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BOSTON—“The sun is shining on the city of Boston,” observed Bruce Percelay, chairman and founder of the Mount Vernon Co., and while a look out any of the windows at the State Room conference facility during RealShare Boston on Tuesday would verify that Percelay's comment was literally true, he wasn't talking about the weather. Peter Merrigan, CEO and founding partner of Taurus and another member of the conference's Town Hall Power Panel, put it another way: “If you're not having a good time in this business right now, you should probably find another business.” Added John Hynes III, CEO and managing partner of Boston Global Investors, “I've been in the business for 35 years, and this certainly feels like a high watermark to me.”

The bullish outlook carried through the half-day conference, which drew approximately 200 industry professionals to a RealShare event that was last held in New England's largest city in 2008. Following the downturn, the city came back earlier than many and, arguably, stronger than most.

Greater Boston's biosciences corridor, for example, has become the world's largest. As John Barros, appointed this past February as the city's first-ever chief of economic development, put it in his keynote address, “Boston is booming.”

Yet a boom period doesn't mean there are no challenges, and Barros, the Town Hall panelists and other industry experts homed in on one of the downsides of the dramatic uptick in multifamily development: an emphasis on luxury at the expense of middle-income rentals. With about $19.2 billion of projects in the development pipeline, 80% of that is luxury development, and some panelists questioned how large the rental pool for such housing really was.

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Barros cited the one Greater Boston employment sector that isn't seeing growth—manufacturing—and recounted the example of a high-tech manufacturer that recently moved its operations out of Boston to western Massachusetts. A conversation with senior management, Barros told the RealShare audience, revealed the reason the company was pulling up stakes: “They couldn't compete with the price of housing.”

Improving the affordability of living in Boston is among the key goals of the administration of Mayor Martin Walsh, who was sworn into office this past January and named Barros to his current post a month latter. The others include eliminating the skills gap in the Boston workforce and taking a regional approach to planning for growth.

Barros said a plan to encourage development of low- and middle-income housing stock would soon be issued by the Walsh administration; among other things, it will create incentives in the form of bonuses and tax credits. It will also propose zoning amendments to allow development of taller apartment buildings. “We're not afraid of height,” said Barros.

Rather than mandate affordable components in luxury projects, though, Hynes proposed building affordable housing separately. “The city has dozens of vacant parcels in neighborhoods that could use a short in the arm,' he said. Moreover, development costs in neighborhoods outside of downtown are often lower, meaning that more units could be built for less. The Town Hall panel was moderated by David Abramowitz, director and co-chair of the real estate group at Goulston & Storrs.