Boston's Affordable Housing Initiative on MIT Forum Agenda

BOSTON—Mayor Martin J. Walsh, as well as chief officials of New York City and London's housing programs, will discuss at a major real estate conference here on Friday how they plan to build affordable housing in their respective cities in coming years despite significant economic headwinds.

Boston Mayor Walsh will be among the speakers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Real Estate's Global Real Estate Forum and 30th Anniversary Celebration this week. The two-day event will feature a forum on Friday at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Among the roundtable programs planned include a session entitled: “Housing Affordability in 24-Hour Global Cities: Key Issues and Strategies in New York, London & Boston.” Mayor Walsh is expected to provide further details on his plan to build 53,000 housing units by the year 2030, part of his Imagine Boston 2030 initiative.

Also part of that affordable housing roundtable are: Professor Phil Clay, head, housing community and economic development group, MIT department of urban studies and planning; Professor Albert Saiz, Daniel Rose associate professor of urban economics and real estate and director of the center for real estate at MIT; Vicki Been, commissioner of the New York City department of housing preservation & development; Richard Blakeway, deputy mayor for housing, land & property, London; Brian Golden, director, Boston Redevelopment Authority and Sheila Dillon, director, department of neighborhood development, City of Boston.

Professor Saiz tells Globest.com that he is looking forward to presentations by Mayor Walsh and the officials from London and New York City on their ongoing housing development initiatives. 

He says that these major initiatives to build low and middle-class housing are welcome news, particularly since strong demand in global cities like New York City, Boston, London and elsewhere, are increasing housing costs. That trend, along with continued income inequality “will make it very difficult for the cities” to significantly increase its affordable housing stock, he says.

Saiz notes that one of the ways global cities can encourage the growth of affordable housing is by legislating increases in the affordability requirements of new construction, which New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio did upon taking office.

He adds that for these initiatives to have a real long-term impact on the housing stock, the increased affordability requirements on new construction would have to be permanent.

Last Thursday, Mayor Walsh released his first progress report on his “Housing a Changing City: Boston 2030” program, which he announced last October that calls for the addition of 53,000 units in the next 15 years.

In the first quarter of 2015, 1,187 units of housing were created, bringing the total number of new units of housing created since the inception of the plan to 13,017 or 128% of the target production level to date needed to reach the city's goal of creating 53,000 units by 2030. In addition, another 825 units of housing were approved through the Boston Redevelopment Authority during that period, bringing the city's total number of units permitted or approved to more than 21,000 units. A total of 75% of the city's new housing starts are within a five-minute walk of major transit facilities.

The city also reports it achieved 121% of its target rate for the quarter for creating 6,500 units of low-income housing by 2030. Last week Mayor Walsh announced the award of approximately $39 million to support affordable housing developments in neighborhoods throughout Boston. The funding will create or preserve 1,194 housing units and uses $27 million of federal and local resources through the Department of Neighborhood Development  and $11.7 million in linkage funds through Boston's Neighborhood Housing Trust.

The city reached 88% of its quarterly target to add 20,000 units of middle income housing by 2030, with 551 units created in the first quarter and 3,740 units permitted to date. When the first quarter's new housing starts come on the market, the city projects that nearly half of the units will be affordable to middle income households, in comparison to 26% in 2014.

The MIT Global Real Estate Forum's Friday program will also feature roundtable presentations on "Industrial Development and Logistics Clusters" that will feature executives from Prologis, InvestBridge Capital and LaSalle Investment Management, as well as a panel of developers that will offer their perspectives. The developer panel will be made up of former chairman and CEO of AvalonBay Properties Bryce Blair; Chuck Burd III, chief investment officer of Bentall Kennedy and Peter Spellios, senior vice president Related Beal.