Lydia Edwards
Boston City Councilor Lydia Edwards is a familiar face in the city’s real estate world for her advocacy on fair housing issues. And if she can win the Democratic primary for an open state Senate seat in one week, she hopes to vault into a role that will let her tackle what is really a regional issue, head-on.
“I’ve been a Boston city councilor for four years. I love my job and love the service aspect of it. [But] I’ve found that many of the top issues we’re dealing with are regional and require a deeper conversation that we can only address at the state level,” she said.
Edwards, 41, faces off against 25-year-old Revere School Board member Anthony D’Amato for the First Middlesex & Suffolk seat being vacated by Sen. Joseph Boncore on Dec. 14. D’Amato has earned the backing of Revere’s primary public-sector unions, while Edwards has nabbed endorsements from Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, her former City Council colleague, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and a wide range of private-sector unions, like the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters and IBEW Local 103.
In an interview with Banker & Tradesman Edwards highlighted the gaps in their age and experience.
“I’ve gone into the deep weeds on [housing], the No. 1 issue. I’ve been in the mix, I’ve been in the fight, and my opponent, it’s not that he doesn’t care, but he wasn’t there,” she said.
D’Amato did not respond to an interview request.
Before her time on the City Council, Edwards was a prominent housing advocate. A Greater Boston Legal Services attorney and deputy director of the city’s Office of Housing Stability before being elected to the council, Edwards said she worked closely with Boncore’s office on several bills, including writing some like the state’s domestic worker bill of rights and a proposed eviction-sealing measure.
On the council, Edwards may be best known for winning commitments from Suffolk Downs developer HYM to significantly boost the percentage of the 10,000 units being built on the site as affordable housing and to add affordable retail space set aside for local entrepreneurs. More recently, she crafted a landmark fair housing zoning amendment that aimed to set the city on a course to continue its development boom without creating the types of displacement and gentrification typically seen.
“The greatest lesson is … [developers] respond and adjust and make money,” she said. “They’re the most creative people I’ve ever met in my life. But [fair housing] is a moral imperative. As an elected official you are responsible for this. The city is getting more segregated. We must undo that harm.”
The effort has led to cooperative efforts between developers and city officials to address the problem in response to the new zoning requirements.
“Developers are now offering more mitigation ideas. That’s a good thing,” she said.
If she beats D’Amato next Tuesday, she will be replacing another reliably progressive state senator who supported many of the same causes she does, like eviction sealing and tenant opportunity to purchase. If elected, she said she would prioritize passing eviction sealing – “I’d like [tenants] to have a second chance to move on with their lives” – reforming Boston’s Zoning Board of Appeals to add an urban planner and an environmental expert and monitoring the development of Suffolk Downs, to make sure HYM sticks to its commitments.
“I would want that new city, that new neighborhood to be a compliment to the region and enhance our regional resources. I think I would be able to guide that the best because I was on the ground for two years,” she said.
While some in the real estate community might look at her candidacy with fear given her support for issues like legalizing municipal rent control or rent stabilization systems, Edwards cautioned developers and others not to misconstrue her positions.
“I don’t think everyone should have rent control,” she said, adding that she thinks towns and cities are best positioned to decide the issue. “But for all those who are completely and adamantly against it, they need to look me in the face and tell me that rents [in Boston] aren’t out of control.”
And before enacting rent stabilization measures, Edwards said she wants the state to find ways, like a property tax credit, to reward landlords offering units at below-market rents.
She also pointed to her work with City Councilor Matt O’Malley on Boston’s new energy efficiency rules for commercial buildings, known as BERDO 2.0, as an example of her eagerness to work with industry to solve common problems.
“We brought unions to the table. We brought corporations to the table. We brought environmental activists to the table – because our futures are intertwined,” she said.
