马萨诸塞州众议院公布 62 亿美元住房债券法案，取消波士顿市长吴弭等人倡导的房地产转让费

【中美创新时报2024 年 6 月 4 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）马萨诸塞州众议院周一公布了一项 62 亿美元的住房债券法案，称这是 Beacon Hill 迄今为止对该州棘手的住房危机最有力的回应，承诺提供数十亿美元的经济适用房、税收抵免，并计划重新制定全州分区规则。然而，这项全面的一揽子计划遗漏了州长莫拉·希利（Maura Healey）和波士顿市长吴弭（Michelle Wu ）共同倡导的一项关键提案：允许城市和城镇对高端房产的销售征收费用。对此，《波士顿环球报》记者Samantha J. Gross、Matt Stout 和 Andrew Brinker作了下述详细报道。

这项所谓的当地房地产转让费的排除对吴弭以及楠塔基特（Nantucket）和其他高成本社区的领导人来说是一个打击，他们多年来一直要求对超过 100 万美元的房地产销售征收高达 2% 的费用，希望用这笔钱建造更多经济适用房。强大的房地产游说团体近几个月来一直极力反对转让税，声称这项费用可能会提高住房成本，而不会提供可靠的收入来源。

相反，众议院议长罗恩·马里亚诺（Ron Mariano）表示，众议院版本的法案将允许该州借入比希利在她自己的 40 亿美元法案版本中寻求的金额多 20 亿美元，使其成为该州历史上“对经济适用房和住房生产的最大投资”。众议院预计将于周三通过该法案。

马里亚诺表示，尽管该法案试图“大手笔”，但他警告称，这并非解决该州住房危机的灵丹妙药。住房官员表示，到 2030 年，该州需要数十万套新住房，而危机比以往任何时候都更加严重，波士顿及其他地区的房价飙升。

“认为通过发行债券就能解决这个问题是荒谬的。我认为这是一个过程的开始，”马里亚诺周一告诉记者，并补充说，很难准确估计众议院的提案能帮助刺激多少套住房。

该提案将拨款 1.5 亿美元帮助市政当局将商业地产转变为多单元住宅或混合用途地产，并在项目完成后提供高达项目开发成本 10% 的税收抵免。

众议院法案将允许在马萨诸塞州所有划定为单户住宅开发区的社区内建造面积不超过 900 平方英尺的附属住宅单元（也称为 ADU 或老年公寓），这是希利推动的一项措施。希利政府官员表示，他们估计仅 ADU 政策一项就可以在五年内创造 8,000 多个 ADU。

众议院还将根据希利的提议增加 5 亿美元的公共住房资本资金。

马里亚诺正寻求利用另外 10 亿美元的借款帮助扩大马萨诸塞州水资源管理局的水服务区，使其不再局限于目前服务的 60 个城市和城镇。缺乏清洁水供应是许多社区开发更多住房的障碍。

今年早些时候，昆西民主党人马里亚诺表示，扩大服务区可以为附近的前南威茅斯海军航空站等地带来水源，那里的重建工作一直受到基础设施问题的挑战。他说，清洁水源可以为那里多达 6,000 套新房铺平道路。众议院领导人表示，他们的提案还将把该系统扩展到波士顿北部，包括贝弗利（Beverly）、丹弗斯（Danvers）、皮博迪（Peabody）和塞勒姆（Salem）等社区。

希利于 10 月提交的债券法案版本将允许市政当局自愿对超过 100 万美元的房产销售征收 0.5% 至 2% 的费用，或者在超过 100 万美元的地方，对高于该县房屋销售中位数价格的房产销售征收 0.5% 至 2% 的费用。吴弭多年来一直支持这一理念。她在 2023 年作证说，如果该市的转让费自治请愿书在 2021 年获得通过，该税将为该市的经济适用房基金筹集 1 亿美元。

“转让费是一项广受欢迎的措施，但未能取得进展令人失望，”吴弭周一在一份声明中表示。“我们需要所有可能的解决方案来改变现状。”

希利周一告诉记者，她还没有读过该法案，并拒绝对众议院不纳入地方转让税选项的决定发表评论。

“我们提供了一系列选项、想法和政策举措，以帮助刺激生产。这就是我们的目的，”她说。

取消转让费条款标志着马里亚诺的言论发生了转变。今年 3 月，在大波士顿商会发表演讲时，马里亚诺没有支持转让税，但表示这是众议院“正在考虑”的选项之一。

“如果你相信住房负担能力问题是真实的，”他当时说，“那么我们必须探索所有可能真正改变现状的选项。”

