Commonwealth Housing Task Force Quarterly Summary of Progress As of June 30, 2013

Commonwealth Housing Task Force Quarterly Summary of Progress as of June 30, 2013 Note: in order to reduce the size of these reports, we have condensed the description of regular ongoing activities, and have moved much of the Chapter 40R update to Appendix I of this report. For background, please visit www.tbf.org/chtf or www.commonwealthhousingtaskforce.org and click on “Quarterly Updates”. A key to the Appendices and the Appendices themselves follow at the end of this Quarter’s report. During the very active second Quarter of 2013, the Commonwealth Housing Task Force focused its efforts on: 1. The implementation and monitoring of Chapter 40R, including advocacy for pending legislation and funding. 2. The call for an increase in state funding for affordability, and monitoring of both state and federal legislation and programmatic developments. 3. Strategic planning for new initiatives of the Task Force, including assuring that the benefits of new construction under 40R and other state programs are available to the widest range of households, work with the committee to focus on public housing, and work with the State Administration to maintain a focus on housing programs. 4. An expansion in participation in the Task Force itself, with a focus on diversity. 5. Working in close partnership and collaboration with other groups to support our missions. Barry Bluestone, Eleanor White, and Ted Carman, working through the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, have carried out the staff work in coordination with active subcommittees and Boston Foundation staff. Housing Market Updates Press coverage this Quarter about news in the housing market, continuing the trend we reported on in the last three Quarters, was optimistic. The Associated Press reported on April 16, 2013 that the Commerce Department announced “The overall pace of homes started [nationally] rose 7 percent from February to March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.04 million. Apartment construction, which tends to fluctuate sharply from month to month, led the surge: It jumped nearly 31 percent to an annual rate of 417,000, the fastest pace since January 2006.” And the Banker and Tradesman editorial on May 12, 2013, was wondering if the rapid price of homes for sale constituted the start of a new housing bubble. We have in recent Quarterly Reports covered the huge jump in rents in multifamily rental housing in Massachusetts, particularly in the Greater Boston area, and that trend continues unabated. Paul McMorrow’s thoughtful Op-Ed in the Boston Globe of June 4, 2013, commented on the serious lack of rental housing and the need for housing outside of the City of Boston. Commonwealth Housing Task Force Quarterly Report March 30, 2013 Page 2 Relative to the single-family side in New England, Banker and Tradesman reported on March 28, 2013 that the mortgage market was the strongest in 5 years. With mortgage rates at historic lows and market demand at the highest in years, that trend continued throughout the Quarter. The New York Times on June 19, 2013, under the headline “Fed, More Optimistic About Economy, Maintains Bond-Buying”, wrote: “Federal Reserve policy makers, more confident about the economic recovery, on Wednesday maintained their current pace of monetary stimulus. Fed officials also predicted in their latest economic forecast, released Wednesday, that the unemployment rate will decline more quickly than they had previously expected, sitting between 6.5 percent and 6.8 percent at the end of 2014. They had predicted in March that the rate would sit between 6.7 percent and 7 percent. Officials predicted that the annual pace of inflation would rebound next year, rising closer to the 2 percent rate that the Fed considers healthy.” The state of the housing market is also receiving attention at the local level. After approaching the Dukakis Center at Northeastern University, the Planning Board of the Town of Dedham has agreed to fund a small project whereby the Center, led by Barry Bluestone, will analyze the current state of housing in the town, project housing needs for single-family and multi-family housing based on demographic projections, and suggest what means might be used, including 40R, to meet these needs. This report will be completed by early fall. Finally, in anticipation of funding from the Boston Foundation to carry out its 11th annual Greater Boston Housing Report Card, the staff of the Dukakis Center has outlined the structure of this year’s report and has begun to collect the necessary data for the report, much of which is related to trends in the housing market in Massachusetts. In a meeting on June 18, the Dukakis Center GBHRC staff met with the leadership of the Department of Housing and Community Development and Boston Foundation staff to review the proposed content of this year’s report. All of the articles mentioned in this section are included in