We desperately need more housing in Massachusetts, where the median single-family home price in Greater Boston just set a new record of $960,000 amid scant supply — and to get it, we need state legislators to show some flexibility and pragmatism. The good news is that the House, Senate, and Governor Maura Healey have all laid out ambitious plans to increase the amount of new construction. The bad news is that their approaches all differ slightly, and the time to strike a deal is drawing short.
Technically, this is not a must-pass bill, like the budget. But with soaring prices and a homelessness crisis, it should be unthinkable for lawmakers to go home without sending legislation to Healey. The legislation in question is the housing bond bill, which authorizes borrowing for housing-related matters and also contains some policy reforms.
Healey proposed her version last year, and the House and Senate have both approved their own — $6.5 billion in the House and $5.4 billion in the Senate.
A conference committee is negotiating a final version of the bill, then votes of each body would send it to the governor. The catch is that formal legislative sessions end for the year July 31. While Healey will almost certainly sign the bill, regardless of when it reaches her, she has 10 days to review it and has line-item veto power — so she could send provisions back to the Legislature with amendments.
With a complicated bill like this one, getting it to Healey sooner rather than later .