Housing - An Ongoing Crisis

Housing – An Ongoing Crisis/7 July 2022/Lawrence S. DiCara

? Rapidly increasing housing costs in the Greater Boston area are widely and accurately regarded as one of the primary issues facing the Commonwealth.?Housing policy should be one of the most important issues in the upcoming gubernatorial campaign.?There is plenty of time to ask questions, make proposals and present a set of recommendations that can help the Commonwealth solve its ongoing housing crisis.?This is not only a housing problem, but also an economic development problem.?

? New statewide legislation has changed the number of votes needed to approve zoning for higher density housing from two-thirds to a majority - one vote over 50%.?Unlike the sophisticated and efficient system in place to utilize state and federal funds to construct affordable housing, however, housing production outside of Boston has continued to lag what is needed to meet demand.??Nimbyism (not in my backyard) remains a formidable obstacle.?

? Meanwhile, Boston has become the leading Life Sciences Center in the world.?New lab space has increased by 120% to 42 million square feet since 2012, millions of square feet are currently under construction, and more millions of square feet will be forthcoming. ?This space will be predominantly occupied by highly paid workers, all of whom will need a place to live, and all of whom will have the resources to find the housing they need and want.?Enough new housing needs to be built to accommodate not only these new workers but also workers from other businesses seeking to expand and the potential in-migration that a healthy economy will attract.

? Is it likely that enough new housing units will be built given current programs and policies??Absolutely not. ?Zoning will remain too restrictive, the City of Boston can’t do it all by itself, and there is not nearly enough subsidy money available to meet the needs of the middle-and-lower-income community.?

? As a result, one can expect that the current healthy business and economic environment will continue to be limited by increasing housing costs.?It will be a challenge to maintain Greater Boston’s prominence in the Bio-Tech arena.?Businesses will continue to outsource many potential new jobs to North Carolina and Texas.?

? Efforts should be made to facilitate the construction of housing in gateway cities.?In many cases, the infrastructure is there already because the cities had larger populations at various times during the 20th Century than they have recently.?There are sewers in place and there are roads in place. In many cases, transportation is available to get people to jobs in other jurisdictions.

Building housing requires political courage.?Simple solutions do not solve complicated problems.?Our political leaders must question the status quo, including the indisputable fact that some local governments continue to erect barriers to entry.??They must create new programs to provide options for current older homeowners who are over-housed.?They must encourage construction of housing for families of moderate means.?Sadly, today, public employees cannot live in the community where they work.?That is both inefficient and it is wrong.?A program to help public employees buy a home would permit a teacher, firefighter, police office or nurse to own a home in a town where they work.

In the end, it is a math problem.?Land is not cheap.?Construction gets more expensive every day.?We must all work together to produce more units.