Several important issues this year hinge on how Beacon Hill acts. Will they help fix the MBTA? Will they aide the cause of zoning reform?
Hey, making predictions can be a lot of fun. And as we head into the first week of 2020, what better time to look ahead?
Just don’t hold me to any of them.
With that vote of self-confidence in my prognostication powers, here goes:
Trump loses bigtime: OK, the current field of Democratic challengers makes me more than a bit nervous. I really don’t want to replace one form of crazy (Donald Trump), with another (Bernie Sanders), even if Bernie would be probably be far less toxic. Trump is a great reality show host, but he has been a terrible president. Here’s hoping Democratic primary voters choose a relatively moderate, sane alternative. Pete Buttigieg’s “Medicare for all who want it” sounds a heck of lot of better – and far more feasible – than trying to shove Medicare for All down everyone’s throats. If not, I still think Trump loses, although it will be a much closer race.
Massachusetts finally passes a housing bill: I just took a look at my 2019 column from this time last year. Topping my wish list was the hope the Massachusetts legislature would finally turn its attention to a badly needed overhaul of the state’s chronically dysfunctional housing market.
Of course, that didn’t happen. In fact, even Gov. Charlie Baker’s rather modest proposal, which would let communities lower the voting threshold from two-thirds to a simple majority when city councils and town meetings consider zoning changes related to housing, went nowhere.
OK, I see little or no chance of comprehensive zoning reform, but Baker’s bill finally appears to be getting traction on Beacon Hill. It won’t be a dramatic game–changer, but it would be a good, solid step in the right direction.
Luxury market peaks: Developer may have finally succeeded in flooding the market with too much housing – luxury housing that is. Really, how many posh condominium or rental towers can Boston support? And am I the only one who finds most of these units – at least from the photos online – incredibly cookie-cutter boring? One in four new luxury condos in New York built since 2013 is sitting empty, according to the New York Times, and I suspect there are more than a few empty units in Boston as well.
However, unlike some, I don’t view this as a bad thing. Rather, a glut, even at the top end of the market, can’t hurt and will eventually trickle down to the rest of the market. Here’s hoping housing developers finally shift their attention to the middle market – where there is huge, pent-up demand.
Another year of rising prices and rents: The glut on the top end of the housing market hasn’t changed the simple fact that there is far too little in the middle and lower and of the price scale for buyers to look at. And while there has been a surge in new apartment buildings and towers going up across Greater Boston, construction of single-family homes has lagged. With interest rates down, the economy chugging along, and not enough homes and apartments to go around, look for another year of record-breaking – and back-breaking – price and rent increases.
Rail and road woes grow worse: The state’s traffic and MBTA woes will only get worse in 2020. Gov. Charlie Baker has certainly talked a good game about revamping the T, but so far it’s been one step forward and two steps back. And there is even less hope for a break in the traffic congestion gripping Greater Boston – only a recession at this point has the power to thin traffic, and no one wants that.
Two things are needed to overhaul the state’s failing transportation infrastructure: more money and a complete, root and branch overhaul of the inefficient, dysfunctional, hapless and hack-ridden state transportation infrastructure. That’s simply not going to happen under the current government and the current legislative leadership.
Scott Van Voorhis
Ready or not, more gambling: State lawmakers are expected to take up this spring a proposal to legalize sports betting and online gambling. With New Hampshire openly luring sports gamblers across the border after legalizing wagering on games, the pressure is now on Beacon Hill to respond. Meanwhile, the state gaming commission is revisiting whether to once again field bids for a third casino, this time in the Southeastern Massachusetts.
No recession: You can probably file this under the “wishful thinking” category, but for the moment we appear to have dodged the recession bullet. It certainly didn’t look that way in late 2018, when the stock market was imploding, but the economy held up and the stock market rebounded, going on to have its best year since 2013.
So, what are your predictions for 2020? Send them my way and don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. I won’t hold you to them.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
