Boston Mayor Wu's pitch to ease affordability requirements won't generate much housing, industry expert contends

Gayla Cawley, Boston Herald on Nov 11, 2026

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BOSTON — A real estate industry professional said Mayor Michelle Wu’s proposal to scale back certain affordability requirements for developers is too modest to make a meaningful impact on jump-starting housing production in Boston.

Chris Lehman, director of the Small Property Owners Association, said the mayor should instead be focused on lowering the percentage of units developers are required to set aside as affordable in new construction, which increased from 13% to 20% in October 2024 after updates to the city’s inclusionary zoning policy.

“I think this is directionally a move in the right direction,” Lehman told the Herald Tuesday. “Inclusionary zoning policies are a pretty meaningful impediment to construction, so rolling them back slightly is a good thing on net. But I do think this is a pretty small change in the correct direction.

“Changing the threshold at which inclusionary zoning applies in Boston from seven units to 10 units is not going to move the needle a huge amount,” he added.

Wu’s proposal seeks to roll back several updates her administration made to inclusionary zoning two years ago with an eye toward making it less costly for developers to build in Boston, but kept the 20% threshold in place.

The changes reduce upfront costs by giving developers more time to make payments to the city in lieu of creating affordable housing on-site and temporarily exempt certain small developments from including affordable units.

Both seek to revert back to policies that were in place under former Mayor Marty Walsh’s administration.

Wu is proposing to roll back her 2024 updates by allowing developers to pay their 50% IZ buyout in seven annual installments, rather than two lump sum amounts, and increase the size of the development that triggers the policy for two years.

The city estimates that temporarily adjusting the IZ development size from seven to 10 units will lead to the production of 100 additional units per year.

Lehman said the changes, while promising, are not enough to make a difference in Boston, where roughly 30,000 housing units have been approved in recent years, but have not been built due to financial constraints.

“Frankly, I think it would be much more useful to reduce the inclusionary zoning percentage itself from the current 20% down to 13%, which was what the previous administration had, or plausibly lower, which would move the needle on a lot more of the large construction projects that have been stalled recently,” Lehman said.

“The change that’s being proposed doesn’t actually do anything to change the economics of the major residential development projects that are going to move the needle the most,” he added.

Wu’s proposal came about a month after her chief of planning, Kairos Shen, said the city wouldn’t lower its costly affordability requirements that critics say have stalled housing production when battling with developers at a forum on Oct. 16.

“It’s hard to develop here. It should be,” Shen said at the forum. “We’re developing good stuff, you know? You guys want us to lower our standards. Part of my job is to hold those standards and try to still make them work.”

His remarks left developers fuming.

Wu’s proposal to roll back certain aspects of the inclusionary zoning policy came soon after, on Monday. It was framed by the mayor as a compromise amid pressure from developers to soften the city’s affordability requirements.

“This balanced approach is part of our administration’s broader strategy to build more homes, remove barriers to development, and ensure Boston remains a city where residents can afford to stay and thrive,” Wu said.

But she held firm on not reducing the 20% affordability requirement. By comparison, nearby Cambridge is considering lowering its requirement from 20% to 10% to jump-start housing production.

Lehman said Wu’s decision not to follow suit appears to be political.

“I have to assume the administration’s under a lot of pressure from various parties to keep the actual inclusionary zoning percentage as high as possible, and so it’s possible that they felt that they didn’t have political space to actually lower that threshold,” Lehman said.

“It does seem that if they were listening to the people who are actually the most involved in these development projects, they would have made the other change.”

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