Senate OK’s $5.4B housing bond bill

The Senate late yesterday passed a $5.4 billion housing bond bill intended to jumpstart housing production and make housing more affordable across Massachusetts.

The Senate bill’s significant investments include $375 million for the HousingWorks Infrastructure Program and $275 million for innovative, sustainable and green housing initiatives.

Like the version passed by the House on June 5, the Senate bill (S. 2834) includes $2 billion for the rehabilitation, repair and modernization of more than 40,000 public housing units across the state, an increase of $500 million over what Gov. Maura Healey proposed in the Affordable Homes Act she filed last October.

Unlike the $6.5 billion House bill, the Senate did not include $1 billion to expand the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s water and sewer services to areas north and south of Boston.

The Senate bill, like the House’s, would allow accessory dwelling units as-of-right in single-family zones, a provision that would preempt almost all local authority and existing regulations on ADUs.

The Senate bill has a “seasonal communities” designation and includes $50 million for housing solutions in those communities.

The Senate bill would allow inclusionary zoning bylaws or ordinances to be passed by a simple majority, rather than a two-thirds vote, if the local rule requires no more than 13% of units to be affordable. Bylaws or ordinances that exceed the 13% threshold would require a two-thirds vote for adoption locally.

Despite several amendments on the issue, the Senate bill does not include a local-option transfer fee on high-value real estate transactions, which would be used to fund affordable housing efforts in the municipality. Gov. Healey had proposed the transfer fee, with support from a number of communities, including Boston, but it was not adopted by either the House or the Senate.

Several amendments supported by the MMA were adopted, including a provision that would double Chapter 40R Smart Growth payments to communities that have Smart Growth zoning districts.

The House and Senate housing bond bills will now go to a conference committee to work out the differences between them.