Gov. Charlie Baker addresses reporters on Jan. 21, 2021. Photo by Sam Doran | State House News Service

With zoning reforms that he sought for years to accelerate housing production now law, Gov. Charlie Baker said Thursday that failing to spark more production as the state moves past COVID-19 would be a “huge missed opportunity.”

Baker repeated his frequent warnings about the state’s slow pace of housing production, telling reporters that Massachusetts is “the classic example of if you don’t build any new housing, you will create a supply problem and when you create that supply problem, you will create a price problem.”

An economic development bill Baker signed in January included a section lowering the vote threshold required for local zoning changes from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority, a change believes will allow more projects to advance and relieve pressure on the constrained housing market and slow the rapid rise of rent and purchase prices.

“This is a huge problem, and if we don’t go hard at this coming out of this reopening and recovery now that we have some new tools in the toolbox with respect to how to do this, it will be a huge missed opportunity,” Baker said.

In March, the median sale price for a single-family home in Massachusetts climbed to $485,000, nearly 17 percent higher than the same time last year.

“It’s an equity problem, it’s an economic development problem, it’s a community development problem,” he added. “It makes huge differences with respect to where people can actually afford to live here in the commonwealth, whether or not they can stay and where they make decisions about where to start a family.”

Baker caught himself as he elaborated on the issue, saying, “I apologize for the lecture on this one, but I’ve been talking about this since we took office … ”

Tweeting in response to Baker’s comments, Sen. Julian Cyr (D-Truro) wrote: “Governor Baker is spot on — Massachusetts’ housing crisis has reached a boiling point. Ground zero is the Cape & Islands, where single family home prices have increased 24% in one year! We need action on housing production and we need it now!”

New Census Bureau estimates of housing construction released this week show housing production in the Greater Boston region has been relatively stagnant since 2015. As of March 31, communities in the Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area – which includes a southeastern New Hampshire – had permitted a mere 3,407 units this year, 2,030 of which were in multifamily buildings. That compares to 3,409 units permitted through the same time last year and 3,299 through the same time in 2018 and 3,027 by March 31, 2015.

At the same time, rising home prices appear to be inducing more single-family housing construction despite supply chain problems that are adding tens of thousands of dollars to the price of newly-built homes. A recent analysis by Redfin found that 9.5 percent of homes sold in the five-county Greater Boston area were new construction, a 7.2 percent increase from the year before.

Staff writer James Sanna contributed to this report.