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Boston has played an outsized role in addressing the region’s need for more housing, but a new 14-community partnership is pledging to step up to the plate.
The Metropolitan Mayors Coalition of Greater Boston said Tuesday it will put together a regional plan and set production goals to build more housing. The coalition Tuesday said it will support changes to zoning and state funding formulas for public schools to support the following goals:
- Increase the pace of housing construction in every community throughout Metro Boston, sharing the burden of production in order to increase housing affordability for all household types and incomes.
- Create more housing, both renter- and owner-occupied, in a variety of sizes, including units with two or three bedrooms suitable for families with children.
- Locate housing near transit and in walkable areas.
- Utilize design standards that increase physical accessibility for all ages and abilities.
- Reduce evictions, eliminate unfair rental practices, mitigate displacement, create permanent housing for the homeless and ensure safe, stable housing.
- Abolish discrimination against both tenants and buyers and advance fair, equitable access to housing opportunity.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone will chair the group. The Metro Mayors Coalition includes mayors and managers from Boston, Braintree, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Newton, Quincy, Revere, Somerville and Winthrop.
Nearly 13,000 housing permits will be issued in 2017 in Greater Boston, a 12 percent increase from 2016, according The Greater Boston Housing Report Card. But only 4,630 housing units were completed in 2016, down nearly 34 percent from 2015.
Somerville in 2016 increased affordable housing requirements to 20 percent in new developments with 18 or more units.
Medford Mayor Stephanie Burke said this fall she supports rezoning the city’s industrial Mystic Avenue corridor for multifamily and mixed-use development similar to Station Landing.
