Boston mayor, councilor seek more control over zoning fees

BOSTON — In the battle between a booming real estate market and a statewide housing crisis, Mayor Marty Walsh wants the legislature to let Boston create the rules for Boston.

"What we’re asking them to do is give Boston the ability to increase the taxes," Walsh said. "That’s what we’re asking for. So these aren’t tax votes here at the statehouse. These are votes that allow for the City of Boston to be able to govern ourselves."

Walsh and City Council Housing Chair Lydia Edwards testified before the joint committee on housing Tuesday to overwhelming support.

“In my neck of the woods in the Cape and the islands, our inability to provide housing for our residents is eroding our communities a heck of a lot faster than the ocean is,” Mass. Senator and Vice Chair of the Joint Committee on Housing Julian Cyr (D-Barnstable) said.

City leaders in Boston are asking for more control of a program paid into by large developers seeking zoning relief and to make the city’s exclusionary development policy, or IDP, a permanent part of the zoning code.

"I think, at the end of the day, we all know it's time for an update and it’s also time for Boston to be able to have more control over how it's going to update," said Edwards.

Boston could make adjustments to the required payment for developers and program guidelines without having to ask the legislature to increase affordable housing.

That's good news for working single mom of five Shameeka Moreno.

"It’s either I buy groceries, I pay the gas bill, I pay the light bill or I pay rent," Roxbury resident Shameeka Moreno said. "And it’s taking money from Paul to pay Peter. And this is an ongoing thing...kids aren’t able to be kids and they’re parenting their siblings because mom is working from 9 to 7 or even 8’oclock at night, or working overnights so she can go to school during the day to make money to pay the rent."

Since 2014, the city has invested $43 million in affordable housing from linkage payments and created job training programs like the one Haitain immigrant Gregory Aupont used to land a job as a houseman at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel.

"If I can’t understand, they help me. They push me. All the people in my job at the Park Plaza help me to be better," Aupont said.

There are other Boston home rule petitions at the statehouse, including a bill that would add a 2 percent transfer tax on developers in Boston.

Mayor Walsh says he’s hopeful the legislature will approve both measures.

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