^^Exactly. Speaking to that, go to the ACGMA or Homebuilders meetings..... you're talking about a fraction of what participation was in 1990. You used to see 300 sometimes 400 people showing up to meetings.
Nowadays, you'll be lucky to see 35, 40. Depending on your perspective, homebuilding outside of RT128 can only be fairly categorized as dead or dying.
What kind of an economy is that when tens of thousands of homes go up in DFW, Atlanta, Houston and Phoenix? This dog is going to hunt in Boston for a few years yet. But, consider, the creative ways the state looks inside every crevice to issue large fines over bullshit infractions. The regulatory state is right there every other minute with it's its black hand. It's casting a pall over development. That's why you have no air-rights getting done. Or parcels like 25/26 etc with no bidders. Everyone's trying to squeeze the developers who need the least of it at the beginning, in order to stimulate growth.
Even Joe Larkin and Millennium aren't dumb enough to bid on anything connected to the Mass.gov. They're scaring the most connected from the process! That should tell you a lot!
Don't ask the BPDA, ask the people in the State House.
This economy still hasn't fully recovered from the last 3 recessions! That's 1 reason why the State is broke and why it's like a cataclysm every time we want to build a bridge, add service or make infrastructure improvements to the T... which btw, is underfunded in the multiple $B's. It has to rank as one of the most underfunded systems in the country, when we're in a so-called boom.
Our boom is actually barely holding serve with our peer cities.
Outside of 128, it's technically, still a recession.
Inside the Statehouse, it's one continuous minor disaster waiting for the next major disaster.
The State used to carry Boston. Now Boston is carrying the State!
Boston; it might actually end up somewhat good that we're building approved projects at a slow pace. Or that a good number of them appear to have stalled.
One reason might be securing the financing.
I hope that's not the primary reason.
Outside of 128, it can take 5, 10 years to get building permits.
Do you like getting all your pre-approvals, then dealing with conservation matters? Do you like building retention ponds??
Do you like working within the DEP re; the Wetlands Protection acts?
In the 80s and 90s, we encroached near the wetlands and picked all the low-hanging fruit.
Now, we're literally at the doorstep of swamps and creeks.
Do you like building tunnels for endangered Spotted and Wood Turtles when they've been spotted in the area by State officials?
And then even when you get all your permitting, you can get stalled for years if someone puts up a complaint or town planners just say, 'no.'
It takes an astute developer to know where the loopholes are, where the locals will look the other way of a woodland encroaching on wetland, and when to walk.