On Nantucket, the average price of a home is nearing $4 million. Visitors will spend $20,000 or more a week to rent a house – making a year-round rental for a police officer virtually impossible.
Housing
Posted inOpinion
How to move beyond local resistance to more housing
Currently, private development is tasked with assessing the impact of their proposals. If this became a state-driven cost benefit analysis, we could standardize impact and support towns that lack resources and help residents to understand pros and cons associated with development.
Posted inOpinion
As mayors, we need more tools to boost housing production
We urge the Legislature to act quickly to pass the Affordable Homes Act, in its entirety, this session, and to give local leaders the tools we need to support our current and future residents.
Posted inHousing
Mariano having doubts about local option transfer tax
The controversial policy idea may be what is holding up the House in taking up Gov. Maura Healey’s $4.1 billion housing bond bill, which she filed last October and has said is critical to addressing the shortage of affordable and available homes in Massachusetts.
Posted inOpinion
Housing challenge brings with it an energy challenge
Left unaddressed, the cost and availability of energy are poised to become deciding factors on when, where, and how fast new housing developments are built.
Posted inHousing
Milton asking state to restore its grant funding
The Milton Select Board voted 3-2 Tuesday night to send letters to Gov. Maura Healey and other officials asking them to reverse course and restore state grants that were cut off because of the municipality’s noncompliance.
Posted inOpinion
Unitarians turn empty office space into shelter
With all the public and private resources invested in office space and commercial development in the past generation, yet high vacancy rates forecasted for the foreseeable future, surely there can be more creative uses for spaces like ours to meet this moment.
Posted inBy The Numbers
Mass. residents conflicted on MBTA Communities Act
The poll seems to show a version of “NIMBY” thinking among residents, with most people supporting the broad goal of creating more housing, but a significant number of responders wary of having that housing forced on individual communities.
Posted inHousing
MBTA Communities panel splits over state vs. local control
“I think of the folks who were in the Mass. Legislature more than 100 years ago, who said we’re going to go out and we’re going to create the Quabbin Reservoir and flood four towns, and make sure that we had enough water for the Boston metro area,” he said. “That was a hard decision… They made a decision about what they thought was best for the Commonwealth. And so did we.”
Posted inOpinion
Housing legislation could save Cape Cod
The housing crisis ln the Cape is a threat not only to our families, but to our workforce, our seasonal economy, and our way of life.