Appendix II to this Report. Student Housing Effort Barry Bluestone continues to pursue efforts to deal with the issues in the housing market presented by Boston’s being such a center of higher education. We house more than 100,000 full-time 4-year college students on campus in the Boston area, but nearly 180,000 live off campus, putting huge pressure on an already-overheated rental housing market. Further, whereas 50 percent of undergraduates live on campus, only 8 percent of graduate students do. Barry has developed an innovative model of seeking to develop graduate student villages (described in several past CHTF Quarterly Reports). Commonwealth Housing Task Force Quarterly Report March 30, 2013 Page 3 Barry continues to meet regularly with interested parties to explore where and how a multi-university graduate student village can be built. As previously reported, the Dukakis Center has worked with Samuels & Associates (Trilogy) on encouraging the development of a large graduate student housing complex in the Fenway area. And Barry continues to meet with David Geller of Geller & Co. exploring ways to encourage Northeastern University to join with other Colleges of the Fenway to offer Master Leases for the development of a Fenway “Multi-University Graduate Student Village.” In addition, during this Quarter, initial meetings have been concluded with the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development and the Department of Housing and Community Development over the possibility of having the Governor convene a group of housing developers and Greater Boston university presidents to explore the possibility of having local universities offer Master Leases for the development of one or more “Multi-University Graduate Student Villages.” The goal is to produce enough such housing to reduce pressure on rents in many of the region’s neighborhoods. We were pleased to see a Boston Globe report of June 8, 2013, that Emerson College announced plans to build a multistory building to house a 750-student dorm and other facilities. See the full story in Appendix III to this Report. Other Programmatic Developments Fairly new this Quarter has been discussion in the press about the development of “micro-units”, very small rental apartments meant to be marketed to young professionals who may want to trade space in favor of low rents. The units, sometimes likened to the type of space utilization found on submarines or in Japanese bargain hotels, are less than 300 square feet with many built-in features to maximize the space. Some housing advocates are skeptical that this type of construction as sustainable over time, remembering cost-containment days of Federal subsidy programs that stripped housing units of so many amenities (like closet doors!) that in a matter of years, even the poorest of the poor refused to live in them. Others believe that these units fill an important market need and that if suitably located—either in an inner city and/or very near public transportation—will appeal long-term to young workers just starting out. Please refer to the Boston Globe article of March 26, 2013 included in Appendix III to this report for a description of this product type and graphic representations of what these units look like. We welcome comments about this from CHTF members (write to Eleanor White: [email protected]). We also noticed a very interesting press release issued by the MacArthur Foundation on April 3, 2013, showcasing a study of housing attitudes in the US. Although a majority of Americans still see homeownership as a key part of the American dream, the study indicates that there is a growing acceptance of rental housing as a desirable lifestyle, and—further—a growing recognition that stable housing environments are key to stable families and communities. Both findings are critically important to gaining public support for the construction of badly-needed rental housing Commonwealth Housing Task Force Quarterly Report March 30, 2013 Page 4 and for public support of government subsidy programs to make both homeownership and rental housing affordable across the income spectrum in the US. See the press release in Appendix III of this Report. CHAPA’s Housing Briefs stated in early April, 2013, that on February 25, the State announced the addition of two cities (Peabody and Attleboro) to its list of “Gateway Cities” (cities with population greater than 35,000 and less than 250,000, a median household income below the state average and a rate of educational attainment of a bachelor’s degree or above that is below the state average). With these additions, the state now has 26 Gateway City communities. Designation qualifies communities for several targeted state programs (Gateway Cities Parks program, Housing Development Incentive Program, Housing Planning Grants and Gateway Plus Action Grants) as well as a preference under others, including the MassWorks Infrastructure and Brownfields programs.

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