The tale of a local option fee on high-dollar property sales is likely far from over as debate over housing policy starts to reach a boiling point on Beacon Hill.
Less than two months remain before the Legislature is scheduled to end formal lawmaking for the year, and a multi-billion borrowing bill focused on addressing the cost and availability of housing in Massachusetts just cleared the House.
But the proposal did not include a key provision Gov. Maura Healey has argued is one surefire way to raise funds for more affordable units across the state — a tax on big-ticket real estate transactions.
This local option tax has found itself traveling a winding road through the halls of the State House.
It has drawn support from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who pitched the “modest transfer fee” as one way to empower communities to take action on housing. The policy proposal was also the subject of a hefty opposition campaign from the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, which described the idea as an “unstable source of revenue.”
Then there is the case of House Speaker Ron Mariano, who initially told business leaders in March that “we must explore all options that have the potential to make a real difference” even if the idea of a transfer “is a cause for concern for some of you.”
He was clear that he did not know if he had the votes to push the idea through the House and his support was contingent on how a fee was rolled out.
“You want it to be workable. You don’t want it to be an inhibitor to construction,” he said after the speech in March. “When I read the governor’s, I thought, my initial reaction was that this might be high.”
But then, as the months rolled by, Mariano started to voice reservations about the idea and ultimately, when House Democratic leadership released its version of the housing bond bill, the transfer fee was nowhere to be seen.
Talking to reporters on Monday, Mariano said the fee was “not as universally appealing as I thought it might be” once he started discussing the proposal with other lawmakers.
“It’s a patchwork attempt to provide resources for housing that isn’t even supported by a study done by the administration that put it in the original bond bill,” he said. “It’s so inequitable. You raise a ton of money in Nantucket and you raise next to nothing in Lawrence, and it’s hard to have effective housing policy that’s going to spur development when there’s that much of a difference.”
Even with Mariano’s opposition to the proposal, don’t count it out just yet.
Senate President Karen Spilka and her top lieutenants could decide to revive it and it is still unclear where exactly the Ashland Democrat stands on the policy.
“Housing is one of the most important issues facing the Commonwealth, and the Senate president is committed to taking action to make living in Massachusetts more affordable for every resident. The Senate is reviewing the bill passed by the House, and looks forward to proposing its own version,” a spokesperson for Spilka said in a statement this week.
Healey could also ramp up her advocacy behind closed doors as senators draft their version of the bond bill, or she could pressure lawmakers if the bill reaches private inter-branch negotiations later on.
Healey originally proposed a local option real estate transaction fee of between 0.5% to 2% on the portion of a property sale over $1 million, or the country median home sale price, with the revenue generated from the fee directed to affordable housing development.
The fee was projected by the Healey administration to affect fewer than 14% of all residential sales.
Wu has been a fan of the 2% fee, telling lawmakers at a hearing last year that a “powerful tool that remains out of reach without legislative and gubernatorial approval is a transfer fee.”
“Revenue raised through this fee will help us build supportive housing and ensure that our seniors can stay in their homes,” Wu said at the hearing. “It will help build new homes for families who have been forced out by skyrocketing prices and make it possible for more first-time homebuyers to put down roots and raise their families here in Boston.”
As the Senate prepares to redraft the housing bond bill, there are sure to be more heavy lobbying efforts to both kill and preserve the transfer tax.
In a statement this week, Greater Boston Real Estate Board CEO Greg Vasil applauded the dismissal of the “harmful and ineffective” policy proposal from the House’s version of the bill.
“Massachusetts should focus on producing the hundreds of thousands of homes needed to meet demand, while keeping the state attractive to current and prospective businesses,” he said in a statement.
Materials from the State House News Service were used in this report.
— Chris Van Buskirk
Jailbirds of the Governor’s Council
Given the sordid history of the Governor’s Council, is it such a surprise that a jailbird ex-con would be seeking election to it?
Sean Michael Murphy, 48, is a Bridgewater lawyer who did a federal stretch for a drug offenses (oxycodone) as a young man. Now he’s running for the Democrat nomination to replace Robert Jubinville, who resigned to become a district court clerk.
If elected, Murphy would follow in a long line of legally embattled politicians on the Council, which Gov. James Michael Curley famously described as a “hock shop.”
One current member, Marilyn Petitto Devaney, had a problem involving a curling iron and a retail clerk in Waltham in 2007. She’s now somewhere in her mid-80’s and is seeking reelection.
JoJo Langone, a councilor from the North End until the early 1980’s, once did six months for assaulting a federal officer. After getting out of prison, he was elected to the Council.
In the 1960’s, several governor’s councilors went to prison in a pardon- and commutation-selling scandal. The corrupt pols reportedly even had rate cards for the varying costs of mercy – more for murders, less for simple assaults. The payoffs were delivered to assorted bagmen in the lobby of the old Manger Hotel on Beacon Hill.
The most notorious of the corrupt old governor’s councilors was Dan Coakley, a former sportswriter for this newspaper. A century ago, Coakley was disbarred in a “badger-game” scandal involving two local district attorneys. But that didn’t stop Coakley from winning election to the Council from Brighton.
Coakley’s sordid career finally ended when he was caught arranging a pardon for up-and-coming mobster Raymond L.S. Patriarca on an assault conviction. Coakley produced letters supporting Patriarca from several priests, including a “Father Fagin,” who turned out not to exist.
Coakley was impeached in the House and convicted in the state Senate.
So what’s the problem here with Sean Michael Murphy? His campaign slogan should be, “The Tradition Continues.”
— Howie Carr
