Hours into an all-night marathon to close out the legislative session, House and Senate lawmakers agreed on a $5.2 billion housing bond package that will enact significant zoning reform to legalize accessory dwelling units, sometimes referred to as “granny flats,” statewide, and authorize billions of dollars for the affordable housing system.
The bill, the Legislature’s first major housing bill in three years, marks a victory for some advocates, particularly zoning reform proponents and affordable housing supporters. But it left others disappointed.
The measure is Governor Maura Healey’s first big housing policy package since taking office last year and aimed to deliver the bold action she promised on the campaign trail to address a housing crisis that is rapidly warping the lives of everyday people and has become one of the state’s most urgent issues. But the final version left many policies on the table, including a fee on high-dollar real estate transactions to fund affordable housing, a measure that could have eliminated broker’s fees for tenants, and a $1 billion expansion of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority pushed by House Speaker Ron Mariano that could have enabled more housing in some South Shore towns.
“This is a really nice step forward,” said Clark Ziegler, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. “There’s a lot of good in this bill that I hope is laying the groundwork for us to pursue more ambitious policies in the future. But you have to start somewhere, and I think this is a great start.”
Bond bills for housing come up every five years, typically for the Legislature to reauthorize bond spending for housing programs and development. Healey used this year’s bond bill to advance wide-ranging housing policy legislation, which complicated its path and drew intense lobbying from real estate interests and housing advocates.
Perhaps the most significant new policy in the final bill is a measure that will broadly legalize ADUs, which are smaller housing units typically built in the backyard or basement of a single-family home. Should Healey sign it, the law would allow ADUs in all single-family-zoned lots statewide without requiring local permitting.
While towns could enact some “reasonable restrictions,” such as setbacks from property lines, stricter rules requiring more than one parking spot per unit or limiting who can live there — as some communities have done historically — would be barred. Broad statewide legalization, advocates say, will also make it easier for developers to produce ADUs at scale, since they won’t need to customize projects to fit countless town-level rules.
“This is a huge victory,” said Jesse Kanson-Benanav, executive director of the pro-housing group Abundant Housing Massachusetts. “ADUs have proven to be a really critical part of the housing production strategy in other states. This will result in more homes for Massachusetts residents, and I believe Massachusetts now has one of the strongest ADU laws in the country.”
The Healey administration predicts the rule will generate some 8,000 units over the next five years, though the state housing office will still have to develop regulations that dictate height and setback rules. That could prove contentious, as many local officials and residents remain highly skeptical of ADUs, seeing them as disruptive to suburban single-family neighborhoods.
Another big victory, housing advocates say, is $2 billion in bond authorizations for the state’s aging public housing portfolio. The money will be used to repair 40,000 state-funded units, which have been falling into disrepair over decades as the state delivered little new money to maintain them. Residents have complained of significant rodent and pest issues, and some buildings have deteriorating stairs and floors. Others are in such bad shape they have had to be condemned.
The money outlined in the bill comes in the form of bond authorizations, which allow the state to spend money on the specified items. But it does not guarantee that the money will get spent. The last several bond bills only saw about two-thirds of the funding that was authorized actually be spent, and Healey’s recent capital plan calls for far less in spending than is outlined in the bond bill.
Other housing programs, like a new fund to help jump-start stalled mixed-income developments, received money as well. And in a victory for tenant advocates, the bill included a measure that will allow eviction records to be sealed in some cases. It will also create a new office for fair housing.
Still, some advocates Thursday could not help but focus on what is not in the bill.
Most notably, the Legislature killed Healey’s proposal to allow cities and towns to enact a fee of 0.5 percent to 2 percent on property sales over $1 million or those above the county’s median home sales price in places where that exceeds $1 million. The measure was a priority of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and had the support of numerous communities that are wrestling with high housing costs. Studies have indicated the transfer tax could have collected hundreds of millions of dollars for affordable housing, but the real estate industry mobilized an aggressive campaign against it, worried that it would further dampen the housing and struggling commercial real estate markets.
“There are massive, historic investments in the bonding part of this bill,” said Mark Martinez, who leads a coalition that supports the transfer fee. “But by leaving the transfer fee out, you’re leaving out the possibility of real dollars for affordable housing in perpetuity. So it’s really, really hard to believe that we’re taking this housing crisis seriously when we’re leaving policies like that on the table.”
Also excluded from the final bill was a $1 billion expansion of the MWRA, allowing it to reach beyond the 60 communities it currently operates in, bolstering water infrastructure in communities that have said they cannot support more housing development without it.
And some measures that would have benefited tenants, like a policy that would have required landlords to pay broker’s fees instead of tenants, and a rule that would have given renters the opportunity to buy their unit when their landlord moved to sell their building.
“What’s missing [in the bill] is any kind of policy that is going to help struggling renters now,” said Martinez.
Still, lawmakers said, the measure includes a lot of money and some valuable policy changes that they hope will help turn the tide on a housing crisis that seems to only get worse by the year.
“It’s a big crisis, but this is a big bill,” said state Senator Will Brownsberger, one of the chamber’s negotiators on the bill. “It’s gonna make a dent.”
Matt Stout of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.