Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino is pushing a plan to add up to 30,000 new housing units by 2020.
The Boston Globe reports that Menino will announce his initiative, dubbed Housing Boston 2020, in a speech to be delivered today before the Boston Municipal Research Bureau. As part of the initiative, the municipal government will focus on creating more housing for specific demographics, including middle-class families, low-income renters, seniors and recent college graduates.Â
‘We can literally see the fast speed at which our housing market is growing,’ Menino says. ‘New units are sprouting up across our city, and new residents are bringing more vitality to our neighborhoods.’
The new initiative follows 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data that Boston's population is expanding. In the 2010 census, Boston recorded 617,594 residents; this was the first time since the 1970s that the city's population went past the 600,000 mark.
Menino's initiative is his latest effort to address local housing needs. In January, he used his annual State of the City address to announce a promise for making 1 million square feet of city-owned property available for the development of middle-class housing. In a report accompanying the Housing Boston 2020 plan, Menino acknowledged that the city is still addressing the aftershocks of the foreclosure crisis.
‘To stabilize Boston's high-foreclosure neighborhoods, the city needs to attract and retain new middle-income homeowners,’ the report said. ‘Boston needs to be prepared to meet the needs of a new generation of residents and to meet the changing needs of its current residents.’