The astronomical cost of housing for Massachusetts households across the income spectrum and a bleak outlook for the new units needed over the next decade underscore the focus of the Healey administration’s new housing plan for the next five years — more production.
“At the root of our challenge for the cost, is a shortage of homes. And it’s a shortage, as I say, that’s built up over many years as our state was not building the housing that we needed to keep pace with our economic growth,” Gov. Maura Healey said at a press conference on Thursday.
The administration has long pointed to a goal of increasing the statewide supply of year-round housing by 222,000 units over the next decade — a 7% increase in supply.
The plan released Thursday calls this goal the “minimum number of additional homes needed to ensure that an absolute shortage of housing is not the main cause of high costs.” It lays out pages of strategies that, if implemented and executed, could enable the state to “achieve a state of housing abundance.”
It adds that every region of the state will need to add homes to meet this target, though some will need to add more than others. It targets the metro Boston area, northern Middlesex, central Massachusetts, Nantucket and the South Shore as areas that require a 7.5 to 10% increase in their housing to keep up with demand.
Berkshire County, Franklin County and Cape Cod were identified as having significantly less need — requiring less than 2.5% growth. An Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities official said at a briefing on Thursday that this is not because they don’t require housing solutions, but because they have different needs.
On the Cape, for example, the issue is less that there aren’t enough housing units, but that existing units are converted into luxury seasonal housing for non-year-round residents. Housing policies in those areas should be focused on targeting their specific needs, they…