Boston's Housing Numbers Don't Lie — And They're Brutal

Boston permitted just 2,847 new housing units in 2025, according to figures released last month by the Boston Planning Department — a number that represents a 31 percent drop from the 4,118 units permitted in 2022, and one that housing advocates say makes Mayor Michelle Wu's pledge to add 69,000 units citywide by 2030 look increasingly like arithmetic fiction.

The timing matters because the gap between supply and demand is compounding fast. The Greater Boston Housing Report Card, published annually by Boston College's Urban Research Institute, puts the regional shortfall at roughly 108,000 units as of this spring. Meanwhile, the median sale price for a single-family home in Suffolk County cracked $775,000 in May 2026 — up from $620,000 just three years ago. Renters haven't been spared: median asking rents in Roxbury and Dorchester, two of the neighborhoods Wu's administration has repeatedly identified as priority corridors, hit $2,450 a month for a one-bedroom in June, according to listings data compiled by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.

Where the Numbers Are Falling Short

The administration's centerpiece program, Squares + Streets, rezoned 19 commercial corridors across the city starting in 2023 — including Centre Street in Jamaica Plain and Washington Street in Dorchester — to allow residential construction up to six stories by right. The theory was that removing discretionary permitting would unlock a wave of mid-rise development. The wave hasn't arrived. As of June 30, only 14 projects totaling 312 units have broken ground under Squares + Streets zoning, according to planning department tracking data reviewed by The Daily Boston. That's less than half the 700 units the city projected would be under construction by the end of fiscal year 2026.

Developers point to construction financing as the primary chokepoint. Interest rates on commercial construction loans have stayed above 7.5 percent since the Federal Reserve's 2024 tightening cycle, and hard construction costs in Boston averaged $487 per square foot last year — among the highest in the Northeast outside of Manhattan. Several projects along Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester have stalled at the permitting stage or been withdrawn entirely. One 48-unit mixed-income proposal at the corner of Blue Hill and Morton Street was quietly shelved in March after the developer cited financing gaps that couldn't be bridged by the city's Inclusionary Development Policy subsidies alone.

What the Data Says About Who Gets Built For

The racial equity dimensions of the slowdown are stark. The Wu administration has set a target of 20,000 income-restricted units by 2030. Current trajectory puts the city on pace to produce roughly 11,400 — about 57 percent of goal — based on the annual permitting rate averaged over the past 24 months. The neighborhoods where the shortfall is most acute — Roxbury, Mattapan, Hyde Park — are also the neighborhoods with the highest shares of Black and Latino residents, a pattern that community development organizations including Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation and Urban Edge have flagged in public testimony to the Boston Zoning Board of Appeal.

The MBTA Communities Act, the state law that took effect in January 2025 and requires 177 Massachusetts municipalities to zone for multifamily housing near transit stations, does create some leverage. Boston's designated MBTA zones around Orange Line stops including Jackson Square and Stony Brook are already compliant on paper. The practical question is whether developers will build there given current financing conditions, or whether the zoning sits inert.

What comes next is a Wu administration budget decision due before the end of July. City officials have been negotiating with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities over an expanded housing production tax credit that could offset up to $40,000 per unit in construction costs for income-restricted projects. If that credit is approved and structured as a direct subsidy rather than a deferred loan, analysts at the Boston Policy Institute estimate it could unlock between 800 and 1,200 stalled units across Dorchester, Roxbury, and East Boston within 18 months. If it isn't, the gap between the city's ambitions and its spreadsheets will keep widening through every quarter of the election cycle ahead.