General Boston Discussion

The details are interesting. Max increase of CPI change + 6%, with an upper limit of 10%. Exempt are owner occupied buildings with six units or less and any new buildings within 15 years of certificate of occupancy being issues. In my 15 minutes of searching, I couldn't find text of the actual proposal, so it's hard to judge. Regardless, I'm very curious to see what impact this has, specifically if it'll impact sales of rental properties and/or give an incentive for affected landlord to hedge by going for max increases or non-renewal of leases.
 
Blackbird said:
A majority of the city of Boston voted to keep rent control back when the state voted to end it.
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That doesn't mean it worked.
https://bankerandtradesman.com/rent-control-has-a-notorious-past-in-massachusetts/

It's the same old story every single time with these policies. They are "meant to help" and certainly do for some lucky people, but......
Unintended Consequences Outweigh Benefits

At some point it's time to just call them intended consequences, since the historical data is there for those who choose to examine it.
 
fatnoah said:
if it'll impact sales of rental properties and/or give an incentive for affected landlord to hedge by going for max increases or non-renewal of leases.
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I'd expect all to do the max allowed just so they don't fall behind.
 
Blackbird said:
So you honestly think the average renter in Boston pays a smaller percentage of their income on rent in 2023 than they did in 1993?

If not, then in what measurable ways has life gotten better for renters in the city since 1995? The B&T article didn’t give many specific data points to that effect.
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Not nearly enough has been built since then to ease the supply. This will ultimately make the supply side worse.
 
Does anyone have the actual text of the measure? I've only been able to find 1000 articles about it, but I'd love to see exactly how it's worded. The devil's often in the details, and I don't particularly trust soundbite media to convey any nuance.
 
Blackbird said:
If not, then in what measurable ways has life gotten better for renters in the city since 1995?
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Here's one stat, although it takes a couple different sites to put them together. The murder rate has fallen by more than 50%. Boston today is considered a substantially safer city than in 1995, as the early 90's were basically the most dangerous time in recent American history from a violent crime perspective.

www.telegram.com

Boston’s murder rate highest in 10 years

The execution-style slayings of four young men in a basement music studio this week cast a spotlight on a crime wave that has pushed murder in Boston to a 10-year high. While the murder rate nation…
www.telegram.com

Crime in Boston, Massachusetts (MA): murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts, arson, law enforcement employees, police officers, crime map

www.city-data.com

Basically, in 1995, the suburbs were still preferred over the cities, which were generally considered too dangerous. Those preferences have flipped on their head in the last decade (aside from the covid blip). So in that sense, demand is significantly higher today, whereas I'm not sure there's a single year in the last quarter century where Boston built enough to meet these additional demand levels. Even the last few years, by far the biggest boom in my lifetime, have come up woefully short of the residential numbers needed to ease prices, and instead added high-paying jobs without the housing to accommodate.

So when you see a 190' lab built next to South Station instead of a 600' residential, or a 350' blob office tower at 1 Bromfield instead of a 709' residential, or a 600'+ residential combined with a 240' residential at Parcel 15 or whatever get cut into a single 500' residential that lost 2/3 of the total units, and then get cancelled... Well, you get the idea. We don't build enough of the right uses in the right places, and too much of the wrong uses (ie let's add another lab instead of addressing housing, because since height isn't allowed labs are more profitable).

When it comes to supply and demand there are 2 ways to address it. Either actually build enough supply so keep the existing stock affordable (ie what affordable housing *should* be instead of forcing huge percentages of it into brand new units) or make the city such a lousy place that people don't want to live there anymore, easing demand and also prices that way. Rent Control is a step in that 2nd direction, backwards, but for a few people it will be like winning the lottery if they get locked into those units. (or maybe not, since in this case landlords are pledging to raise rents by the max allowed every year to offset risks)

Again, this is the crux of what always happens when government meddles too much to "fix" something:
Unintended Consequences Outweigh Benefits

Come back to this conversation in 5 years and we'll see how the numbers bear out. IMO between this, the new measure that incentives millionaires to leave, and the new measure that gives out drivers licenses (thus legitimizing) illegals, the whole state is going to circle the drain for the next few years until these are all repealed. It's called killing the golden goose and it's happening right before our eyes.
 
