March 8, 2024 - In early March, the Joint Committee on Housing reported favorably the Affordable Homes Act filed by Governor Healey with all sections still included in the bill. The bill now heads to the Joint Commitee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures, and State Assets.
On January 18, 2024 the Joint Committee on Housing held the first hearing on The Affordable Homes Act, Governor Healey’s landmark housing bond proposal. With more than 250 people signed up to testify, the hearing ran for a marathon 11 hours, with testimony from the business community, municipal officials, and tenant organizations all offering strong support for the bill’s passage.
MAPC’s Executive Director, Marc Draisen, was proud to testify alongside Mayors Breanna Luongo-Koehn of Medford and Katjana Ballantyne of Somerville, and City Manager Yi-An Huang of Cambridge of the Metropolitan Mayors Coalition in support of a number of priority components of the bill, most notably public housing modernization and decarbonization, accessory dwelling units by-right with limited parking requirements, inclusionary zoning by simply majority, local option transfer fee, and numerous tenant protection and funding measures.
MAPC was glad to be joined by colleagues from the Massachusetts Association of Regional Planning Agencies (MARPA), and from the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), Access to Counsel, Zero Carbon Renovation Fund (ZCRF) and the Local Option for Housing Affordability (LOHA) Coalitions.
You can find a full list of MAPC’s top priority items in The Affordable Homes Act by clicking here.
In speaking about the need for additional revenue for affordable housing, Draisen said, “We must do everything we can to increase production, but I know the numbers. We could double our production annually for the next ten years ... and we will not dig ourselves out of the hole we’ve already dug ourselves into. We must produce more affordable units.”
“In Cambridge, we are doing our part as much as we can. The biggest barrier to affordable housing is simply resources,” said Manager Huang. “A local option transfer fee is the most impactful policy option in this bill. ... We need more resources, more tools and more action. I believe the Affordable Homes Act has all of these.”
“I'm glad to see that the state is recognizing there’s potential in its current land stock, to activate those properties and develop surplus land for new housing developments,” said Mayor Luongo-Koehn. “It’s clear that the state’s housing strategy is focused on supporting community member's needs.”
“This bold and expansive bill gives municipalities the hope that long-term stability is on the horizon for our residents,” said Mayor Ballantyne. “Municipalities across the Commonwealth are unable to preserve and produce housing at the rates our residents need ... It is absolutely critical that a transfer fee remain in the final version of the AHA ... [and it] needs to work for every municipality that wants to use this tool.”
Please contact your legislators and let them know that you support this important legislation. You can use this advocacy template to draft an email:
You can watch all 10 hours, 40+ minutes of the hearing by clicking here, or use the below timestamp guide to start with the folks you most want to hear from.
For testimony from MAPC and Metro Mayors Coalition members, on the issues noted above and more, start at hour 3, minute 10 of the recording.
For testimony from the LOHA Coalition in support of local option transfer fees, start at hour 8, minute 4 of the recording. MAPC co-chairs this Coalition and was proud to have MAPC Legislative Committee Chair Keith Bergman join colleagues, realtors and impacted people throughout the state in support of the revenue raising measure. Commitment to the issue runs so deep that Keith’s daughter Mary stuck around to close out the hearing at hour 10, minute 39.
For TOPA Coalition testimony in support of a tenant’s opportunity to purchase, start at hour 8, minute 44.
For Zero Carbon Renovation Fund testimony in support of decarbonization funding for public housing, start at hour 8 minute, 56.