Mayor Wu has proposed time-limited tax abatements for four approved but unbuilt housing projects, three of them in Allston-Brighton. We support getting these homes built. We do not support getting them built through one negotiated deal at a time.
- The four projects add up to about 1,400 homes. Three are in Allston-Brighton: 22–24 Pratt Street, Allston Yards Building D and 83 Leo M. Birmingham Parkway.
- The City says there is no net revenue loss. That holds only if the projects would not otherwise be built, and the public has not been shown the numbers to test that claim.
- The projects carry inclusionary requirements that cost real money. Two of the four pay more than $20 million in lieu of building units on site. In our planning model, removing the set-aside alone lowers the rent a new building needs to break even by about 10%.
- Our position is a sequence. Remove the costs the City imposes first, then see what gap is left. Any relief after that should be shown to be necessary and should come through existing, published rules, not tax or legal arrangements built for each project.
What the City is proposing
The Boston Planning Department has circulated Demonstration Project Plans for tax abatements on four housing projects that were approved but have not started construction. The notices cite high interest rates and rising material and labor costs. The abatement would defer part of the increase in property taxes that new construction triggers, and only for projects that show they can start building within a year. The BPDA Board is expected to vote on authorizing negotiations this month. The City reports roughly $31.5 million in abatements across the four projects and says similar agreements could eventually reach $100 million.
| Project | Homes | Income-restricted | Share | In-lieu payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22–24 Pratt Street, Allston | 318 | 27 | 8.5% | $8.1M |
| Allston Yards Building D, Allston | 341 | 61 | 17.9% | none reported |
| 83 Leo M. Birmingham Pkwy, Brighton | 333 | 52 | 15.6% | none reported |
| One Mystic Avenue, Charlestown | 408 | 45 | 11.0% | $14M |
| All four | 1,400 | 185 | 13.2% | over $20M |
Unit counts and in-lieu payments are from the City’s September 15 announcement. The percentages are our arithmetic.
The question the City has not answered
The City’s no-net-loss claim rests on a counterfactual: without relief, nothing is built and the sites keep paying land-only taxes. If that is true, a deferral costs nothing and produces housing. If a project would break ground in 2027 anyway as borrowing costs ease, the abatement is a plain transfer from taxpayers to the developer.
Only the developers’ pro formas can settle which case applies. We ask the Board to publish, for each project, the financing gap the abatement is meant to close, and to decline relief where the gap is small or the project would proceed regardless. The standard should be open-book feasibility, the kind public lenders already ask for.
Take away the City’s own costs first
Each of these projects is subject to the Inclusionary Development Policy. A required income-restricted unit rents below market for decades, so it lowers what the building is worth to the people who must finance it. Pratt Street and One Mystic Avenue have chosen to pay $22 million between them instead of building units on site, which shows the cost is large enough to be worth buying out.
We do not have the developers’ pro formas, so we use the Foundation’s planning model of a new six-story wood-over-podium building. Under today’s as-of-right rules, such a building needs about $7.96 per rentable square foot in monthly rent to break even. Removing parking minimums brings that to $6.52. Removing the inclusionary set-aside brings it to $5.85, a further drop of $0.67, or about 10%. New buildings rent for about $4.61 on the same measure, so no single step closes the gap. The order matters, and it starts with the costs the City sets itself. A tax abatement is a different tool aimed at the same gap, and it should be considered only for what remains after those costs are gone.
| Step | Break-even rent | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Today’s as-of-right rules | $7.96 | |
| No parking minimums | $6.52 | −$1.44 |
| No inclusionary set-aside | $5.85 | −$0.67 |
| Efficient building envelope | $5.37 | −$0.48 |
| By-right approval | $5.31 | −$0.06 |
| Design standard (+$5 per gross sq ft) | $5.37 | +$0.06 |
| Existing Chapter 121A tax treatment | $4.99 | −$0.38 |
| State single-stair code | $4.82 | −$0.17 |
| 10% repeatable-construction saving | $4.39 | −$0.43 |
| 6% construction debt | $4.05 | −$0.34 |
| Benchmark: rent of a new building today | $4.61 |
Monthly break-even rent per rentable square foot, with each step added to the one above. Allston Heritage Foundation planning model: six-story wood over podium, $395 per gross square foot hard cost, 6.85% required yield. The four projects differ from this prototype (Pratt Street is sixteen stories), so read the table for sequence and scale, not as a forecast for any one of them. See the full model in our housing plan.
The people side belongs here too. The benefit of the requirement goes to a few hundred households selected by lottery. The cost is carried by the building, and eventually by everyone who would have lived in the homes that do not get built, and by the taxpayers asked to refund the difference. A humane housing policy should count those absent residents.
What we ask the Board to do
- Publish the numbers. Release each project’s feasibility gap, the abatement’s size and term, and the implied subsidy per home.
- Require enforcement. Tie relief to a construction start within twelve months, with clawback of abated taxes and a sunset if the date is missed.
- Protect the public record. Relief should not reopen community benefits already negotiated with Impact Advisory Groups.
- Cost first, relief second. End the inclusionary requirement for rental housing, allow housing by right, and remove parking minimums. Then ask which projects still fall short. For those, any relief should come through existing, published tax treatment that every builder can use on the same terms, backed by the open-book showing above. Housing should not need political or tax-law engineering to get built, and assistance for lower-income households should be funded openly through the budget. Negotiated favors reward the best-lawyered developers and teach every other entitled project to wait for its own deal.
The strongest objections
“Without the requirement, Allston-Brighton gets almost no affordable units soon.”
That is likely true in the near term, because direct subsidy pipelines are slow and limited. It is an argument for funding assistance directly and at scale, which delivers deeper affordability to more households per dollar than a percentage of units in market-rate buildings. It does not require taxing the buildings that supply new homes.
“The requirement is the price of zoning relief these projects already received.”
Some approvals may have traded density or height for units. If so, the City should say which, and the remedy is to move to general zoning that allows the density as of right, so no trade is needed.
“Over time, land prices absorb the cost, not renters or builders.”
Capitalization into land is real, but it works slowly and unevenly. These projects are stalled now, on sites already bought. For them the cost lands on feasibility, which is exactly why relief is being requested.
Why this matters beyond four buildings
The City found about 47 eligible projects and more than 10,000 stalled homes. If relief is granted one negotiation at a time, the next developer’s rational move is to wait. A rule that applies to everyone would unlock the same housing without that incentive. The Allston-Brighton Community Plan and rezoning now under preparation are the right place to write that rule. Our model legislation shows what it could look like.
Sources
- City of Boston, Mayor Wu proposes targeted tax abatements to jumpstart construction of 1,400 new homes (September 15, 2026).
- Boston Planning Department, 22–24 Pratt Street.
- Boston Planning Department, Allston Yards Building D.
- Boston Planning Department, 83 Leo M. Birmingham Parkway.
- Rent figures come from the Foundation’s planning model. They are planning estimates for a prototype building, not forecasts for these four projects.