency is pushed. And CRE leaders have taking part in that pushing.
• A Better City president emeritus Rick Dimino: Modernizing the commuter rail system would transform traffic in the Boston area, and it can happen faster than you think.

A Critical Eye on Conventional Wisdom

B&T’s pages are also no stranger to controversial takes from across the political spectrum. Here are just a few of our favorites:

• Multifamily developer Oleg Uritsky: Massachusetts’ newest eviction law is too easy for “professional tenants” to game. And it’s going to scare away new housing.
• State Sen. Lydia Edwards and new MAPC head Lizzi Weyant: Changes to the state condo conversion law protect almost 300,000 more homes and their renters. That’s worth celebrating.
• Urban planning researcher André Leroux: Beacon Hill quietly let the only statewide program to support downtowns and main streets expire this summer.
• Housing scholars Andrew Mikula and Salim Furth: Gov. Maura Healey’s goal of building 222,000 homes in 10 years vastly underestimates the state’s needs. At best, all it will do is hold prices steady, not bring them down.
• GBREB CEO Greg Vasil: State and local leaders need to realize their green-building rules are working at cross purposes with their housing goals.
• Boston Policy Institute founder Greg Maynard: Reforms to Boston’s development-approvals plan are less ambitious than you think, and seem likely to be less effective than they need to be.
• Contractor and multifamily developer Justin Cruz: Accessible home ownership is being left out of Massachusetts’ big housing push. But creative solutions can fix that.