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Our brand-new year of 2019 is shaping up to be a crucial one in Massachusetts and beyond.
The coming 12 months will be pivotal for the real estate market, from the fate of home sales and prices to the turmoil on Wall Street and its impact on the economy.
The year ahead is also time for state and local leaders to finally man and woman up to the chronic foundational challenges that threaten to undermine our booming regional economy and poison our quality of life: Overpriced homes and broken-down trains and roads.
We’ve had decades of talk, talk and more talk about how dire the housing shortage is and how ever more pathetic are our broken-down trains and gridlocked roadways, yet progress has been modest at best.
Housing Crisis Gets Worse Every Year
It’s taken decades, but at least there appears to be a consensus about what’s wrong with the Eastern Massachusetts housing market and, in very general terms, how to fix it.
Just about everyone now agrees that home prices and rents are too high because not enough new housing is getting built.
There is wide agreement that restrictive local zoning rules in suburbs, towns and cities across the region are the major culprit in holding back the construction of badly needed homes, apartments and condominiums.
But how to reform those rules – and how much latitude to give local cities and towns – is still a matter of endless debate.
It’s been nearly 20 years since the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization made a landmark push to boost the construction of affordable housing, casting a spotlight on the issue of rising rents and prices. Yet no major zoning reform bill has made it through the legislature. In fact, it most years, zoning hasn’t even been on the radar screen of House and Senate leaders, despite runaway prices and rents.
Every year of inaction has meant the amount of new housing that is needed just to get to a relatively normal market, where housing supply is roughly in line with demand, grows ever larger.
Eastern Massachusetts will need a staggering 435,000 new apartments, homes and condos by 2040, and that is just to keep up with demand, according to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
Now, even Gov. Charlie Baker’s rather modest, completely voluntary proposal – which would let communities lower the voting threshold from two-thirds to a simple majority when passing zoning changes – is on the fast track to nowhere amid opposition from municipal officials.
It’s time for Beacon Hill to pass real statewide zoning reform that would require cities and towns to allow for new apartment and construction in their local building rules, something that many currently don’t.
Barring that, simply passing Baker’s bill would at least demonstrate a smidgeon of good faith. If they fail to do even that, then voters can place the blame for high home prices and rents where it belongs, on their legislative leaders.
When Will Baker Own T’s Issues?
Our state’s transportation woes are another disaster that has been years in the making.
Baker has made fixing the beleaguered T and the sluggish, unpredictable Commuter Rail a major priority. Still the T kept breaking down over Baker’s first term and the Commuter Rail is as messed up as it has always been.
The system’s problems are so deeply embedded it raises the question of whether his Mr. Fix-It approach, combined with modest new spending as opposed to the substantial increase some critics say is needed, can do the job.
If Baker’s reforms don’t add up to measurable results in 2019, he may very well end up owning the very problems he has been so desperately trying to fix.
Our major arteries, especially Route 128, reached their capacity limits years ago and have become increasingly gridlocked.
The web of secondary state routes and roads are increasingly traffic-clogged as well. Try edging your way through most any substantial town or suburban center inside Interstate 495 during rush hour or late on a Saturday morning – you might as well be in downtown Boston.
I’m not sure whether this is even on the radar of either the Baker administration or the legislature, though it should be.
Two Problems That Go Together
Greater Boston’s housing shortage and its transportation woes may seem like separate issues, but the best way to deal with each may be to deal with both at once.
Hub commuters spent more than 60 hours stuck in traffic in 2017, putting Boston in the top tier of the most congested American cities like New York, Los Angeles and Washington, according to the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard.
Scott Van Voorhis
That was up 3.4 percent just from the year before.
As buyers scramble to avoid long commutes, that demand has put even more pressure on the region’s fantastically high housing prices and rents in Boston, Cambridge and their outlying suburbs. The suburbs and urban neighborhoods within the Route 128 beltway have seen the most dramatic price growth, by far, of any region in the state, outpacing the outer suburbs along I-495.
Fixing our broken transportation system should go hand in hand with addressing the housing crisis.
A better and more reliable public transportation system and less traffic congestion would provide a boost to efforts to increase the construction of new housing. It would make locations outside the Boston area’s urban ring more accessible – and as a result more attractive – to buyers than they currently are.
Here’s hoping our cautious governor and our do-nothing legislature will step up to both challenges in 2019.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
