We at the Gazette are pleased that the City has finally revised its affordable-housing policy, but are disappointed with the final product.
The new policy will bring in much-needed money to the City’s affordable-housing fund through raising the amount developers in most of the city will have to pay if they decide not to build affordable units on-site or off-site. If developers opt to build affordable units off-site, most will be forced to build more of them under the revised policy.
But, unfortunately, it will probably do little to increase the number of affordable-housing units in Boston. That is because the City has decided to leave unchanged the percentage of units developers must devote to being affordable on-site at their developments.
In effect, the revised policy gives incentives to developers to build the affordable units on-site. While we agree that those units should be built on-site, the fact that developers are not being forced to build more of them ignores all those calls for a more affordable Boston.