Statewide housing advocacy group hopes to put facts on the table about where Boston City Council candidates stand on a range of housing issues. iStock illustration

Maura Healey is just the latest in a long line of governors who have vowed to bring down our insane home prices and rents. 

No knock on the new governor, but if there was a top-down solution to the housing crisis here in Massachusetts, we would be boasting about having some of the most affordable homes and apartments in the country, not the most expensive. 

What’s been sorely lacking has been leadership at the local level. Too often, city councilors, and select and planning board members see new housing as a threat, not a precious commodity in desperately short supply, a potential budget buster that will drive up school costs and taxes and anger their constituents. 

The solution? Elect more local officials who truly get what’s driving up those crazy prices and rents, namely the now decades-long slump in new residential construction. 

Enter Abundant Housing Massachusetts. Launched in 2020, AHMA, as it is known, is a YIMBY nonprofit dedicated to revving up the development of all types of housing across the state and which understands the key role that supply – or more accurately lack thereof – has played in creating the mess we are in. 

And Abundant Housing also clearly understands the need to start putting pressure on local officials from the ground up and not just from the top down. 

Hot Topics Queried 

To that end, AHMA is jumping headfirst into Boston politics as a series of City Council races takes shape in the run-up to the November election. 

In a bid to gauge the views of the different candidates on key housing issues, the group has sent a list of 20 questions to each. 

The questions, in turn, cut to the heart of the major housing challenges facing Boston, which has seen a big drop in new construction even as house and condominium prices and rents continue to move upward. 

Some are obvious, with candidates asked their feelings on Mayor Michelle Wu’s plans to bring back rent control, boost the number of affordable units in each new building and demolish the Boston Planning & Development Authority. 

The group also wants to know whether candidates approve of efforts to nix minimum parking requirements for new condo and apartment projects and whether they support making it possible to build in-law apartments, or accessory dwelling units, without a long and arduous permitting process. 

Other questions, though, are not so obvious and are clearly looking to uncover the candidates’ attitudes towards new housing and whether they see plans for new apartment buildings and condos as something to be feared, or as a positive addition to the neighborhood. 

For example, AHMA wants to know if a candidate has “ever publicly or privately campaigned to reduce the number of units in a residential development in Boston? If so, which development and why?” 

Another question asks for an “example of a public stand you have taken on a housing issue that may have upset some Boston voters?” 

A Valuable Effort 

The group’s questionnaire also notes a troubling trend – which readers of this column have been well informed about – that saw a big drop last year in the number of new housing news approved by the BPDA, which oversees large-scale development in the city. 

It is a trend that has arguably been exacerbated by Wu’s decision to focus city efforts on getting subsidized units built while focusing less attention on the production of market-rate housing. 

Abundant Housing makes no bones on which side it comes down on this argument, with the belief that more housing of all types is better. 

Hence, this question: “Do you agree or disagree that the City of Boston should do more to encourage housing production of all types, including both market rate and income-restricted? If so, how can the City encourage housing production?” 

Scott Van Voorhis

So far three City Council candidates, all challengers, have filled out the questionnaire: Jennifer Johnson in District 3, Montez Haywood in District 8 and Jacob deBlecourt in District 9. 

Hopefully more candidate questionnaires will roll in over the coming weeks and months. 

But at the very least, the AHMA’s efforts to get candidates to answer the tough questions on housing puts down a badly needed marker. 

After all, deciding not to fill out the questionnaire is a choice as well. And given the seriousness of the housing crisis, it is a choice that speaks volumes. 

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.