Boston needs to talk about housing for the middle class

Boston Globe

3 days ago

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'The number of middle-income households living in the city of Boston
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How to change that trajectory needs to be front and center in the mayor's race.
Housing, after all, is arguably the weakest point in Mayor Michelle Wu's record as mayor. Production of new housing in 2023 and 2024 was the weakest since 2011. Some of that slowdown may indeed be due to economic forces outside Wu's control, but on her watch the city has also set requirements that some developers say are so unrealistic they've stalled construction.
Challenger Josh Kraft, eager to capitalize on frustration over housing, has offered a different vision, borrowing from the 'abundance agenda' that's popular with Democratic policy wonks these days. He's calling to relax requirements on developers to spur construction.
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Which is to say that when it comes to housing, there are clear differences between the candidates, and voters deserve a thoughtful airing of the trade-offs that both candidate's visions would involve.
What kind of a city we will have hangs in the balance. As home prices have escalated — the average home value in Boston has risen to
The mayor has said all the right things. 'To be a home for everyone, we must be the best city for families, and there's more work to do,' Wu said in her
But it's unclear whether the signature housing policy of her first term has helped or hurt.
The Wu administration has required developers to include more housing reserved for people with low incomes, with rents or sale prices set at below-market levels. That seems like a worthy goal. The problem, though, is that it can easily backfire. Projects that may have been economically viable under the old requirements, which called for 13 percent of housing to be income-restricted, might no longer make financial sense at 20 percent. Twenty percent of nothing, as developers are fond of pointing out, is nothing.
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And as Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce President Jim Rooney
That is a mantra now picked up by Kraft, who told the editorial board that the 26,000 housing units currently permitted by the city's planning agency, but not yet under construction, were rendered not financially viable by that shift, proposing to return the requirement to 13 percent, the level it had been under former mayor Marty Walsh.
Wu called the accusation 'factually incorrect' and told the editorial board that many of those stuck-in-the-pipeline projects weren't even subject to the new inclusionary zoning requirements. Some, such as the development of ten thousand units planned for the old
simply hit a wall caused by high interest rates and rising construction costs.
Yet two things can be true at the same time: Wu's affordability requirements could be deterring new housing, while economic conditions could be hindering projects that were already in the pipeline. How to set requirements — and when to change them as economic conditions change — are an important debate for the city and its mayoral candidates to have.
At any percentage, though, there's a danger in over-relying on inclusionary development as the linchpin of the city's housing policy, because by their nature mandates can aggravate the city's missing-middle problem. That's because new market-rate housing has to be even more expensive to cover the cost of the income-restricted units (often euphemistically referred to as 'affordable housing').
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There's an economic argument that even creation of high-end housing helps the middle class, because those pricey new condos sop up demand from high-earners who would otherwise be bidding up the prices of existing family housing. And that's true to an extent. But the city also needs policies aimed squarely at new housing for the middle tier, too.
Wu can rightly boast some other measures that take steps in that direction.
One answer with the potential to create 200 to 300 new housing opportunities a year, for instance, is Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) or so-called granny flats — small buildings adjacent or adjoining existing housing structures. They can be an alternative for housing relatives or renters. A new state law and new encouragement at the city level, including expansion of the
In 2023, former planning chief
Wu also got a $110 million
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Separately, a small ($600,000 budgeted to start)
Wu's administration has also
But on the other side of the ledger, there have been numerous instances when private, market-rate housing is on the line and the city, with its lengthy community review process, just can't get out of its own way.
Witness what was once the 270-unit
Then there's the long-running saga of the incredible shrinking 766 Summer Street project on the old Boston Edison Power Plant site that began life in
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It's a familiar story of obstruction and delay, but that doesn't make it acceptable. One of the silver linings of Democrats' national losses in 2024 is that it has led to welcome introspection and debate about how blue states and cities govern themselves. It seems to have occurred to Democrats that when voters look at solidly Democratic places like Boston and see such high prices, it doesn't exactly help the brand.
The mayor's race should be an opportunity for Boston to participate in that introspection. It's not only a matter of improving the Democratic Party's image: The plain truth is that over the decades, Boston (and the rest of the metro region) has failed to allow enough housing, and now residents — and would-be residents — are suffering the consequences.
There are worse problems to have than being a city people would love to live and work in. But making room for all kinds of people — rich and poor and those in the vast middle — is key to keeping it the vibrant place that it is. It's a given that candidates will talk about housing, because rising prices have made the issue impossible to ignore. What the city has done to date hasn't worked. Voters are looking to the candidates for ideas that will.
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