Somerville, Metro Mayors Set Ambitious Housing Goal

SOMERVILLE, MA – Somerville is among 15 Boston-area communities working to build even more new housing than proposed in a recent statewide bill.

The Metro Mayors Coalition said at a Tuesday press conference it plans to announce its "landmark" regional housing production goal of 185,000 new units by 2030. The coalition said the 15 cities and towns that make it up have added nearly 110,000 residents and 148,000 new jobs since 2010, but only permitted 32,500 new housing units.

The coalition includes Arlington, Boston, Braintree, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Newton, Quincy, Revere, Somerville and Winthrop.

The announcement comes in the face of skyrocketing home prices and rents. The median sale price in Massachusetts this year through August is $389,500, according to the Warren Group. The median condo sale price are up more than 10 percent to $375,000.

"Our region is in the midst of a housing emergency," Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone said in a statement. "It is a crisis of housing affordability and availability that has deep and disastrous impacts on individuals and families. And it is not contained by municipal boundaries -- it is a problem of such scale and scope that it demands cities, towns, and the state come together to develop bold regional solutions."

Gov. Charlie Baker in December 2017 offered a bill calling for 135,000 new units by 2025. It failed to advance in either branch of the Legislature.

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston said Eastern Massachusetts will need an estimated 435,000 units of housing by 2040 to meet demand.

Materials from the State House News Service were used in this report. Image via Shutterstock