When she came into office, Governor Maura Healey made housing her top priority. And over the past three years, Massachusetts has made meaningful progress in addressing its housing shortage: Healey presided over the implementation of the MBTA Communities Act, a major zoning reform push that has so far shown signs of success; the Legislature passed the Affordable Homes Act, a $5.2 billion package that legalized accessory dwelling units, invested in public housing, and expanded tax credits for developers; and the state has eased some regulations to speed up housing production.
On Thursday, Healey unveiled legislation that would, among other things, lower a common local regulatory hurdle to housing construction. As this editorial page argued last year, so-called “site review” is a seemingly minor step in the approval process that in some cases can stop housing projects altogether, and Healey wants to finally put some guardrails around it.
That the governor has put housing front and center is laudable. “Governor Healey has genuinely been taking our housing crisis more seriously in recent years than state leadership a decade ago, and that’s really important progress,” Luc Schuster, the executive director of Boston Indicators, told the editorial board.
Yet for all that progress, the state appears to be on track to miss Healey’s ambitious goals. The question that the governor needs to reckon with now is what more the state should do.
Some numbers, to be sure, look promising. Since Healey became governor, more than 90,000 homes have been completed or entered the development phase, according to her office. Every new house or apartment helps relieve the state’s shortage and eases the demand for existing housing that keeps pushing up prices and scaring away businesses and residents.
But even with numbers like that, Massachusetts is still lagging behind most other states across the country.
One alarming sign of trouble ahead is that building permits have generally been declining over the past few years. In 2024, for example, just over 14,000 permits were issued compared to nearly 20,000 in 2021.
To be fair, some of that decline is out of the state’s hands. Rising costs for labor and construction materials, as well as higher interest rates, have impacted developers across the country.
Still, the development slowdown seems especially troublesome in Massachusetts. According to the Pioneer Institute’s US Data Lab, Massachusetts had the sixth-lowest number of permits issued per capita in the country. In 2024, for example, Massachusetts issued 201 permits per 100,000 residents. Meanwhile, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire have all outpaced Massachusetts, issuing 429, 409, and 352 permits per 100,000 residents, respectively, in the same interest-rate environment.
Massachusetts has set a goal of constructing 220,000 housing units by 2035 in order to fill the housing supply gap, but if construction continues at its current pace, the state would fall far short of that target.
“My concern is that [the state is] still not acting with a level of urgency,” Schuster, of Boston Indicators, said. “It’s still incremental change rather than transformative change that they’re pushing for.”
Transformative change almost inevitably means butting heads again with cities and towns, which tend to balk at new housing and don’t like relinquishing local control over zoning to the state. While compliance with the MBTA Communities Act was largely successful, there’s since been some notable pushback. For example, Lexington, which went above and beyond complying with the minimum requirements of the MBTA Communities Act, voted to roll back some of its zoning reforms last year.
The good news is that the state still has plenty of tools at its disposal to convince or force municipalities to accept more housing. A state commission released a report last year filled with suggestions, which the governor and the Legislature should consider.
Some of the report’s recommendations are ambitious and, no doubt, politically fraught. They include statewide zoning reforms that would override local rules, like eliminating parking minimums, which increase construction costs and eat up space that could be better used, and allowing for two-family homes to be permitted by right on all residential lots. Right now, many communities only allow single-family homes, and most cities and towns require discretionary review and approval before permitting two-family homes.
Of course, these kinds of major reforms would face fierce opposition from towns. But if the state wants to succeed in fixing its housing crisis, then the governor and Legislature have to start thinking about tackling some more ambitious reforms like those in the commission’s report. Local control may be a cherished tradition in Massachusetts, but it’s not a law of nature. The state has the legal ability to force municipal zoning changes, something the Legislature did with the MBTA law and again when it legalized ADUs statewide. It shouldn’t be afraid to use the power again if necessary.
The state has already taken significant strides toward addressing its housing shortage under the Healey administration. But given the current pace of housing production, the rising cost of living, and the fact that residents are leaving the state, the natural next step is to think even bigger. And hopefully, the state is still up for the challenge.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.