AS GATEWAY CITIES, Salem and Lynn have long been home to diverse groups of people working hard to build a better life for themselves and their families. For generations, our communities have been places where everyone from healthcare workers and tradespeople to fire fighters and teachers could thrive. But now we’re facing a housing crisis that threatens the very heart and character of our communities. We need all of the funding and policy tools in the Affordable Homes Act to address this crisis.
As housing costs continue to skyrocket, the residents in our vibrant communities are struggling with affordability. We desperately need more housing, and especially housing that meets different needs and income levels, which is why we have been doing our part locally to update zoning and streamline development review to encourage investment.
However, as we work with builders to create these homes, we hear time and time again that deeply affordable options simply don’t pencil out without meaningful supports. We are eager to advance these efforts at the local level, but cities and towns lack sufficient financial tools on our own.
In project after project, we are at the whim of the state’s financial coffers to help subsidize good projects that would meaningfully meet the housing needs of our residents. What’s more, we must compete against other communities, like ours, for limited housing subsidies.
With limited state resources and broad demand, many worthy affordable housing projects wait in the pipeline, unable to move forward because of a lack of resources. As leaders, it is heartbreaking to know there are projects ready to start and that will serve the housing needs of our most vulnerable neighbors, but the builder simply cannot make the economics work to get the project underway.
Market rate units are somewhat easier to finance and therefore easier to get built across our communities. But, while the production of market rate units is part of the solution and something we have encouraged, those units nevertheless remain out of reach for many of our current and future residents who can’t afford them.
We need new local tools to enable the creation of housing across all income-levels.
Without further help, Lynn and Salem will continue to become less and less affordable, and the people who make our communities what they are today will be pushed out.
The Affordable Homes Act provides critical resources to stem this tide through expanded bonding authority for housing across all affordability levels, allowing municipalities to zone accessory dwelling units by right, and by enabling communities to raise revenues locally through local option transfer fees on high-end transactions – for our communities, sales over $1 million.
Cities like Lynn and Salem want to be active partners in the housing solutions our residents need, and that means statewide investments must be paired with the ability to generate local resources to help make that housing a reality. If communities like ours are not able to raise funds through tools like the transfer fee, we will continue to lack the ability to support the creation of affordable homes.
Our current residents are being pushed from our cities, and we are having a harder and harder time being a welcoming place to new residents who want to call Lynn and Salem home.
We urge the Legislature to act quickly to pass the Affordable Homes Act, in its entirety, this session, and to give local leaders the tools we need to support our current and future residents.
Jared Nicholson is the mayor of Lynn and Dominick Pangallo is the mayor of Salem.
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