Industry Group Pleads for Delay in Boston Housing Mandates

With days until a mandate boosts affordable housing requirements in Boston, a commercial real estate industry group is pleading for more time.

NAIOP Massachusetts is calling on Boston officials to push back the mandate from Oct. 1 to an undetermined date, the Boston Business Journal reported. The industry group, helmed by Tamara Small, fears the potential chilling effect the updated rules will have on development.

This October, Boston is increasing the affordability requirement of new multifamily and condo developments from 13 percent of income-restricted units to 20 percent.

The change in affordable housing requirements was set in motion last year. The Boston Planning and Development agency approved the change in July 2023, with the Zoning Commission following suit four months later. The changes were initially scheduled to start at the beginning of the year, only to be pushed back by Mayor Michelle Wu due to economic conditions.

For city officials, the stepped up affordability requirements are designed to get more Bostonians into housing. Developers, however, are already struggling to get return on investments in the city and fear this will only make that a larger challenge, potentially delaying sorely needed new housing construction.

Small claimed in a letter that “the regulations will do nothing but further dampen already depressed housing production in the City of Boston, undermining the City’s goals for growth and further driving up the cost of market-rate housing.” Small said construction was already slowing when the second approval of the affordable housing mandate came, but the data on city construction is murky.

At the end of last year, however, a Redfin analysis found housing affordability in the city slipped below 5 percent. Only 4.7 percent of listings were affordable, meaning a typical monthly mortgage payment represented no more than 30 percent of the local median household monthly income.

— Holden Walter-Warner