Weekly Transcript Round-Up: April 5, 2024
Worcester's Research Bureau issues Gateway Cities-focused Office Value report; Fair Housing gets its own month, more hearings; BPI report gets top billing in coverage of Wu admin’s tax increase
In this week’s transcript round-up:
There was a Gateway Cities-focused follow-up to BPI’s ‘The Fiscal Fallout of Boston’s Empty Offices’ - check out BPI’s takeaways and how this report could be the start of a trend
BPI’s report has been prominently featured in press coverage of the Wu administration’s proposed tax increase
Fair Housing is top focus for Council President Louijeune, with another major hearing on Monday, April 8
This week’s regular Council meeting saw extensive press coverage - find links to the article and where in the transcript to find the featured parts of the meeting
WORCESTER REGIONAL RESEARCH BUREAU ISSUES GATEWAY CITIES-FOCUSED OFFICE VALUES REPORT, EXPANDS ON ISSUES ID’D IN BPI’S BOSTON-FOCUSED OFFICE VALUES REPORT
After BPI’s report ‘The Fiscal Fallout of Boston’s Empty Offices’ came out in February, we got a lot of questions about how the office market looked outside Boston, and whether the fiscal issues identified in our report were also challenges for communities outside Boston. A new report from the Worcester Regional Research Bureau “Appreciating the Value of Commercial Properties” that came out on Wednesday answers those questions, showing not only how Worcester stacks up against Boston, but also looking at how Lowell and Springfield are faring.
BPI had a three takeaways from this report:
WRRB’s report does a great job of explaining commercial real estate in broad strokes and demonstrating how to use public data to figure out how smaller cities are doing.
This report provides a model for creating similar reports by showing its work and method of finding and analyzing data data for Worcester, Lowell, and Springfield - hopefully local Chambers of Commerce, regional planning organizations, and universities in Massachusetts and across New England use this report as a jumping off point for their own work.
This report does a lot to quantify the feeling that Boston’s economy and budget are significantly different from the three cities WRRB included in its study - Worcester, Lowell, and Springfield - with Boston much more dependent on commercial property taxes for its budget and as a result left with significantly less room to maneuver in its response to the changes wrought by the move to remote work compared to those three communities.
Worcester Regional Research Bureau is a really interesting organization doing great work on issues facing Worcester and its region - check out their website here.
FAIR HOUSING TOP ISSUE FOR COUNCIL PRESIDENT, HEARING ON SECTION 8 DISCRIMINATION SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY
At Wednesday’s regular City Council meeting, Council President Ruthzee Louijeune offered a resolution to make April ‘Fair Housing Month’ - docket #0652, with the resolution on page 63 of the agenda packet - following up an op-ed she wrote that was published in the ‘Fenway News’ - check out the op-ed here, it is on page 2. All of this work from Councilor Louijeune makes clear that she intends to make moving forward a ‘fair housing’ policy agenda an important part of her legacy as Council President.
With the 100 day mark of this City Council term coming up on April 10, 2024, Councilor Louijeune’s Council has held a number of ‘fair housing’ focused hearings, including a big hearing on creating a ‘right to counsel’ for tenants facing eviction in Boston sometimes also referred to as ‘civil gideon’.
Next week the Council is holding a hearing on Section 8 discrimination, an order filed after a large income discrimination case was filed in Boston against 20 landlords and brokers, led by the New York-based Housing Rights Initiative - find the details for that hearing here.
AS WU ADMIN ROLLS OUT TAX INCREASE TO COUNCIL, BPI REPORT FEATURED PROMINENTLY IN PRESS COVERAGE
Following the announcement last week by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Boston’s Collector-Treasurer & CFO Ashley Groffenberger that the Wu administration was proposing a home rule petition to allow the City to exceed state-mandated limits on taxing commercial property there has been an enormous amount of press coverage. Much of that coverage featured BPI’s report ‘The Fiscal Fallout of Boston Empty Offices,’ which projected a $1.4 billion decrease in Boston’s commercial property tax revenue over the next 5 years due to declining office values.
Here is a look at this week’s coverage:
On Sunday Boston CFO Ashley Groffenberger went on NBC10’s @Issue last Sunday with BPI’s Executive Director Gregory Maynard to talk about BPI’s report and the Wu administration’s proposed tax increase. Check out a clip here:
Watch the whole segment on BPI’s YouTube channel or Instagram page.
On Monday the Wu administration filed paperwork for the week’s regular City Council meeting, including a letter from Mayor Wu explaining her rationale for the home rule petition, and the language of the home rule petition itself - BPI wrote a short analysis of that letter that highlighted the administration’s contention that the current decline in office values is “short term.”
On Wednesday WBZ political reporter Jon Keller published an article about the Wu administration’s proposed tax increase and the station released a teaser about Keller’s interview with Mayor Wu that is airing this Sunday. BPI’s report was prominently featured in the article that accompanied the video below - watch Sunday to see if the report is brought up in the interview!
Also on Wednesday District 2 City Councilor Ed Flynn, who represents South Boston, the South End, Chinatown, and parts of the downtown, came out against the Wu administration’s proposed tax increase, citing BPI’s report as part of his decision-making.
The next step for the home rule petition is to have a hearing before the Government Operations Committee, the same committee that just ran an extensive process for the recently passed planning department ordinance. BPI is closely monitoring this issue.
AT THIS WEEK’S REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING
Councilor at Large Julia Meija did more recycling of previously filed orders this week - read this article from WBUR about Councilor Meija’s ordinance - going back to an ordinance filed by then-District 4 City Council Andrea Campbell back in 2019 - read this coverage from the Boston Herald and Bay State Banner on that ordinance. Back in 2019 Councilor Campbell wrote an ordinance to create an Inspector General in the City of Boston in response to a bribery case that ensnared the Zoning Board of Appeals and a Boston Planning & Development Agency official - read coverage from WBUR of that case. In the transcript of this week’s meeting, Councilor Meija is Speaker 3 and discussion of docket #0645 starts at the 53:47 mark.
After a 4 year old girl was struck and killed only steps from the Boston Children’s Museum last week, there were immediate calls to improve traffic safety at that intersection and across the City. This week those calls translated into docket #0648 from Councilor Flynn, which among other things calls for reducing the citywide speed limit from 25 mph to 20 mph - read more about the proposal at Boston.com and at Masslive. Discussion on the issue starts at the 1:15:33 mark and Councilor Flynn is Speaker 5 in the transcript.
District 7 City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson filed a hearing order - docket #0649 with the hearing order on pages 59 and 60 of the agenda packet - this week that wanted to look at tying pay to an extensive set of job requirements for City Councilors, including attendance, which resulted in an article from the Boston Herald looking at the Councilor’s attendance record. At the Council meeting on Wednesday, Councilor Fernandes Anderson withdrew the hearing order - she is Speaker 8 and the withdrawal is at the 1:44:40 mark of the transcript. Councilor Fernandes Anderson paid a fine last year for violating ethics rules by hiring her son and sister onto her City Council staff - read this article from Boston.com about that issue.
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