Massachusetts governor launches advocacy group to push for more housing

Massachusetts’ Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll have taken the unusual step of setting up a nonprofit to advocate for pro-housing efforts at the local level.

One Commonwealth Inc., will work to provide political and financial support for local housing initiatives, a key pillar of the governor’s agenda. The organization will raise money to help residents with grassroots training and pro-housing messaging. “While governors often support their favored candidates with donations from their campaign coffers or from separate political action committees, what Healey and Driscoll are doing is something different: creating an advocacy group to back an important policy,” reports the Boston Globe.

The nonprofit will likely join the fight to support a 2021 law that requires more than 170 municipalities served by public transit to modify zoning to allow multifamily housing. Dozens of cities and towns have passed zoning reform plans, but opposition is strong in some towns.

At least five communities to date have rejected plans to comply with the law. The town of Milton, whose voters rejected a rezoning plan, is facing the withholding of some grant funding and is being sued by the state’s attorney general for noncompliance.

The median price of a single-family home in Greater Boston has reached $900,000 this year, making the drive to build new housing more urgent.