BOSTON -- Gov. Charlie Baker has been pushing since 2017 for lawmakers to agree to a zoning reform measure intended to spur housing production and lower costs that squeeze renters and home-buyers alike.
Kicking off his second term in January 2019, Baker said in his inaugural address that his legislation, dubbed the "housing choices" bill, failed last session "because it was too much for some and not enough for others."
On Monday night, Baker's proposal -- lowering the approval threshold for certain zoning changes at the local level from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority -- picked up some momentum, as state representatives left it intact in a wide-ranging economic development bill. Deliberations on that bill continued Tuesday.
House leaders have acknowledged different comfort levels and stances on Baker's bill exist among their colleagues, and Monday night's discussion of housing and zoning amendments marked the first time some of those opinions were publicly aired on the House floor.
Rep. Mike Connolly has been outspoken in his position that the zoning change should be accompanied by tenant protections and affordability measures. He offered a trio of amendments that garnered support from less than one-fifth of the House, despite a Monday morning rally that highlighted two of them.
The Cambridge Democrat's proposal to create a local option to apply a fee to certain real estate transactions failed 29-130, a local option for tenant protections failed 22-136, and an inclusionary zoning amendment was defeated on a 19-139 vote.
The inclusionary zoning amendment, Connolly said, would have also dropped the threshold for inclusionary zoning ordinances -- where a certain percentage of units are set aside as affordable -- from two-thirds to a simple majority.
Connolly said the amendmnent sought to address "a serious inequity" in Baker's initiative.
"We've seen what happens when we have housing production without sufficient affordability," Connolly said, pointing to a "historic" boom in development in greater Boston.
"There's been reports that say that family homelessness has been on the rise since 2007 and that family homelessness has even doubled in the greater Boston area, and when you think about that and this big housing boom that you've seen in the Boston area, it reminds us that we can't only do housing production," Connolly said. "We also have to tie that in with tenant protections and new affordability measures."
Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, the House chair of the Economic Development and Emerging Technologies Committee, countered that inclusionary zoning relies on the private market, and some municipalities that have such policies in place have not yielded results.
In introducing the bill, Ferrante, a Gloucester Democrat, said it contains the "highest numbers ever in a bond bill" for housing and that it includes $50 million for transit-oriented housing and $40 million for neighborhood stabilization efforts. According to the Citizens Housing and Planning Association, the bill also temporarily expands the Massachusetts Low-Income Housing Tax Credit from $20 million to $40 million.
Ferrante said Massachusetts faces a "statewide crisis driven by a lack of supply of housing." She said the state is producing less than half as many new housing units each year as it used to, and that rents and home values have "skyrocketed" as a result.
"If we can't house our people, we are failing them, and if we cannot house our workers, then we will continue to lose them to other states that we compete with in the economic setting," Ferrante said. "We must pass housing choice today because it makes no sense to spend the amounts of money that I discussed previously in bonding in order to meet this crisis without real zoning reform."
Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli -- a Lenox Democrat who said he represents 20 towns in Western Massachusetts, the largest of which has a population of about 7,000 people -- said he supports lowering the zoning-change threshold to a simple majority in Boston and other large cities governed by city councils. But, he said, he has "some serious reservations about allowing that in our small towns."
Pignatelli sought to amend the bill so that towns with fewer than 10,000 people would have the option to decide if they wanted to waive the two-thirds requirement in favor of a simple majority. He recounted an instance in Lenox where, one year when a quorum wasn't present to hold town meeting, someone pulled the fire alarm at town hall, then started the meeting once all the volunteer firefighters arrived and sufficiently boosted the number of people in the room.
"I'm afraid there's going to be consequences in the future, that a small town that scrambles to get a quorum at a town meeting, a town meeting quorum that could mean 50, 70, 80 people -- that's not a lot for a sharp developer, a smooth-talking developer to get a special-interest group to show up and take over that town meeting," he said.
Pignatelli withdrew his amendment without asking his colleagues to weigh in on it, a move lawmakers typically take when they do not have sufficient votes on their side.
Rep. Denise Provost withdrew an amendment that would have struck the housing choices language from the bill, saying before she did that the zoning provision "might get us a few more luxury condos" but won't "help us get more housing affordability for the tens of thousands for whom luxury condominiums are not a realistic possibility."
Provost, a Somerville Democrat, said the governor's housing measure did not take into account the need for affordable housing or the capacity of a community's infrastructure to support new construction. As she pulled her proposal, she referenced the voting boards that light up green and red during roll call votes, like the ones earlier in the evening where changes to the bill's housing language were rejected.
"One of the things I like about this chamber is that we can literally see the writing on the wall with our voting boards, and having seen that writing on the wall, I know enough to withdraw this amendment now," Provost said.
The same fate met a Rep. Dylan Fernandes amendment that would have allowed cities and towns to choose to impose a transfer fee on property purchases over $1 million -- described in the amendment title as a local option fee on "multi-millionaires buying luxury homes" to finance "local family and workforce housing."
Fernandes, a Falmouth Democrat, said zoning reform is important but that the principles of supply and demand do not hold up in the face of "limitless demand from ultra-wealthy people from all over the world who want to buy a home on the Cape and Islands or Brookline or in Somerville or the South End."
The House agreed to a proposal from Rep. Dan Cullinane, which would allow cities and towns to grant tenants the right of first refusal if the landlord is selling the property where they live. Cullinane said giving tenants a chance to buy can help prevent displacement.