We’ve been writing here about the cost and shortage of housing in Greater Boston for over a decade. This actually sounds like hopeful news:
Aiming for the construction of 135,000 new housing units by 2025, the Baker administration on Monday heralded $10 million in incentives to encourage cities and towns to promote development within their borders.
Gov. Charlie Baker also proposed legislation that would make it easier for municipalities to change their zoning to promote multifamily developments, reduce their parking requirements, and make other changes to smooth the way for more housing.
There’s been some legislative action on increasing housing supply in the last year: The Senate re-filed S.81, a priority of now-Acting President Chandler, which dovetails with House bill 2420. MA Smart Growth Alliance has a primer here.
From the Governor’s press release:
As part of the Housing Choice Initiative, the Administration is proposing legislation that will remove barriers to improved land use and new housing, by promoting the adoption of local zoning best practices. This legislative proposal, An Act to Promote Housing Choices, would allow cities and towns to adopt certain zoning best practices by a simple majority vote, rather than the current two-thirds supermajority. Massachusetts is currently one of only ten states to require a supermajority to change local zoning; all other northeastern states rezone through simple majority votes.
Zoning changes that promote best practices that would qualify for the simple majority threshold include:
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Building mixed-use, multi-family, and starter homes, and adopting 40R “Smart Growth” zoning in town centers and near transit;
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Allowing the development of accessory dwelling units, or “in-law” apartments;
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Granting increased density through a special permit process;
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Allowing for the transfer of development rights and enacting natural resource protection zoning; and
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Reducing parking requirements and dimensional requirements, such as minimum lot sizes.
This has been a stubborn issue, and decidedly not an easy political win. With the removal of 2/3 requirements, we’re lifting the NIMBY thumb on the scale that’s kept enough housing from being built. We have criticized Governor Baker for not heeding the long-term demands of the Commonwealth in favor of short-term thinking — but one has to give credit where it’s due.
The NIMBY people want their lawns manicured, appliances repaired, dry cleaning delivered., dishes washed and food prepared at their local restaurants,car serviced, store shelves stocked at the local markets and so much more by a segment of the population that is there when needed and then fades into the shadows when their services are no longer needed for the day.
This disconnect only helps distance our affluent citizens from the real life struggles of our simple working class citizens and does nothing to remedy our wide and widening wealth disparity in the Commonwealth.
I’m not in favor of the incentives for reasons that I will explain in a post that I am currently working on for BMG in the near future, In short, this sort of action only perpetuates the trend in our society for business to externalize the true cost of their labor by relying on the government to pick up a portion of the tab.
Thanks to Charley for highlighting the housing crisis in Greater Boston and the Governor’s announcement last week that he is joining the battle. The Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance supports the Governor’s legislative proposal, which makes it easier for communities to overcome NIMBY opposition and adopt good zoning practices. We particularly like that the Governor has defined those zoning practices around “smart growth” principles; this will result in more housing built in sensible locations, like downtowns, town centers and redevelopment areas. We believe this legislation complements the Great Neighborhoods legislation currently pending in the State House, which Charley’s post mentions. We’d love to post at another time about this legislation and the prospects for its passage in 2018.
Another sign of the growing momentum was the December 4 announcement by 14 mayors and city managers in Greater Boston that they will work together on a regional housing production strategy. With a housing crisis that has been 25 years in the making, we need to have action on the state, regional and local level to address the shortage of housing and housing types that we need (particularly multifamily and accessory apartments). (The author can be reached at larry@ma-smartgrowth.org.)
Harry Truman won against great odds in 1948 in large part because he ran on a housing program of national rent control and public housing.
If rents are too high, the state should control prices. If there’s not enough housing for people with moderate incomes, the state should build housing.
The idea that the chronic housing shortage can be addressed by going after the NIMBY’s and putting in incentives for smart growth is not hopeful change. It’s wishful thinking.
There are two sides to the coin. One side reads that “housing prices are too high” for average working class citizens but few will acknowledge the other side of the coin that reads “wages are too low” for average working class citizens.
If we use the government’s financial resources to help underpaid laborers afford housing, we are just adding to the growing number of labor costs for business that the ownership class has successfully externalized to the government while at the same time, enjoying record setting profits and CEO salaries in the tens and hundreds of millions.
