Posted on December 22, 2014
BOSTON, Dec. 20, 2014 --- The Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP) has released a report that urges the state legislature to consider eight recommendations that would help the Commonwealth build the housing it needs to realize its full economic potential.
Entitled Unlocking the Commonwealth, the report documents how low housing production since the 1980s has caused the state's housing costs to rise faster than the rest of the nation and how this trend threatens to jeopardize the state's economy.
MHP's report is focused on the state's so-called innovation economy - higher ed, computers, consulting, financial services, pharmaceuticals, publishing and R&D. While Greater Boston has one of the strongest innovation economies in the U.S. - without excessive reliance on just one or two industries - MHP found that many other U.S. regions are attracting innovation workers at a higher rate. Most of these competitors are building more housing and have lower housing costs than Massachusetts.
Gittelman says legislation provides balanced approach (subscription required)
Among its recommendations is a requirement that every zoning ordinance and bylaw in the Commonwealth allow for multi-family housing. MHP cites data showing that demand for multi-family will increase as our economy grows and as baby-boomers retire and that in the last decade, more than a third of the state's communities have produced no multi-family housing and 207 of 351 communities have not permitted anything over five units in more than a decade.
MHP's other recommendations include expanding regionalism, adjusting local aid formulas to recognize housing growth, reforming local wetlands and septic regulation, expanding cluster zoning statewide, and land use repeal reform.
For more information, contact MHP's Ruston Lodi at 617-330-9944 x227 or Callie Clark at 617-330-9944 x336.