To address affordable-housing issue, fix zoning

Unaffordable (except for the truly rich) housing on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Officials in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and elsewhere are calling for a big push to expand that rather nebulous thing called “affordable housing.’’ Probably the most dramatic set of proposals in New England comes from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who presides over a city in the middle of a metro area whose tech, health-care and financial-services companies have brought great wealth but have also driven up further what have long been among America’s highest living costs.

Mr. Walsh has vowed to commit $500 million over five years to address the city’s affordable-housing crisis. That would necessitate, among other things, the sale of a parking garage and implementing a real-estate transfer tax.

The mayor is also pressing major companies and foundations to consider pooling some money — perhaps as much as $100 million — to help finance affordable housing in Boston. If this actually happens, Boston would apparently become the first East Coast city to do something like what’s happening on the West Coast, where tech companies are funding some big housing programs to address some of the cost challenges they created.

Still, isn’t having rich companies, with highly paid workers, better than having poor ones? As always, each success presents new problems.

Over the long run, the affordable-housing issue will be most effectively addressed through changes in zoning laws, especially in the suburbs, that have long discouraged mixed-used neighborhoods (commercial/residential) and multi-family housing. “Snob zoning,’’ which sets high per-residence minimum acreage, has, in particular, removed a lot of land from possible new-housing construction. But those who live on snob zoning lots have much more political clout than people searching for a place to live that they can afford. And zoning is mostly a local power.

Anyway, certain changes could dramatically increase the supply of less expensive housing, reducing the price pressure. That would include a slowing population growth, making housing more of a buyers’ market.