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☁️Cloudy but warmer, with highs in the 50s.
It’s Tuesday, the sun sets at 5:30 p.m., and Boston is saying goodbye to below-freezing temperatures until Friday night. Today, after a weekend in which Trump administration border czar Tom Homan specifically called out Boston , we’re looking at how some local elected officials are interacting with the Trump administration through the lens of immigration policy.
Four things to know today:
Chelsea and Somerville filed a lawsuit over worries that the Trump administration will take away their federal funding and otherwise punish them if the cities’ police departments don’t take part in federal mass deportation efforts. “The president cannot unilaterally impose additional conditions that Congress has not approved. So the courts were very strong in favor of sanctuary cities during Trump 1.0, and we fully expect that that will be the case this time around as well,” said Oren Sellstrom, litigation director for Lawyers for Civil Rights, which is representing the cities.
Now boarding: Big airlines are pushing back against Biden-era regulations meant to address frequent mishandling of mobility devices. That’s disheartening news for people who use wheelchairs — like Desi Forte and Marley Robinson — who were removed from a flight to Boston recently. Why? They were told their power wheelchairs were too heavy.
Worries around environmental dollars: As of this moment, environmental programs in Massachusetts have access to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal dollars to expand solar power, buy electric school buses, and more. But in the last month that money has been frozen, unfrozen, and frozen again. “Many of these grants have been frozen and unfrozen and frozen again multiple times in just the last few weeks,” said Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network. “Sometimes there’s like less than 24 hours where they have access to their funding.”
Women’s sports are on the rise, and with that comes a rise in sports injuries . GBH talked to personal trainer Lauren Pak, who got injured playing flag football, and her physical therapist Lenny Macrina about how to prevent, treat, and understand those injuries.
Why is it so hard to build housing? Limited land
This week we’re exploring why it’s so hard to build housing in Massachusetts. Today we start with the basics: land.
There are several hurdles to deciding where to build a new apartment complex. Developers usually want it to be somewhere folks want to live.
“We really like to build around transit, convenient to retail services, access to major highways and thoroughfares to get to employment centers,” said Rich Mazzocchi, principal at Tremont Development Partners.
Still, Massachusetts is one of the most densely populated states in the country, so good luck finding vacant land around Boston or Worcester that’s construction-ready.
One alternative is to buy a property and demolish what’s on it — obviously, not cheap. Another common option: convert old, underused commercial buildings into housing. But that can also be expensive, especially if the property’s a contaminated former shoe factory.
All this to say, developers have limited choices. They might be left wishing they could build in the harbor.
We want to hear from you: If you were in charge, what would you change to make building housing in Massachusetts better? Reply to this email or send a message to daily@wgbh.org . We’ll be featuring your responses in this newsletter for the rest of the week.
—Sam Turken, reporter, GBH News
Your thoughts: Where should new housing be built?
GBH Daily reader James had a suggestion: Why not build on top of stations at the ends of MBTA lines? “I don’t mean nearby, I mean directly on top of,” James wrote. “This is a model that’s very common all over the world. These developments could also help with the T’s revenue challenges, allowing the agency to collect payments from developers and lessees.”
(Massachusetts does have a history of building on top of means of transportation — like the supermarket and two hotels that sit over the Mass. Pike.)
Readers Helene and Bob both want to see more development in Fall River. “The city is in sad shape and has been since the loss of manufacturing in this part of the country,” Helene wrote, saying that she hopes the South Coast Rail project will prompt more housing. Bob, meanwhile, said there’s plenty of old mills that could be converted into apartments , like the one he lives in.
GBH Daily is written by Gal Tziperman Lotan and Sam Turken, and edited by Jackie Bruleigh.
