Developers and city leaders across Greater Boston are clashing over whether affordable housing requirements are helping address the region's housing shortage or making new projects too costly to build.
The dispute centers on whether below-market set-asides are making already-expensive projects too hard to finance. Leaders in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville say those same rules remain one of their strongest tools for adding affordable housing.
Here's what to know
The clash, detailed in a report from the Boston Globe, is over inclusionary zoning — the policy that requires part of a new housing development to be priced below market.
Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville have so far kept their rules in place, even as some councilors in those cities have publicly pushed for more flexibility. Waltham and Chelsea, by contrast, have lowered their affordable housing targets in hopes of jump-starting construction.
In 2023, in Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu raised the city's requirement to 17% of units for low- and middle-income residents, plus another 3% for low-income households using federal Section 8 housing subsidies. Cambridge and Somerville each require 20%, among the highest rates in the country.
While the city was rolling out tax breaks for stalled developments, Boston planning chief Kairos Shen argued against easing the requirements, per the Boston Globe, saying, "We don't think compromising inclusionary development and compromising energy performance, climate resiliency is smart."
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More background
2023 and 2024 were Boston's weakest period for new housing construction since 2011, with 2025 only slightly better. Developers argue that rising interest rates and construction costs have scrambled project budgets, with required affordable units sometimes becoming the factor that makes a project financially unworkable.
In Boston, the average two-bedroom inclusionary unit rents for about $1,740, compared with $2,550 for a market-rate unit, according to Apartment List.
What's being done?
Builders are still pressing cities to reduce these requirements, and some are now taking that fight to court. In September, builder Old North Development sued Cambridge over a planned 71-unit project, saying the rule would require 14 of those units to be rented below market.
"What drives me crazy is that the city talks constantly about how badly it wants to build enough to ease housing costs. Yet in this instance, they have all of these developers showing them the numbers, telling them this policy is killing housing development, and they won't budge," said Cambridge attorney and developer Patrick Barrett, per the Boston Globe.
Instead of cutting Boston's affordability requirement, Wu's administration is trying to use tax abatements to get stalled projects moving while leaving the inclusionary policy unchanged.
Cambridge is set to release a long-awaited study on the feasibility of its inclusionary housing rule.
"We fought for this long and hard. Look at the need for affordable housing in Boston. This policy is the only reason some people can stay in Boston at all," said Kathy Brown, executive director of the Boston Tenants Coalition, per the Boston Globe.
Where can I learn more?
The debate in Boston is part of a wider fight over how housing rules shape what gets built in Massachusetts.
• Massachusetts lawmakers passed a new ADU law that could add thousands of smaller homes.
• In Lexington, a controversial construction law led to more housing.
• In Northampton, strict new building rules advanced electrification while raising equity questions.
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