To the Editor:

Your article “Is Affordable Housing Unaffordable?” (Feb 26) overemphasizes the role of the Inclusionary Development Policy/Inclusionary Zoning (IDP/IZ) in creating affordable (income-restricted) housing.

IDP/IZ is a minor part of the income-restricted housing picture in Boston. Around 2017, Boston had 284,000 housing units, of which 54,000 were income-restricted, the highest percentage in the United States. Of that 54,000, only about 4,000 were developed by IDP, 12,000 were BHA public housing, and by far the largest segment were 38,000 units developed with subsidies and developed primarily by Community Development Corporations, but also by other non-profits and private developers; the latter in more recent years have increasingly gone this route.

These units were augmented by some of the Section 8 rental subsidies, but many Section 8s double up with other income-restricted rental units, so only a few thousand increase the income-restricted pool in the private market. These figures are mostly about a decade out of date, but they surely correspond closely to the proportions today. 

Why do we need income-restricted housing? Because it costs about $700,000 to build a moderate sized two-bedroom apartment, more if we require a parking space. At a market rent of at least $3,500 a month, this would require a household income of $150,000. The major cost is the building material and the labor at about 60 percent, followed by land costs at 15 percent. The cost is the same for the non-profit builders and the for-profit builders. 

What we see being built all over Dorchester is expensive housing, not primarily luxury housing, because that is what it costs to build. Income-restricted housing is needed in Boston right up through most of the middle class.

The main subsidy that creates new affordable housing in either the non-profit or for-profit sector is the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), followed by various city and state programs such as Boston’s Linkage fee for commercial buildings or the Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds. IDP helps a little, but what it creates is not where the real action is. It is also at the high end of affordability, and it is not publicly financed, but paid for by the developers, who subsidize the IDP units by higher rents or sale prices for the other units.

The short-term answer is a lot more public funding for subsidies. The long-term is to expand housing (income-restricted or not) in the suburbs which surround the very small geographic center that is Boston, and, most significantly, find ways to build cheaper.

Christopher Binns, Dorchester