GBH Daily: Why is it so hard to build housing?

☀️Partly sunny, highs around 40.

Welcome to the very first issue of our daily newsletter, GBH Daily. There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and our job is to help you keep up with local news you can trust and stories that help you better understand the people, communities, and world around you. You can always let us know what you think and what you’d like us to cover by hitting reply or sending an email to daily@wgbh.org . Today is Monday and the sun will set on Boston at 5:28 p.m. Let’s get to work.

✉️ Know someone who might like this newsletter? Invite them to sign up.

Four Things to Know

Some Haitian residents of Boston are among the people who are losing their legal immigration status and work permits under a Trump administration decision. There are about half a million Haitians nationwide who were granted what’s called Temporary Protected Status under the Biden administration because of violence in their home country. Last week they saw their legal status taken away, meaning they could start facing deportation in August.

Massachusetts regulators are going to force natural gas companies to cut total gas bills by 5% next month. Those same regulators last year approved rate hikes of up to 30% for Eversource and up to 13% for National Grid. So why are rates higher now? Utilities can pass along the costs of repairing old and leaking lines, of putting gas hookups into new homes, and more.

Even as demolition on the old White Stadium begins, arguments over how to redevelop the Franklin Park complex have become an early focal point in the Boston mayoral race. Mayor Michelle Wu is seeking re-election in November and backing a plan to build a new stadium, which will be a home to a professional women’s soccer team and a hub for Boston public schools sports. The city will pick up half of the $200 million tab, while private investors pay the rest. Her opponent, Josh Kraft, the son of billionaire Patriots owner Robert Kraft, is calling for the city to put the project on pause.

Marlborough resident Lucas Dos Santos Amaral, who has been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for a month after what his local legislator says was a racial profiling stop on his way to work, is heading home. Dos Santos Amaral is being released from a Texas detention center on bond and will still have to go to immigration court hearings. He has no criminal record.

To fix Massachusetts’ housing crisis, we need to build. Here’s why that’s hard.

Housing is tight. Costs are high. If you’re a renter or you read the news, you know that already.

For the last several years, I’ve covered the toll the state’s housing crisis has taken on people: people becoming homeless because they can’t afford an apartment. People fleeing to other states where homes aren’t so expensive.

The common response among many local and state leaders is we need to build, build, build — and yet it seems like the needle has yet to move in any appreciable way. So my editor and I decided to look at why building more housing isn’t so ideal, and doesn’t have to be the only answer.

You’ve probably noticed what could be another part of the solution: abandoned homes and vacant properties. There are tens of thousands of these languishing across the state. So if we can just fix up some and return them to the housing market, that’d make a huge dent in the housing shortage. Housing experts say it’s much cheaper to renovate an existing housing complex than to develop a completely new one.

But why are there so many problems with building more homes and apartments ?

I called up developers and housing officials. And aside from local restrictions on what and where you can build, they told me it’s really hard to develop apartment complexes right now. By the time the ribbon’s cut on a new building, the developer may owe millions in loans they took out to help fund the project. They have no choice but to charge high rents.

Over the next few days, we’ll dig into the challenges involved in each step of the building process. And by the end of the week, you’ll understand why some experts say the current response to Massachusetts’ housing shortage isn’t so practical.

So we want to hear from you: If you could build more housing anywhere in Massachusetts, where would it be? Are there any places you think there’s too much development? Reply to this email or send a message to daily@wgbh.org to let us know. 

Come back tomorrow to see other responses from GBH Daily readers and to learn about the first step in the building process: finding land to build on.

—Sam Turken, reporter, GBH News

GBH Daily is written by Gal Tziperman Lotan and Sam Turken, and edited by Lisa Wardle and Jackie Bruleigh.