Eight weeks into my introductory economics class, and I’ve already learned the economic tools needed to address the housing crisis Massachusetts is facing. As anyone who has taken an analogous course can tell you, the way to fix a shortage without changing demand is to increase supply, and one key way to increase supply is deregulation. In the housing market, this means removing overly restrictive zoning rules that inhibit the construction of homes. On Nov. 3, voters in Massachusetts have the opportunity to make that happen.
Each election cycle, Massachusetts voters can gather signatures to add initiative petitions to the state ballot. The Massachusetts Constitution allows voters to use the initiative petition process to create a new law, amend an existing law, repeal a recently passed law, or amend the state constitution itself. If approved by a simple majority of voters, with at least 30% voting affirmatively, such initiatives are binding. This year, Question 7 is one of nine ballot questions that will be decided by Massachusetts voters.
At its core, Question 7 aims to take some zoning power away from municipalities in order to address the detrimental effects of restrictive zoning on housing supply. If approved by voters, the provision would generally require municipalities to allow single-family housing developments on residential parcels that are at least 5,000 square feet, have a 50-foot border with the street, and have access to public water and sewers. In other words, if passed, Question 7 would supersede the zoning power of municipalities and allow single-family housing developments on most parcels that meet these criteria. Despite the general decrease in regulation, municipalities would still maintain the power to restrict zoning on the basis of the acceptable height, bulk, and setbacks of buildings.
According to Massachusetts’s Comprehensive Housing Plan for 2025 to 2029, the state needs to add an estimated 222,000 homes to the supply between 2025 and 2035 to fulfill growing demand. Millennials have increased their demand for housing as they start building families. However, empty-nest boomers own 28% of the nation’s large homes, while millennials with kids own just 14%. Simultaneously, because Massachusetts has seen large increases in high-and low-income jobs while middle-income occupations have decreased, high-income families tend to outbid everyone else to attain housing.
Under current zoning laws, 99% of land allowing single-family housing has a minimum lot size mandate. More than half of single-family land has at least a 40,000 square foot minimum, which is eight times larger than the mandate proposed in Question 7. Moreover, 24% of single-family land has at least an 80,000 square foot minimum — 16 times larger than the mandate proposed in Question 7.
These strict zoning laws make it harder for developers to build homes. When it is expensive to build homes, or when land where developers can legally build homes is in short supply, people do not build. When supply does not increase to meet demand, it creates a shortage, which causes prices on existing homes to increase sharply. This is the exact phenomenon unfolding in the housing crisis across the state and country. However, when regulation is stripped away, it becomes easier to build, and naturally, supply expands to fill shortages.
The passage of Question 7 will cause a similar chain of reactions to take place in Massachusetts. By stripping away regulation — or preventing municipalities from implementing certain zoning restrictions — it will become easier for developers to build homes on available land. The Tufts University Center for State Policy Analysis predicted that Question 7 would generate roughly 750 new homes per year in the state, with a possible range between 350 and 1,200.
The analysis also predicted that suburbs would see the biggest increase in home-building under Question 7, especially Boston-area suburbs that already have sewage infrastructure and residential lots that are large enough to split. As someone from Brookline, a Boston-area suburb, I hope to see my town allow more home-building. Increasing the supply of housing is the economically sound way to close a shortage.
To young voters: Housing matters for us especially. It is one of the most pressing issues our generation faces. A survey conducted by the Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement found that housing and affordability are top issues among Gen Z, across demographic differences and the political spectrum. As Gen Z graduates from college, pursues higher education, and enters an uncertain workforce, we are bearing the brunt of increased housing costs. The common experience of young adults reflects that it is much harder to afford a house today than it was for previous generations.
The facts substantiate these sentiments: As Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson explained in their book “Abundance,” the average wage-earner needed to save for roughly 2.4 years to buy a home in 1970. By 2000, that number was up to seven years. It is unsurprising, then, that a growing number of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 live with their parents: a staggering 50% in 2023. Additionally, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, the number of renters with cost burdens — people paying more than 30% of their income on housing — reached new heights in 2024. Extreme shortages of low-cost housing are evident in the high shares of households burdened by unaffordable housing costs, and cost burdens are rising for lower-income households where rates are already sky-high.
To put it simply, the housing market is treacherously inaccessible for our nation’s youth, including those of us graduating from elite universities. The state needs to do everything we can to increase home-building so that we can decrease the cost of housing.
Some argue that the mandates imposed by Question 7 will do nothing to ensure the affordability of homes being built. While it is true that Question 7 does not explicitly mandate small, affordable homes, the simple fact that it will expand housing supply is an economic approach towards decreasing the cost of housing. Expanding supply also lays the foundation for further reform, such as affordable housing subsidies and streamlining the development process.
Others contend that zoning laws allow communities to decide for themselves the standard of homes they want to allow to be built in their area, and that this is a cornerstone of Massachusetts local government. Of course, standards of safety should be met, but most of these municipal zoning laws appeal more to aesthetics than safety. Zoning laws should not be created to keep people out, but rather, to keep people safe. As such, a state mandate serves as a protection for our youth and low-income families. It is not the character of our homes that matters so much as the character of our communities: Is it worth it to preserve white-picket fences at the expense of your children never being able to independently afford a house of their own?
I am proud to say that this year, I voted in my first election. I encourage everyone who is concerned about affordable housing and the interests of young people to join me in voting “yes” on Question 7.
