![Massachusetts House Passes .5 Billion Housing Bill for 5-Year Plan Massachusetts House Passes .5 Billion Housing Bill for 5-Year Plan](https://i0.wp.com/cdn.grove.wgbh.org/dims4/default/aeb5fb1/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5184x2722+0+367/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fk1-prod-gbh.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F28%2F84%2F6f8c8123589f68fe963594bc0221%2Fstate-house-paris-alston.jpg&w=1200&resize=1200,0&ssl=1)
Nearly 18 months after legislative leaders began the two-year mandate by identifying soaring housing costs as one of their top areas of focus, the Massachusetts House of Representatives approved a $6.5 billion plan that top Democrats believe that will begin to undo decades of slow production.
The House voted 145-13 to pass a housing voucher bill on Wednesday, sending the Senate a rewrite of Gov. Maura Healey’s proposal that throws much more money at the affordability crisis but leaves out some policies she backed. like allowing cities and towns to collect taxes. certain real estate sales and direct income toward housing.
Representatives made some considerable changes to the five-year bond bill (H 4707) on Wednesday, adding nearly $300 million in additional loans, a new local option that gives tenants the opportunity to buy a building when the owner wants to sell it , and additional railings around accessory dwelling units.
Top Democrats have not been able to say how many housing units they expect to result from their bill’s package of policy and financing reforms, but the needs are enormous. Home sales and rental prices continue to break records, pushing some Bay State residents to look for lower-cost alternatives and many more to scrimp and save to make ends meet.
Administration officials estimate the state needs 200,000 more units in the coming years to meet demand.
“Rents are high, stock availability is decreasing and there are very few homes on the market. So we recognize that there is a problem and the governor spoke well, when she took office, about the issue of competitiveness that she felt we were losing,” House Speaker Ron Mariano told reporters before the vote. . “And I firmly believe that when you talk to people and they tell you that they don’t want to settle here because they can’t find a home for their staff or their employees, it’s a real problem.”
Two Democrats, Milton Rep. William Driscoll and Tewksbury Rep. David Robertson, voted against the bill, as did 11 Republicans.
Housing Committee co-chair Rep. James Arciero of Westford described the bill as “the largest investment in housing in the history of the Commonwealth.” Its bottom line is more than three and a half times larger than the last housing bond bill, a $1.8 billion plan that former Gov. Charlie Baker signed in 2018.
“Massachusetts residents and citizens face an unprecedented housing crisis,” Arciero said. “Young families are struggling to buy a home and put down roots in the cities they love and grew up in. Our vulnerable loved ones seek to age in place and live healthy, safe lives with dignity. “Workers are struggling with rent and communities from Boston to Hyannis, Lawrence, Worcester and Pittsfield need a major revitalization of our aging housing stock.”
Senate Democrats will now face some tough decisions, including whether to accept the controversial transfer fee proposal that Healey backed, with just eight weeks left to draft, debate and pass a rewrite, and then agree to a compromise with the House.
No appetite for transfer tax
In their rewrite of the bill, House Democrats abandoned Healey’s proposal to allow cities and towns to levy new taxes on some high-priced real estate sales and then use the proceeds for investments in affordable housing. . They argued that the idea, long discussed, would be too “dispersed” and the benefits would be reserved only for wealthy communities.
Supporters of the measure within the House chose not to resist.
Representatives who introduced a handful of amendments authorizing a local option transfer fee, including limited versions limited only to the city of Amherst or the Cape and Islands, withdrew their proposals without seeking votes.
Only one lawmaker spoke on the issue Wednesday. Rep. Carmine Gentile of Sudbury introduced an amendment that would have launched a pilot program allowing no more than 22 cities and towns to impose the new fees, likening it to a similar program to limit fossil fuels in construction that lawmakers approved last session.
But after spending about five minutes detailing his proposal, Gentile withdrew it, bringing up the issue without forcing his colleagues to take a recorded position.
Many times, sponsors of amendments who lack the votes to approve their proposals withdraw their plans before seeing them defeated.
