IntelligentCicada363 t1_j6ivmx0 wrote on January 30, 2023 at 5:30 PM

Reply to comment by PLS-Surveyor-US in Maura Healey wants to solve the state’s housing crisis. Here’s step one. by _Hack_The_Planet_

Any stats showing that is anywhere near enough?

PLS-Surveyor-US t1_j6j9k3u wrote on January 30, 2023 at 6:56 PM

It would be more than we are doing now. It takes time to get them funded and built so any talk of crisis solving is way overblown. If they make the zoning options better and the permitting time short then thats a big help. If not, it will SSDD.

ThatFrenchieGuy t1_j6jf858 wrote on January 30, 2023 at 7:31 PM

It's not 100% of the way there, but we go from ~100k units short to 10-30k units short. It won't be enough construction to get rent to go down, but it will be enough to get rent to go up a lot less than the current 5%/year average.

antraxsuicide t1_j6jm1x9 wrote on January 30, 2023 at 8:14 PM

You probably would see rent come down in some places as it's unlikely the closing of the gap would be uniform. Some places will actually hit their targets while others will fall short. Then you get people moving from the latter to the former.

AchillesDev t1_j6l5s4x wrote on January 31, 2023 at 2:31 AM

That's assuming static demand and no induced demand effect. Probably need even more to cover the shift due to induced demand.

RoaminRonin13 t1_j6l8p43 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 2:53 AM

It doesn’t need to be, by itself.

This “silver bullet” concept of a solution is never going to get us there, because one doesn’t exist. It’s like climate change - we need to do a lot of different things to solve the problem, of various levels of difficulty.

The MBTA communities re-zoning is both a great step in the right direction and creates a shit load of housing - demanding that it do more, or suggesting “it isn’t enough” is simply being defeatist / negative for the sake of it.

In my town we currently have ~9500 housing units and the MBTA communities law will require we re-zone to create another 2100-2400 (I forget the exact number). Whether that’s “enough” is hard to answer, but it is an enormous increase in units within what is maybe 25-30% of the town’s developed land area. That can’t be shrugged off.

And it’s not the only thing that’s happening. There’s still regular private development, and other initiatives working towards promoting the construction of new housing.