马里亚诺和其他众议院领导人周一批评转让税提案是一种不公平的“拼凑”，旨在刺激更多的住房建设，这将帮助一些社区，如楠塔基特，但对其他社区则无济于事。

“逐个城市和城镇进行拼凑，这不是真正的住房政策，也不能解决我们所面临的住房危机，”北端民主党众议员、众议院预算委员会主席亚伦·米歇尔维茨说。

一些社区多年来一直在争取转让费。普罗温斯敦早在 2011 年就提交了转让费申请，楠塔基特于 2016 年首次向比肯山提交了一份自治请愿书。2020 年，时任波士顿市长的马丁·J·沃尔什在他的市情咨文演讲中呼吁在场的立法领导人“让我们迈出这一步”。

众议院的这项法案对租户倡导者来说又是一个挫折。希利政府的提案已经排除了一些他们最受追捧的政策，比如租金控制和优先购买权，如果房东想出售房屋，这些政策允许租户在一定时间内筹集资金购买他们的房屋。众议院周一提交的法案删除了希利提出的几项租户保护政策，包括一项将封存部分租户驱逐记录的政策，以及一项将包容性分区的当地投票门槛从三分之二降低到简单多数的条款。

“[资金]很棒，”担任当地住房可负担性联盟联合主席的倡导者马克·马丁内斯说。“但我们不能仅仅通过发行债券来解决这个问题。我们必须为城市和城镇提供帮助的工具。”

该法案并不代表立即向住房金融生态系统注入 62 亿美元。它只会授权这么多的债券支出。资金实际上来自哪里是希利政府必须回答的另一个问题。

最近的几项债券法案中，只有大约三分之二的授权资金真正被使用。

“这可能是一个巨大的推动力，”马萨诸塞州住房丰裕组织执行董事 Jesse Kanson-Benanav 说。“如果郊区说他们无法建造更多住房，因为他们没有支持它的基础设施，那么加强这些基础设施就是州政府履行支持当地发展的承诺。”

房地产行业已经强烈反对转让费提案。例如，今年 4 月，代表开发商和房东的强大大波士顿房地产委员会宣布了一项“多方面的数字和草根激活运动”，敦促州立法者拒绝该提案。

董事会首席执行官格雷格·瓦西尔（Greg Vasil ）对众议院取消转让税的决定表示欢迎。

“对较小规模的目标个人群体以及陷入困境的企业增加税收是一种错误的做法，”瓦西尔在一份声明中表示。

但州参议员、住房委员会主席莉迪亚·爱德华兹（Lydia Edwards ）表示，征收转让费的想法并未完全消失。

在参议院领导人与众议院解决分歧之前，参议院将对自己版本的住房债券法案进行投票。爱德华兹暗示转让费可能会重新出现在参议院法案中。

“现在说谈话结束还为时过早，”这位东波士顿民主党人表示，他签署了波士顿的转让费自治请愿书。“我并不担心。”

题图：马萨诸塞州众议院议长罗恩·马里亚诺（Ron Mariano）于 2023 年 3 月在波士顿大商会政府事务论坛上发表讲话。周一，他批评转让税提案是一种不公平的“拼凑”，旨在刺激更多的住房，这将帮助一些社区，但对其他社区没有帮助。JONATHAN WIGGS/GLOBE STAFF

附原英文报道：

Mass. House unveils $6.2 billion bond bill for housing, leaves out real estate transfer fee championed by Wu, others

By Samantha J. Gross, Matt Stout and Andrew Brinker Globe Staff,Updated June 3, 2024 

The Massachusetts House on Monday unveiled a $6.2 billion housing bond bill pitching it as Beacon Hill’s most forceful response yet to the state’s intractable housing crisis, with promises of billions for affordable housing, tax credits, and plans to remake statewide zoning rules.

The sweeping package, however, leaves out a key proposal championed by both Governor Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu: a provision to allow cities and towns to impose a fee on the sales of high-end properties.

The exclusion of this so-called local real estate transfer fee marks a blow to Wu, and the leaders of Nantucket and other high-cost communities, who had been clamoring for years to institute a fee of up to 2 percent on real estate sales above $1 million, in hopes of using that money to build more affordable housing. The powerful real estate lobby has lobbied hard against the transfer tax in recent months, claiming that the fee could raise housing costs without providing reliable streams of revenue.

Instead, the House’s version of the bill would allow the state to borrow $2 billion more than what Healey sought in her own $4 billion version of the bill, making it the “largest investment in affordable housing and housing production” in state history, House Speaker Ron Mariano said. The House is expected to pass the legislation on Wednesday.

Mariano said while the bill attempts to “go big,” he cautioned that it is no silver bullet to the state’s housing crunch. Housing officials have said the state needs hundreds of thousands of new units through 2030, and the crisis is raging hotter than ever, with home prices soaring in Boston and beyond.

”It’s ridiculous to think that you’re going to solve this with one bond issue. I think it’s a beginning of a process,” Mariano told reporters Monday, adding that it’s “really tough” to estimate exactly how many units the House proposal could help spur.

The proposal would dedicate $150 million to help municipalities convert commercial properties into multi-unit residential or mixed-use properties, and create a tax credit of up to 10 percent of the project’s development costs after it’s complete.

