Expanding Opportunity via Housing: A Response to Sen. Lydia Edwards
Last month, Massachusetts Senate Housing Chair Lydia Edwards wrote an opinion piece in The Boston Globe outlining her perspective on the housing crisis in Massachusetts. Edwards makes a number of strong points, chief among them that restrictive zoning policies and other land use policies that artificially constrain the supply of housing are responsible for the supply shortfall and unaffordability that constitute our current housing crisis. Her calls to allow the construction of more housing near transit stops, accessory dwelling units by right, and more multifamily housing in general are exactly what the state needs. These policies should be the top priorities for the state legislature and municipal governments.
Unfortunately, Edwards calls for a number of other policies that are at odds with the goal of increasing Massachusetts’s housing supply. She calls for increasing inclusionary zoning requirements in municipalities across the state, ignoring the fact that inclusionary zoning tends to increase market-rate rental prices, reduces the quantity of new housing, and fails to create units that are affordable for the lowest-income residents. Increasing real estate transfer taxes would disincentivize household mobility, which would depress labor markets, and reduce the incentive to build new housing in the first place. And finally, rent control has failed time and again to meaningfully improve housing outcomes, suppressing new construction, worsening inequality, and doing little to address homelessness.
Edwards says these changes are necessary to address a history of exclusion and inequality implemented via redlining, racially exclusionary covenants, and exclusionary zoning. Ironically, even though they may be well-intentioned, these supply-suppressing policies would exacerbate a trend of increasing exclusion and inequality at the national level. From 1880 to 1980, the US experienced significant net migration from poorer areas to richer areas, resulting in notable decreases in interregional inequality. This is how a well-functioning national economy should work: low-income people can seek higher wages by moving to high-productivity places. Unfortunately, since 1980, this trend has reversed, largely as a result of housing scarcity and unaffordability in high-income places like Massachusetts. Wages are still higher here, but it’s much harder for people to move here from other parts of the country. We don’t have enough housing, and the housing that’s available is too expensive for most people. Further suppressing our housing supply via policies like rent control, inclusionary zoning, and higher taxes would only reinforce this trend, walling off the economic opportunities that exist here.
Fortunately, there are solutions to our housing crisis that don’t have these negative side effects. The Yes in My Back Yard Act (HD1379, presented by Representatives Andy Vargas and Kevin Honan, and S858, sponsored by Senator Brendan Crighton) would make it easier to build affordable, environmentally sustainable housing in Massachusetts, stimulating the state’s economy and lowering the cost of living for all residents. Moreover, it would do so without requiring additional taxes or spending and without infringing on the rights of property owners. This bill is a win-win, lowering prices for renters and home buyers, increasing land value for existing homeowners, and leading to a stronger, more equitable, and more environmentally sustainable economy. With options like this, there’s no reason to consider supply-stunting housing policies.
by Chris Lehman
