Housing Committee Reports Out Housing Choice Bill & Other Housing Production Legislation

On December 19, the Joint Committee on Housing, chaired by Rep. Kevin Honan and Sen. Brendan Crighton, voted 24 housing production bills out of committee, including several of CHAPA's legislative priorities.

The following CHAPA priority bills were advanced out of the Committee:

• H.3507 - An Act to promote housing choices - Sponsored by Governor Baker
  The Housing Choice bill would enable a municipality to pass – by a simple majority vote – certain zoning changes that would help to advance housing production and smart growth zoning. The bill would also allow a simple majority vote to approve certain special permits to build affordable housing around public transit or in mixed-use developments.
   
• H.1288 / S.775 - An Act relative to housing reform - Sponsored by Reps. Kevin Honan & Andy Vargas and Sen. Joseph Boncore
  This legislation combines the Housing Choice legislation with three additional provisions - (1) require multifamily zoning in smart growth locations in municipalities served by the MBTA; (2) set statewide affordable housing production goals; and (3) modest abutter appeals reforms.
   
• H.1251 - An Act relative to smart growth multifamily housing production - Sponsored by Rep. Christine Barber
  

  This bill requires municipalities served by the MBTA to have multifamily zoning in a smart growth location. This language is also included in H.1288/S.775.
   

• H.1318 - An Act setting a housing production goal for the Commonwealth - Sponsored by Rep. Dave Rogers
  

  This bill sets a housing production goal of 427,000 new units by 2040. Includes affordable housing production goal of 20% of those units as well as a production goal for housing for extremely low income households. This language is also included in H.1288/S.775.

For a list and brief description of all the bills reported out by the Housing Committee on January 19, click here.

These bills now have the opportunity to advance in the Legislature. It's expected that most of the bills will be sent to the House or Senate Committees on Ways & Means, who will have the opportunity to amend the legislation, before hopefully having the bills come up for a vote on the House and Senate Floors. 

CHAPA thanks all the bill sponsors of our legislative priorities. Thanks also to Housing Committee Chairs Rep. Honan and Sen. Crighton for their leadership on moving forward these bills. Finally, thanks to all the members of the Housing Committee for reporting out these bills favorably.