The collective fold means supporters, including Boston and more than a dozen other communities that have already sought state support for transfer fees, will now have to hope the policy finds support in the Senate and then survives private interbranch negotiations. .
Representatives moved Wednesday to impose some additional restrictions on the adoption of accessory dwelling units, which are smaller additions often located on the same property as larger single-family homes.
The original bill would have allowed ADUs by right in single-family zones across the state with no limit on how many could be built. But the House voted to change that to allow only one ADU per right per property and require homeowners to apply for special city permits for any units beyond that.
No one opposed the change, which representatives approved by 130-28.
Arciero said in introducing the amendment that the overall accessory dwelling unit policy could generate about 8,000 new housing units over the next five years.
That’s a lower estimate than Healey’s: When the administration introduced the original housing bond bill, officials estimated the ADU measure would result in 10,000 new units over five years.
Changes to the MBTA Communities Act are rejected
The House also rejected a series of proposed changes to the MBTA Communities Act, including a full repeal of the controversial measure and an effort to apply it to all cities and towns.
Several representatives, mostly Republicans, attempted to use the housing bond bill to alter the contours of the MBTA Communities Act. That law received little fanfare when it was signed into law in 2021, but has since become a pressure point as some cities and towns bristle at the burden of zoning for more multifamily housing.
“In speaking with many of my colleagues in this chamber, I know that it is not what we thought it was and that the impact on communities is serious,” Rep. Marc Lombardo, R-Billerica, said of the MBTA Communities Act. He added, “Our communities are already struggling and the implementation of MBTA Communities will devastate many communities, including mine.”
Lombardo offered an amendment that he said would have exempted any MBTA community from the requirement to allow multifamily housing by right in at least one district if it already has enough affordable housing under another law known as Chapter 40B.
Representatives rejected that measure 27-131. They also rejected another proposal by a vote of 32 to 126 that would have created an appeals process through which municipalities could request an exemption from the law’s zoning requirements if they cannot meet infrastructure needs, are concerned about environmental impacts. or for damage to health. historic properties.
Minority Leader Brad Jones of North Reading, who introduced the latest amendment, said he wanted to “create the least amount of flexibility for communities that are trying to address this zoning reform.”
But Democrats argued that adding an appeals process to the existing system would be, as Rep. Meghan Kilcoyne of Clinton put it, “going against the spirit of the MBTA Communities Act.”
“We have been talking for months about the critical juncture we are in in this state, about the critical need for housing, and the restrictions proposed in this amendment risk potentially muzzling our ability to produce housing in one of the most hot spots where we need it most,” Kilcoyne said.
The law set off a high-profile legal fight between state authorities and Milton. After voters in the city of about 29,000 people rejected a zoning plan that would have complied with the law, Healey’s administration revoked some grants and Attorney General Andrea Campbell filed a lawsuit.
Some argue that Milton should not be subject to the law’s requirements for “rapid transit” communities because it is only served by the Mattapan Trolley, not any other part of the MBTA’s core subway system.
Driscoll, a Democrat, attempted to use the housing bond bill to create a new interim definition for his hometown of Milton based on its streetcar service, but his colleagues rejected the idea in an unrecorded voice vote.
“This amendment is not intended to exempt the city from zoning obligations as part of the law. It is an effort to size and reclassify those zoning obligations for the service we have today,” Driscoll told his colleagues.
Two other proposals that the House rejected by unrecorded voice votes would have removed the language from the MBTA Communities Act entirely or instead expanded it to apply to all municipalities in the state.
Democratic Rep. Colleen Garry of Dracut, who introduced both changes, said she believes it is “unconstitutional” to put so much housing development pressure on cities and towns near T service.
“Why isn’t the whole Commonwealth working on this? Why doesn’t the MBTA Law affect Western Massachusetts or Central Massachusetts? Why are 115 communities shouldering this burden instead of 351 cities and towns?” Garry said. “I would respectfully suggest that if housing were located in central Massachusetts or western Massachusetts, where there is more land, businesses would come there as well, so there would be an economic development engine in those sections as well.”
Supporters of the law favor more housing near transit centers in an effort to make it easier for people to get around without driving.
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