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Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said Wednesday that the administration's housing production bill, first floated in 2017, is an "urgent matter" and called for action by Thanksgiving. Photo courtesy of State House News Service | Sam Doran
Flanked by housing and economic development officials whose tenures in state government date back to 2004, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito called on lawmakers to pass the Baker administration’s housing production bill in the next 11 weeks.
“I come here with a sense of urgency, with a deep sense of responsibility, joining with these leaders to impress upon the legislature and our partners in government, to make sure that we address this urgent matter this year,” Polito said. “It would be something that we need to do, hopefully, before the Legislature recesses for the Thanksgiving holiday.”
Gov. Charlie Baker first introduced a version of the bill, which lowers the threshold for zoning changes required by many new projects from a two-thirds majority of the relevant municipal body to a simple majority, in 2017. Though the bill has support from some municipal officials and housing advocacy groups, including the Massachusetts Municipal Association, House and Senate leaders have not brought it to the floor. Progressive lawmakers have said it is not comprehensive enough and are pushing to include measures like rent control and mandatory multifamily zoning.
Baker, Polito and members of their administration on Wednesday joined four former housing and economic development secretaries and former housing undersecretaries Chrystal Kornegay and Aaron Gornstein to urge lawmakers to pass the bill.
“It’s unusual to have such consensus among diverse constituency on a single bill. That means to me there’s a path for success,” said Gornstein, the president and CEO of Preservation of Affordable Housing. “We need to get it done. There’s no reason, it seems to me, the legislature can’t get this one piece done, let’s let that play out. Some people advocate for comprehensive zoning reform. We’ve been working on that for 30, 40 years – many people behind me have been doing that – and that’s a laudable goal, but what we’ve got to do right now is get this piece done so we can get some more affordable housing built.”
Other speakers at the press conference included current Housing and Economic Development Secretary Mike Kennealy; Jay Ash, Baker’s first housing and economic development secretary; Dan O’Connell and Greg Bialecki, who served in Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration; and Ranch Kimball, who was Gov. Mitt Romney’s economic development secretary from 2004 to 2007.
Kimball said he’s seen the housing situation “getting worse” in the state since his time on Beacon Hill. He said Massachusetts is “phenomenal” in job creation and innovation but has been “weak for a long time” on adding new housing, especially dense housing in downtowns.
“The more I travel to other cities, the more I travel abroad and see the kind of districts I talked about, that gap becomes greater and greater, and it actually almost emotionally frightens me that this state, which … prides itself on our downtowns is falling behind most of the rest of the world. It’s like they took our recipe and we tossed it out, and they’re just doubling down on it,” Kimball said.
Baker said that passing his bill (H.3507) this year would set the table for town meetings and other municipal bodies to begin working on zoning changes in the spring. He called it “heartbreaking” to watch proposals this past year fail because they had more than 50 percent support but did not clear the two-thirds threshold.
“I think from our point of view, now’s the time, and we really need to get this done,” Baker said. “Some people would like less, some people would like more. I’m going to play Goldilocks here and say it’s just right.”
Bialecki, who is now a principal at Redgate Capital Partners, said Baker’s bill would result in “actual, substantive change” and make it easier to build housing in Massachusetts.
“I’m absolutely convinced that if the bill were to pass this year, that there would be more housing starts next year,” he said. “You could see them as soon as next year, all around the state.”
