City Converts Offices to Homes to Tackle Housing Crisis
Across the country, there are around 7 million people looking for some kind of affordable housing. One city is deploying a new plan that would incentivize developers to turn office space into residential unity. And it could help address the affordable housing units.
Transcript
00:00 Across the country, there are around 7 million people looking for some kind of affordable housing.
00:07 Here in Boston, they are deploying a new plan that would incentivize developers to turn office space into residential units.
00:14 And it could help address the affordable housing crisis.
00:18 From down here, looking around, it's often easy to assume that there is just as much activity occurring inside of American office buildings as outside.
00:29 But Felix Zemel knows that isn't always true.
00:32 We're seeing a lot of smaller businesses closing up in downtown areas.
00:37 Zemel is a lecturer at Boston University. He studies affordable housing and building codes
00:43 and says cities like Boston are not alone in their struggle right now to keep offices occupied.
00:48 There isn't as much foot traffic as there was.
00:51 This year, office vacancy rates in the U.S. hit a 30-year high, ticking up to 17.8 percent,
00:56 fueled by recession fears and hybrid working.
00:59 In Boston, the office vacancy rate is now at 19.1 percent.
01:03 But there are plans in the works to bring life back to empty workspaces,
01:08 while also addressing a severe lack of affordable housing.
01:11 Boston in particular, and across the nation, but Boston in particular is in great need of affordable housing.
01:18 Boston, a city of 654,000, will now offer developers up to a 75 percent reduction in the residential tax rate
01:27 to turn offices into residential housing.
01:30 20 percent of units would have to be considered affordable housing.
01:34 I mean, it's a national crisis, not just in Boston.
01:37 And Corbin Fennell is with Action for Boston Community Development
01:40 and knows full well the impacts of 7.3 million Americans needing affordable housing.
01:45 Either they are trying to figure out, do I eat or do I pay rent?
01:51 Since the start of the pandemic, countless communities nationwide have floated the idea of turning offices into residential housing.
01:58 But Boston is the first to put a concrete funding plan in place to make it happen.
02:04 You have to think outside of the box in order to at least try to move them in.
02:09 Just how successful could the shift be?
02:11 Experts point to Boston's Seaport District as a perfect example of how this plan could work.
02:16 In the 1990s, the Seaport was mainly parking lots.
02:19 Now it's a bustling hub of mixed-use space filled with both businesses and residential units.
02:25 And it really shows how vibrant the community can become.
02:28 That's partially why we're looking at it across Boston.
02:32 The possibility of providing more Americans a place to call home by converting the places we used to work.
02:38 to work. Chris Conte, Scripps News, Boston.