In Boston, one of the biggest political issues of 2025 is one that affects every single resident: housing.
Like the rest of the state and beyond, the city is doing its best to lower high housing costs and create more housing supply.
While the two major candidates for mayor, incumbent Mayor Michelle Wu and philanthropist Josh Kraft, both Democrats, agree that building more housing is the number-one way to achieve this goal, they differ greatly on just how to do that.
As Boston prepares to choose its next leader in the Sept. 9 preliminary election and Nov. 4 general election, here are the two candidates’ plans for how to address the city’s housing crisis.
Mayor Wu’s position on housing
Wu has made housing a major priority of her term as mayor, introducing several new programs, including ones to fund housing construction, support struggling renters, assist first-time homebuyers with down payments, and encourage sustainable construction.
The city has also legalized accessory dwelling units everywhere. And the Wu administration is working to lower other barriers to development through updates to the city’s zoning and design permitting process.
The mayor’s focus has largely been on affordable housing, and her administration has said more of it has been built under Wu than under any other previous mayor. From 2022, the year after she took office, to 2024, 5,455 total affordable homes were completed or are under construction, according to the Mayor’s Office of Housing.
Many of those homes have been directly spurred on by the city, either because they are built on city-owned land or have received city funds.
In October 2024, the city updated its inclusionary development policy, which required new multifamily residential buildings with 10 or more units to set aside 13% of units as affordable housing.
Under the new policy, the threshold to trigger the requirement was lowered to seven or more units. And the percentage was upped to 17% to 20%, depending on the size of the project.
“We hear the same things over and over again, that the same communities just have to wait, and eventually it’ll trickle down. eventually [developers will] make their money and then everyone else will have the benefit,” Wu said during a July candidate forum on housing. “It is not the job of the city government or the public sector or the people to subsidize for-profit developers in making their money. It is our job to focus on affordability.”
Other Wu housing initiatives, however, have been less successful, despite her best efforts.
One of her first actions as mayor was to propose a transfer fee on high-value real estate sales, the revenue from which would have gone to affordable housing. Then, in 2023, she filed a home rule petition to implement rent control in Boston. Both measures were approved by the City Council but failed to make it past the state Legislature.
Infamously, the mayor spent much of 2024 pushing the Legislature to approve her proposal to shift some of Boston’s tax levy toward commercial property owners, to deliver relief to homeowners facing big increases on their tax bills.
Two different versions of the proposal failed to make it through the Legislature, with the second dying on Beacon Hill at the last minute.
Wu filed a third version of the bill in January.
Josh Kraft’s housing plan
Kraft’s housing plan centers on making it easier for developers to build in order to increase Boston’s housing supply.
He has repeatedly lamented that there are thousands of homes’ worth of development projects that have already received all of the necessary sign-offs from the city, but have not yet started construction. He has attributed this in large part to city policies, like inclusionary zoning, that make it more expensive for developers to build.
“Boston is in the middle of a housing emergency, and Mayor Wu’s policies have only made it worse,” Kraft said earlier this month. “Construction of new housing has stalled, and the cost to buy or rent a home is pushing working families out of the city.”
The philanthropist and former head of the Boys and Girls Club of Boston has said he plans to roll back the changes to inclusionary zoning implemented under Wu, bringing the requirement back down to 13% of units.
“Twenty percent of nothing being built is nothing,” he told MassLive in March. “When we get those things cranked up, who knows? Maybe you can increase that 13% up a point or two or three as the economic climate changes and as housing is produced.”
He would also change the level of affordability required.
Currently, the policy calls for a mix of units affordable for residents making 80% of the area median income (AMI) and 100% AMI. Kraft would change this to require one-third of units at 60% AMI, one-third at 90% AMI and one-third at 120% AMI.
Kraft said this would both encourage more development and provide homes for working-class households.
Similarly, Kraft has said he opposes the idea of a transfer fee, arguing it would disincentivize development, though he added during a July candidate forum that he might consider it in the future if the city saw an easier economic environment.
Kraft’s signature housing policy is what he calls “opt-in rent control.” Under this plan, Boston landlords could agree to cap rent increases at the level of inflation plus 5%, with a maximum of 10%, for 10 years in exchange for a 20% real estate tax credit.
Unlike typical rent stabilization proposals, Kraft says his would not require the approval from the state Legislature that has stopped Boston from implementing its previously approved policy.
The candidate also says he would put new tax revenue from additional housing construction — which his campaign estimated at $100 million to $125 million per year — toward a fund intended to help first-time homebuyers on top of similar, existing programs.
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