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That's a completely valid point, given how low property taxes are in much of the state. But again, what's wrong with eating into the taxes on market rate units? The city never faces a decline in revenue, just a postponement. And if a city wants that revenue faster, they can reduce their IZ...

Could you walk through these calculations some more? It seems like it's off by about an order magnitude. For context, here's the densities of two recent projects: Energizar (Chelsea) - 250 MW/1,000 MWh on 3.7 acres (68 MW/acre) Medway Grid BESS - 250 MW/500 MWh on 10.6 acres (24 MW/acre)...

The Globe does address this somewhat, but again with conjecture. The millionaires tax has kept increasing in revenue, but blockbuster (and unsustainable) market returns likely play a role. There are real questions about what would happen in a down market year, let alone correction/bear market...

There does not need to be no property taxes on IZ units indefinitely. The taxes just need to be reduced enough, for long enough, to pay for the units. In the Portland example earlier, those property tax exemptions are for 10 years and are either for the increased property value or just the value...

Developers would make profit hand-over-fist... by building out much needed housing, a significant portion of which would be income-restricted? That sounds like a phenomenal situation where everyone wins. I want new housing more than I hate developer profits, and I wish that more people...

Oregon recently passed a state law requiring municipalities fully fund and inclusionary zoning (IZ) requirements they have. Portland has done this primarily through a set of property tax exemptions that end up being in the $200k - $250k range per affordable unit. The seems like it would be a...

While I agree with your assessment of the Associations involved here, this discounts the options available to the city. Off the top of my head: The state could pass legislation explicitly saying historic districts don't cover streets/sidewalks unless otherwise stated. This was already done in...

The data appears to be from the census bureau, and can be seen with this visualization tool: https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/visualizations/datatool/index.html. Note: This is number of units permitted, not completions (or BPDA approvals). It is a bit of a leading indicator of...

I'm pretty sure this means "only a majority is needed to get to an IDP threshold of 13%", and not "no community will have an IDP threshold of more than 13%". The first one is nice, but mostly in the sense that the state probably should not be setting the thresholds for city council votes (towns...

The full answer is that the Massachusetts building code defines a high-rise as any building over 70 feet, and thus wooden balloon framing is no longer allowed. This causes large cost increases that don't pencil out until buildings get much taller, typically in the 12-15 story range. There are...

The most relevant quote in the article: The article implies that this letter was acquired either via a leak or public records request. It seems likely the AG wanted to note that this is probably illegal, but a reasonable action under these circumstances. However, this is another piece of...

There is a Mattapan Line Transformation Program public meeting happening on the 17th that I haven't seen mentioned here yet: https://www.mbta.com/events/2025-12-17/public-meeting-mattapan-line-transformation-program-virtual. This will be the first time in two and a half years (!) that the T has...

I'd like to push back just a little on how restrictive the market challenges are. While it has undoubtedly caused a major slowdown in residential construction, the results of that have been very different in different places. Even with interest rates at their current highs, other cities are...

This site is currently a parking lot and mostly vacant building. The project is a huge upgrade over that. The only major complaint is that the building could probably be taller, given what's going up on both Guest St and Braintree.

The last time there was any information on the 400ft platforms was over 18 months ago. It may still be the plan, but it's hard to say for sure. However, we do have this from the latest update: While, it's not much, it does mean that the island platform has been scrapped. This was a major...

They mentioned this a bit during the board meeting, but the idea was to start with the Orange Line to avoid any complexity with branching on the Red Line. This is likely due to ensuring operators end up at the station they started at, but there wasn't any additional explanation.

The T has been doing this for at least a few years. I've heard Ryan Coholan discuss it before (I think on the Spilling the T podcast but can't say for sure.) The vast majority of "AI" or "machine learning" applications the past ten years has been fairly basic regressions. While there are some...

Absolutely. I'm cautiously optimistic that the upcoming Allston-Brighton Community Plan will remove parking minimums for this entire area

The main reasons are that it still generates vehicle trips and means more curb cuts. Allston Village already has a ton of traffic and anything that adds more cars will just make it worse

That's true, but the schedule has been shifted to prioritize all-day service over peak service. And it's not like peak service is that far off from 2 locals and 2 local expresses hourly. There's currently 7 trains that arrive at South Station between 7:10 & 9:11 AM and 7 that leave between 4 &...