Affordable housing guidelines set to change

Yawu Miller

After more than a year of pressure from affordable housing advocates, Mayor Thomas Menino announced Monday that he is changing the city’s affordable housing guidelines.

Menino said the city will now use the city’s median income — as opposed to the federally-designated area median income — to determine affordability for new housing. Under the old affordability guidelines, rental units were available to a family of four earning between 80 percent and 120 percent of the area median income — $66,080 to $99,120.

Under the new guidelines, rental units will be affordable to households earning between $45,000 and $56,400. Ownership units will be available to households earning between $58,900 to $73,600.

City Councilor Felix Arroyo, who held a hearing on the city’s use of the area median income guidelines last year, said there was an overwhelming consensus for changing the guidelines.

“In the hearing, 99 percent of the people were in favor of a change,” he said.

Additionally, Menino has called for raising the monetary value of the fee developers are required to pay into the city’s Inclusionary Development affordable housing fund from $97,000 per affordable housing unit to $200,000. Developers who build more than 10 units are required to provide 15 percent of the units at affordable rates. Those who opt not to are required to pay the city for off-site units.

The Menino administration worked with the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development to conduct an analysis of the city’s current real estate market. Affordable housing advocates have long maintained that the area median income used by the federal government is not reflective of incomes in Boston. While the area median income includes data from wealthier suburbs and cities like Newton, Brookline and Cambridge, incomes in Boston are lower.

Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, said the new guidelines are a welcome change.

“Compared to where we came from, it’s a huge victory,” she said. “It’s really significant progress.”

But Lowe said the rental guidelines may not benefit many of the city’s working class residents.

“We’ve been organizing in six buildings in Chinatown where the residents are struggling to meet 60 percent of the area median income rents,” she commented. “The Boston residents who most need affordable housing are the people at or below the affordable housing levels.”