Housing

As an investment in affordable housing production, the state’s low income housing tax credit (“LIHTC”) is now larger than our recently expanded bond funded capital program.

The subsidized housing inventory is an important legal construct but it has limitations that make it hard to use for policy analysis.

This post offers no analysis, but merely assembles for reference a history of the state’s housing capital plan, related bond authorizations and actual spending.

The state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities has set a statewide housing production target of 200,000 housing units in the current decade (2020 through 2030). This goal appears to be reasonable from a demand perspective.

The Affordable Homes Act includes several provisions that reduce zoning barriers to housing development. These provisions can only help to produce housing, but it is impossible to confidently predict in advance how much they will help.

In Massachusetts, capital spending is controlled by the governor to a much greater degree than operating spending.