The House bill would allow for accessory dwelling units — also known as ADUs or granny flats — of up to 900 square feet to be built by-right in all neighborhoods zoned for single-family development across Massachusetts, embracing a measure Healey has pushed. Healey administration officials have said that they estimate the ADU policy alone could create more than 8,000 ADUs in five years.

The House would also boost capital funding for public housing from Healey’s proposal by $500 million.

Mariano is seeking to use another $1 billion in borrowing to help expand the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s water service area beyond the existing 60 cities and towns it currently serves. A lack of clean water supply is an obstacle for many communities to develop more housing.

Earlier this year Mariano, a Quincy Democrat, said expanding the service area could bring water to the nearby former South Weymouth Naval Air Station, for example, where redevelopment has been challenged by infrastructure issues. A clean water supply could pave the way for as many as 6,000 new homes there, he said. House leaders said their proposal would also extend the system to north of Boston, too, to communities including Beverly, Danvers, Peabody, and Salem.

Healey’s version of the bond bill, which she filed in October, would allow municipalities to voluntarily impose a fee of 0.5 percent to 2 percent on property sales over $1 million, or those above the county’s median home sales price in places where that exceeds $1 million. It’s a concept Wu has backed for years. She testified in 2023 that if the city’s home rule petition for a transfer fee had passed in 2021, the tax would have collected $100 million for the city’s affordable housing fund.

“It’s disappointing not to see forward momentum on the transfer fee, which is a broadly popular measure,” Wu said in a statement Monday. “We need every possible solution at hand to make a difference.”

Healey told reporters Monday she had yet to read the bill, and declined to comment on the House’s decision to not include the option for a local transfer tax.

”We offered up a menu of options and ideas and policy initiatives to help spark production. That’s what this is about,” she said.

The exclusion of the transfer fee language signals a shift in Mariano’s message. In a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce in March, Mariano stopped short of endorsing the transfer tax, but said it was among the options the House is “considering.”

“If you believe that the issue of housing affordability is genuine,” he said at the time, “then we must explore all options that have the potential to make a real difference.”

Mariano and other House leaders on Monday criticized the transfer tax proposal as an inequitable “patchwork” of attempts to spur more housing that would help some communities, such as Nantucket, but not others.

“Piecemealing it one by one, by city and town, it’s just not effective, real housing policy, and it doesn’t solve the housing crisis that we’re in,” said state Representative Aaron Michlewitz, a North End Democrat and the chair of the House’s budget committee.

Some communities have pushed for years for a transfer fee. Provincetown submitted a request for a transfer fee as far back as 2011, and Nantucket first sent a home-rule petition to Beacon Hill in 2016. In 2020, then-Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh called on the legislative leaders in the audience at his State of the City address to “let us take this step.”

The House bill represents another setback for tenant advocates. The Healey administration’s proposal already excluded some of their most sought-after policies, like rent control and right of first refusal, which allows renters a certain amount of time to get the money together to buy their unit if their landlord wants to sell. And the bill the House filed Monday stripped out the few tenant protection policies Healey had included, including a policy that would have sealed some renters’ eviction records, and a provision that would have lowered the local voting threshold for inclusionary zoning from two-thirds to a simple majority.

“[The funding] is great,” said Mark Martinez, an advocate who serves as the co-chair of the Local Option for Housing Affordability Coalition. “But we’re not going to be able to just bond our way out of this problem. We have to give cities and towns the tools to help.”

The bill does not represent an immediate $6.2 billion infusion into the housing finance ecosystem. It would simply authorize that much in bond spending. Where the money actually comes from is another question the Healey administration will have to answer.

The last several bond bills only saw about two-thirds of the funding that was authorized actually be spent.

“It could be a big boost,” Jesse Kanson-Benanav, executive director of Abundant Housing Massachusetts. “If the suburbs say they can’t build more housing because they don’t have the infrastructure to support it, then strengthening that infrastructure is the state holding up its end of the bargain to support local development.”

The real estate industry has mobilized hard against the transfer fee proposal. In April, for instance, the powerful Greater Boston Real Estate Board, which represents developers and landlords, announced a “multifaceted digital and grassroots activation campaign” to urge state lawmakers to reject a proposal.

Greg Vasil, the board’s chief executive, cheered the House decision to exclude the transfer tax.

“Increasing taxes on a smaller, targeted segment of individuals, as well as struggling businesses, is a misguided approach,” Vasil said in a statement.

But the idea to impose a transfer fee isn’t completely dead, said state Senator Lydia Edwards, the chamber’s chair of the housing committee.

The Senate will vote on its own version of a housing bond bill, before Senate leaders hash out their differences with the House. Edwards hinted at the possibility of the transfer fee re-emerging in the Senate bill.

“It’s too early to say that the conversation is over,” said the East Boston Democrat, who signed onto Boston’s home rule petition for a transfer fee. “I am not worried.”