DZH22 said:
Here's one stat, although it takes a couple different sites to put them together. The murder rate has fallen by more than 50%. Boston today is considered a substantially safer city than in 1995, as the early 90's were basically the most dangerous time in recent American history from a violent crime perspective.
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Correlation, not causation. I believe it’s widely accepted that the decrease in crime in Boston had everything to do with new health and safety initiatives created at that time such as the one described in the link below:


^No mention at all of the 1994 dissolution of rent control. The two things are completely unrelated.
 
Blackbird said:
^No mention at all of the 1994 dissolution of rent control. The two things are completely unrelated.
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What IS related is that there's going to be more demand when people deem an area safe vs dangerous. Boston has gotten to be (for a hot minute at least) essentially the country's safest big city, and all US cities overall are much safer than they were in the 1990's. Hence why demand is up in many other cities as well, compared with 30 years ago when the demand was higher in the suburbs.
 
Interesting post from the globe on development without displacement in uphams corner.

www.instagram.com

Boston Globe Opinion on Instagram: "The Uphams Corner section of Dorchester has cut poverty without displacing residents of color. It’s called development without displacement, and new research shows it’s a more common phenomenon than we might imagin

19K likes, 303 comments - globeopinion on March 21, 2023: "The Uphams Corner section of Dorchester has cut poverty without displacing residents of color. It’s called development without displacement, and new research shows it’s a more common phenomenon than we might imagine, David Scharfenberg...
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com
 
stick n move said:
Interesting post from the globe on development without displacement in uphams corner.

www.instagram.com

Boston Globe Opinion on Instagram: "The Uphams Corner section of Dorchester has cut poverty without displacing residents of color. It’s called development without displacement, and new research shows it’s a more common phenomenon than we might imagin

19K likes, 303 comments - globeopinion on March 21, 2023: "The Uphams Corner section of Dorchester has cut poverty without displacing residents of color. It’s called development without displacement, and new research shows it’s a more common phenomenon than we might imagine, David Scharfenberg...
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com
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It didn’t actually say anything though. And increasing home prices doesn’t necessarily equate to “growth”.
 
Blackbird said:
It didn’t actually say anything though. And increasing home prices doesn’t necessarily equate to “growth”.
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Actually increasing home prices without causing displacement/replacement of the current residents means those residents are doing well and benefitting from the changes at the same time - they aren't being kicked out/replaced . "Development without Displacement" means the longtime residents can afford to stay AND have a cleaner/safer neighborhood with more easily reached economic potential and jobs nearby. That sure does sound like a "Rising Tide Lifts All Boats" scenario to me.
 
I would be really interested in getting a breakdown of number of residents and average weekend tourist foot traffic across all neighborhoods in Boston. There's so much hate for Seaport but it is always so incredibly busy when the weather is nice, and it's not like Back Bay and Beacon Hill are bastions of affordability and equitable housing. Seaport definitely needs more housing and it's great that we have affordable housing requirements in new construction, which would add to the neighborhood feel. But the Performing Arts Center is coming to whatever they're calling the Amazon buildings, and there's tons of new commercial space coming online soon (movie theater, jazz club, restaurants, shopping), not to mention pulling the BCEC closer to the water with 10 World Trade and the steps down from Summer St. I don't know, it just seems kind of...nice.
 
SuffolkHeights11 said:
Interesting report. Within the rankings Boston was top 10 in almost every category except infrastructure (no surprise there) and government & regulatory. If we could just get a basic level of functioning infrastructure this region could take off even further.
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So, basically, the new/progressive/future looking Boston is being held back by the Archie Bunker Boston. The dinosaurs cannot die off fast enough.
 
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