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Wu's been in office a year now and city councilors wonder when she's going to do something to make developers add more affordable housing that Bostonians can afford
By adamg on Fri, 12/09/2022 - 11:33am
The Bay State Banner reports some councilors are dissatisfied at the slow pace of increasing the city's current 13% "affordable" housing requirement for new development.
Councilors also want to see the requirements changed to reflect the fact that many Bostonians can't afford so-called affordable units: At a meeting Wednesday, Councilor Gabriela Coletta said the "affordable" units in the massive Suffolk Downs development will be aimed at people making 70% of the Boston-area median income, when most people in East Boston only make about 50% of that.
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Comments
"We see evictions are
Has the dust settled from the eviction moratorium, or is there still an eviction backlog?
Don't worry people
Michelle will be there, two kids in tow building housing day and night non stop because you want her to.
jfc get over yourself. Michelle may seem like Wonder Woman, but she's not. But because she's not doing what YOU want.. she's failing.
People say this crap when they don't like whoever they are speaking about. Its not "but you aren't doing enough" its "I don't like you, so i'm going to make a stink about everything you do or not do"
Because thats what it really is.
She's been in office for a year
And one of her campaign promises was to increase the required percentage of affordable housing under the IDP to 20%. We all know that "launching a study" or "forming a committee" are the ways government officials put things on the back burner. It's on the Council, too, though. Why pass a resolution calling for more affordable housing when you can just pass an ordinance to do it?
FWIW I think that if the Council's goal is to slow or stop the production of housing in the City, increasing the required percentage of affordable housing is a great way to do it. With commercial lending rates significantly higher than they were a year ago, it becomes that much more difficult to make the numbers work for projects.
Exactly
There are people who seem to think the city can pass a law or regulation and all problems will be solved.
Building or renovating anything in the area, particularly Boston, is extremely expensive and difficult. No one is going to take a loss or only break even.
Ironic
Considering the story immediately adjacent to this one is the council sitting on reforming the ZBA for three months with no action.
The minimum wage in MA
The minimum wage in MA is $14.25. Assuming you work a 40 hour work week and also assuming 28% of that goes to cover social security and taxes that's $159.60 a week. Multiply that by 4 weeks and you get $1,641.60 a month. Take 30% of that and you should be paying 492.48 a month for rent. I haven't seen or heard of anything available for rent at that rate anywhere in the Greater Boston Area. I don't think I ever will.
So what I'd like Mayor Wu and the City Council to do is stop this bullshit about percentage of Average Median Income and start stating some real numbers.
Will that make the Greater Boston Area affordable? NO but it will let people know where they actually stand as far as what you can make and what you can afford.
Did I go to far off topic with my diatribe?