It appears Gov. Charlie Baker’s Housing Choices legislation has unexpectedly returned from the grave, and not a moment too soon. 

The measure, for those not versed in housing policy, would lower the threshold for town boards and committees to OK most housing-related zoning changes – crucial for many developments to proceed – from the current two-thirds to a simple majority. 

This first step in righting our state’s broken housing market suddenly emerged as part of a must-pass economic development bill last weekend as the legislature entered what, at the time, looked to be the final week for passing substantive regulation. Prior to that, the zoning reform measure had been stripped from the bill by a House committee in mid-July – a maneuver this paper criticized in this space last week and interpreted as a defeat for the idea. 

With the House and Senate both on record approving the bill, it goes to a conference committee for final negotiations as both chambers added amendments that could increase the scope of the change. 

One of the Senate’s additions to the core language of Housing Choices should be preserved into the final text. Sen. Brendan Crighton convinced his colleagues to support statewide housing production goals, including a target of over 85,000 affordable housing units by 2040, a yearly report from state official son progress towards those goals and a committee staffed by planners and advocates to advise the state on how to meet them.  

We strongly urge legislators on Beacon Hill to include Crighton’s proposal in the final bill. As the adage goes in business, what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done, and these measures will establish a set of common facts and recommendations for next steps, even if the goals included in Crighton’s amendment don’t have the same force of law as the state’s greenhouse gas emission caps. 

Crighton’s amendment contains a fourth good idea that should make it into the final draft: A requirement that towns with MBTA stops designate areas within a half-mile of each stop to allow multifamily housing to be built as of right. It is critical to concentrating new housing near the infrastructure that can carry it while our roads are clogged with traffic. 

This measure adds needed muscle to language in the ordinary Housing Choices bill that lowers the two-thirds rule for developments near MBTA stations that have at least 10 percent of their units set aside as affordable housing. It also helps fix a hole in Greater Boston housing policy that has left only 80 of the area’s 147 cities in towns have inclusionary zoning requirements of any kind, according to data compiled by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership in 2018. Over time, more production will slow down home price and rent growth, but only inclusionary zoning will create homes working people can afford right away. 

There is still much left to do to address the state’s horrendous housing shortfall and the societal ills it causes, but the Senate’s bill is a step in the right direction. 

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