TBF Housing Resource Library  Special Reports Chapter 40R School Cost Analysis and Proposed Smart Growth School Cost Insurance Supplement.  Click the cover to download a pdf copy of this report containing recommendations from the Commonwealth Housing Task Force. "Building Our Heritage: A Housing Strategy for Smart Growth and Economic Development," Nov. 2003.  Click the cover to learn more about the report or download a copy. Report Cards The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2002 The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2003 The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2004 The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2005 - 2006 The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2006 - 2007 The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2008 Slide Presentations The 2002 Housing Report Card The 2003 Housing Report Card The 2004 Housing Report Card The 2005 - 2006 Housing Report Card The 2006 - 2007 Housing Report Card The 2008 Housing Report Card

Building on Our Heritage

A Housing Strategy for Smart Growth and Economic Development

The new housing strategy is designed to allow the Commonwealth to increase funding for affordable housing, reduce development sprawl, increase open space, and enhance opportunities for historic preservation and neighborhood revitalization.

Download a pdf version of Building Our Heritage

Download the Executive Summary

“I have never seen such a diverse group come together, and put parochial issues aside,” said Eleanor White (below, left) about the Commonwealth Housing Task Force. Ms.White, who presented the proposal, is President of Housing Partners, Inc. and Chair of Citizen’s Housing and Planning Association. She co-chaired the Task Force with Jerry Rappaport, Jr., President of the New Boston Fund; Larry DiCara, partner at Nixon Peabody; and Thomas Hollister, President and CEO of Citizens Bank, Massachusetts and Chairman of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

Calling the shortage of affordable housing “a critical economic liability” for Massachusetts, Boston Foundation President Paul Grogan welcomed community leaders to the unveiling of the most comprehensive policy proposal to increase housing production in the state in more than 30 years. “This strategy is both a brilliant breakthrough and a practical plan, and we hope to see it enacted into law,” he said.

Mr. Grogan had called for the creation of a “consensus housing agenda” in October of 2002, when the Foundation released its Greater Boston Housing Report Card, a comprehensive review of housing production in Eastern Massachusetts that showed little progress since the release of the “Cardinal’s Report” on housing two years earlier. 

Above: Eleanor White.  Below, from top: Paul Guzzi, Richard Freeland and Jeanette Ives Erickson.

The new proposal, called Building on Our Heritage: A Housing Strategy for Smart Growth and Economic Development, includes recommendations that, when implemented, are expected to lead to the construction of nearly 30,000 new housing units over the next decade for households at all income levels. The recommendations were presented before a joint hearing of the Legislature’s Housing Committee on November 13th.

The Boston Foundation served as convener of the Commonwealth Housing Task Force, which commissioned the proposal. The Task Force is a powerful coalition of Boston leaders that includes representatives from business, labor, higher education, the health care sector, housing advocacy and environmental groups, housing and real estate development companies, and many elected and appointed officials.

Its proposal encourages towns and cities to re-zone land around transit stops, town centers, and abandoned commercial and industrial buildings to produce new units of housing in “smart growth” areas. It uses three kinds of state incentives to bring the interests of the Commonwealth into line with the interests of individual communities. These include special density bonuses to communities that pass “special zoning overlay

districts,” state payment of the full costs of public school for children whose families move in to housing in these districts, and redirection of state infrastructure dollars to those communities implementing the overlay districts.

“With this proposal, we’re changing the debate about an issue not only of economic justice, but also economic competitiveness,” said Paul Guzzi, President and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and TBF Board member. “This is an historic opportunity to make a real difference in housing.” The Chamber of   Commerce and the Boston Foundation recently released a report that highlighted the high cost of housing as one of the primary factors in a growing “brain drain” in the Boston area, which is losing human capital to other regions of the country that are more affordable.

Dr. Richard Freeland, President of Northeastern University, spoke directly to the human capital issue at the report’s release. “I’m here as head of a major institution that is deeply concerned about the well-being of our region, which is in peril,” he said. “The cost of housing presents a frightening challenge when we are trying to recruit talented faculty members and even graduate students.” Jeanette Ives Erickson, Senior Vice President for Patient Care Services and Chief Nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, echoed his sentiments. “We are facing an unprecedented shortage of nurses,” she explained, “and because of the high cost of housing, many of our nurses already are traveling to Boston every day from neighboring states like New Hampshire and Rhode Island, where they can afford to buy homes.”

Chip Case, Professor of Economics at Wellesley College and long-time respected observer of the regional housing market, praised the report’s approach to beginning to solve the state’s housing crisis. “This is the first proposal that provides real incentives for building more housing,” he said. “It’s a very promising step, and it deserves everyone’s support.”