The Charles River Regional Chamber recently hosted a forum looking at housing production in the area, and heard from a panel of experts, as well as State Sen. Will Brownsberger. See details in the announcement below.
A new Boston Indicators report, authored by Newton’s own Amy Dain, found that the law has already helped generate nearly 7,000 housing units statewide.
So far that includes 203 homes completed or in the pipeline thanks to MBTA-C in Needham; 193 homes in Watertown; 158 homes in Newton; but none to date in Wellesley, according to Dain’s report.
(We believe the Watertown number of MBTA-C units is actually higher than Dain reported … Dain concludes that MBTA-C is the most effective state policy to boost housing production in years, writing that “construction is happening as a direct result.”
At the same time, she cautions that the law’s hallmark flexibility “leaves a lot of leeway for communities to embrace — or sidestep — the law’s housing goals.”but sadly not Wellesley’s.)
What’s next?
But 7,000 homes from MBTA-C is only a down payment. The state estimates Massachusetts must build roughly 220,000 homes over the next decade to stabilize housing costs and meet demand.
Just how that should happen was the focus of our Annual Real Estate Forum on Tuesday.
Our panel of housing policy experts pitched reforms ranging from legalizing five-plexes and starter homes statewide, to setting firm time limits on housing permits, to letting developers — not municipalities — determine how much parking a project truly needs.
State Senator William Brownsberger said his chamber intends to be as “bold as possible” on housing this session. Still, getting any of these ideas over the finish line won’t be easy. “MBTA zoning has put communities through a lot,” Brownsberger said.
Tuesday’s discussion also touched on one idea that would hurt, not help, address housing supply and affordability.
“Passing a law on rent control is not going to work,” Needham Bank CEO Joe Campanelli warned about the pending ballot question.
“We’ve already talked to hundreds of investors that look at Massachusetts now saying, ‘We’ll just invest our dollars down south. We’ll move our dollars somewhere else.’ So we really need to find ways to increase supply across the board.”
Here’s the full video from Tuesday’s program: