In her second State of the City address, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu put much focus on housing and putting families first by “planning for a more affordable, equitable and resilient future,” as she laid out how the city is “chipping away at the challenges” residents face.
In 2023, Wu said she promised major changes to the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) because planning is key to facing these challenges. The BPDA, which has seen changes in its development-review process and the launch of the city’s first comprehensive rezoning in decades, will next kick off a Squares & Streets planning initiative before BPDA staff is transitioned to the city, Wu said, “restoring planning as a core function of city government.”
“Planning for a more affordable, equitable and resilient future will help us weather the challenges that cities everywhere are facing — emptier downtowns, unpredictable commutes and housing prices that are squeezing families out,” Wu said.
In October, the BPDA approved and launched the city’s Downtown Residential Conversion Incentive Program, encouraging developers to convert underutilized offices into residences. That program has already received proposals to convert eight downtown buildings into housing, Wu said.
“It is thanks to the people of Boston that tonight I can say: The state of our city is strong,” Wu said. “Not because the challenges that remain are simple or small. But because they’re big, and they matter, and we are rising to meet them. And that starts with housing because home is the place where everything starts.”
“So every day, in Boston, we go to work chipping away at the challenges that stand in our way.”
Wu also highlighted affordable-housing wins from the past year, including permitting the highest ratio of affordable housing in more than a decade and approving 7,400 housing units for future development.
“In June, I joined Giselle Jimenez as she sat down in front of the most important stack of papers in her life,” Wu said. “As a single mom raised by a single mom in the Mary Ellen McCormack development, she told me it had always been her dream to have a house of her own. Her two boys crowded in close as she signed the closing documents to move from public housing to a beautiful home in Hyde Park with a yard for them to run around in.”
This year, Wu says, it’s going to be easier for multigenerational families as the city works to eliminate barriers to building accessory-dwelling units and support local contractors to help get them built.
Public housing is also set to get a boost in 2024. Wu announced locations will be identified to build nearly 3,000 new public housing units over the next decade, with more than $100 million annually in federal funding to maintain them.
“From Chinatown to West Roxbury, public housing makes it possible for so many of our seniors and veterans and residents with disabilities to stay in our city, and for so many of our young people to grow up here — including two of our newest city councilors,” Wu said.
And to keep families from being displaced due to apartment buildings being purchased by private investors, Wu announced the launch of a fund to make these buildings permanently affordable, “doubling down on our success last year keeping 114 families in their homes in East Boston. This year, we’ll deploy the fund to protect 400 more families citywide,” she said.