If Dunkin Donuts is a business model that requires a workers wage of under $10 per hour supported by government assistance in housing, education, food, health care and transpiration but still manages to pay its CEO $10 Million a year, something’s fishy.
“The idea that the chronic housing shortage can be addressed by going after the NIMBY’s and putting in incentives for smart growth is not hopeful change. It’s wishful thinking.”
How do you know that? These are things that pretty smart folks (Bluestone, Glaeser, et al.) have been researching for a long time now — and we’ve barely scratched the surface of actually implementing those ideas. After all, zoning is the local government using its power to *restrict* building. Why shouldn’t reform of those laws lead to *more* building?
How do you arrive at your certainty that this is all futile?
I don’t read Bob’s assertions as any more or less certain than your own.
It seems to me likely that the measures proposed will move the needle on housing in some cases. it also seems likely to me that they will not make more than an incremental change–that housing will still not meet demand. Part of the reason is that Bob is right, it’s not NIMBYism that is the problem.
I also think that changes will be “inefficient” in that they will be bought at a price to communities that is greater than needed.
In short, Bob is right: The NIMBY frame is both harmful and helpful, and not optimal.
Increase the supply or decrease the demand. The demand won’t decrease so long as Boston remains a premier economic powerhouse that attracts talent from all over the world. So we must increase the supply. Regionalization zoning and making it easier for cities and towns to modernize and adapt their laws without onerous legislative approval is a great first step.
Where the Baker Administration falls woefully short is building transit that connects affordable housing to jobs and vice a versa. Transit can be the silver bullet that makes down and out communities isolated from the states economy into up and coming bedroom communities connected to smart growth. Cambridge and the inner Belt suburbs are built out. Time for more housing connected by transit to Boston in the 495 corridor.
Rent Control is a political and policy bob starter that would require a constitutional amendment to restore. Since its demise in 1994, the constituencies that have grown wealthy off of housing inequality have only become more politically connected and entrenched.
The solution instead is for YIMBY. To recognize that market rate housing is here to stay and to use government to steer that market toward a more affordable curve. The government can increase supply and connect housing to jobs via improved transit. Both projects would be shovel ready jobs that would put blue collar people to work building things while also connecting them to white collar jobs and opprunities. It would spur more mixed income communities which will strengthen our schools, our social mobility, and unite our polarizing people in community again. A win win based on policy and political reality.
Can we push for blue collar housing by working with zoning, transportation, and increasing blue collar wages?
Did you mean non-starter in your first sentence? Plus, what makes this a constitutional issue?
I’ll be happy to have rent control declared a bob starter. There are no constitutional issues. As for for rent control’s political viability, I’ve seen a lot stranger things. JConway is absolutely right that the real estate interests and developers are entrenched into the political establishment. That’s a big part of the problem–and a big part of why we are left with anodyne and ineffective proposals like the one in this post.
However, when a politician is willing to pit him/herself against those entrenched interests, the outcome can be very good. It worked for Truman in 1948, and it worked for Ray Flynn in the 1980’s.
Glad you caught my accidental tribute Bob. Rent control was eliminated by a statewide referendum, I erred in calling it a constitutional amendment. A referendum restoring it is the likeliest path to victory. I know a lot of it’s original supporters had second thoughts.
We clearly need more housing in Boston metro.
There’s a municipal budget challenge that should be addressed though. The property tax associated with an additional home doesn’t pay for the education of the additional schoolkids inside it. If more housing adds many to the local public school rolls, the community needs more teachers and staff, and possibly a new addition or school. Prop 2.5, cherry sheets, MSBA, etc. don’t fill the hole.
It would be easier to add workforce housing if the municipal beancounter didn’t see housing development as bad for the budget.
Yes, exactly. Except it’s not bean counters, but taxpayers as a whole, who understand this dynamic too well. School building assistance cut shockingly; special ed circuit breaker commitment never met (a huge budget buster in small communities).
If you take the time to investigate where the problem actually lies, instead of telling yourself morally simplistic stories about NIMBYs, you can learn all sorts of important things. If you want to change things instead of point fingers, you go to root causes.
Conspicuously absent from the goals of these reforms is affordable housing. We are still obsessed with the idea that markets can be harnessed to deliver social goods. Maybe they can, but you cannot prove it by experience in this state.