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The state legislature is back to square one on housing production legislation after failing to make progress on that in 2018 and with a new session and new bills filed for consideration in the 2019-2020 session. Lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Baker this session also plan to tackle education funding and reform, which is another area where they came up short last year and an important consideration for property buyers and sellers.
Noting home prices are rising faster in Massachusetts than in any other state and rents in metro Boston are the third highest in the country, Baker in December 2017 filed legislation that he said would lead to 135,000 new housing units by 2025. The bill died without votes in either branch.
Fifteen metropolitan Boston area communities committed to a regional housing production goal of 185,000 new units by 2030 in October 2018.
Tensions remain on Beacon Hill over approaches to housing construction in suburbs and cities, and levels of municipal control over housing decisions.
According to the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, its housing production legislation for the new session, filed by state Rep. Kevin Honan of Boston and state Sen. Joseph Boncore of Winthrop, would require cities and towns to plan at least one district where multifamily housing could be built by right, a mandate that would only apply to municipalities with land within a half-mile of MBTA stations or bus routes that are part of frequently traveled routes.
CHAPA described local zoning as a “key barrier to production” and said Massachusetts has one of the lowest rates of housing production in the nation. For multifamily housing production, 210 Massachusetts communities have not permitted such a development in more than a decade, according to CHAPA, which said its bill sets a housing production goal of 427,000 units by 2040, with 20 percent of that new housing categorized as affordable housing.
