Please Stand By Please >> tonight on Greater Boston.

Milton votes to reject zoning laws that woul..

Define state law and prompting a showdown at .. We talk about what it means for Milton and e..

It has been a bumpy month.

We have been hearing all about your frustrati.. Gbh news transportation reporter Bob C will b..

When Milton residents voted to define state l..

They could also threaten the goal of the hear..

The MBTA communities act, which aims to buil..

It is a goal my next guest believes is essent.. Jesse, Executive Director of a binding Massac.. >> thank you for having me.

>> give us hard numbers.

How bad is the affordability crisis?

>> we have an extreme affordability crisis h.. Housing costs in Greater Boston are on par w.. We have a shortage of about 200 or more the .. That is what is driving the crisis, people c..

It is an extreme housing cart -- crisis of th.. >> this is in the state of Massachusetts, mos.. We are 200,000 homes behind.

That is the takeaway.

>> at least 200,000 short of where we need to.. >> if the only way presumably to get the home.. >> one of the major thing is zoning.

The tool community use to say what can be bu.. For generations now in Massachusetts, the sta..

When you say only large single-family homes .. We need to change how communities use zoning.. >> the state government was trying to do tha.. Tell us what happened.

>> in 2021, the legislature signed, and the .. And there's complicated, complex guidelines t.. One of the communities that had a deadline l.. About 11 other communities classified as rapi.. Zoning in compliance with the law allowing h.. What happened was even though the plan in Mi.. That happened last week.

In that vote, by a bit of a majority they de.. Now Milton is in compliance with the state law.

>> what will happen in Milton because it is .. >> there are a few consequences they face.

Under the law, state grant programs may becom..

Including one of the largest state infrastruc..

The Keeley administration also added about a ..

In addition to that, the Attorney General has.. She said she's taking a look at bringing leg..

Specifically looking at Milton as the one rap.. >> do you think it will spread or other commu.. >> I am hopeful they will nip that in the bud.

We say we have gotten calls from members and ..

Concerns about something like this happening..

Even if town meeting passes it.

But what I really would say is to the dozen o..

Some of which don't have a deadline under sta.. 23 or more communities in some phase of compl..

I think that is a really great trend, despite..

I am hopeful the vast majority of communities.. >> how much new housing should we expect and .. >> it is a great question.

This is a zoning mandate for communities.

Zoning just says what can be built where.

It doesn't actually require any homes to be ..

There are many factors that go into determini..

It probably will be a period of 10 years or ..

I think the reality is we are not actually e.. We will not see all of those units ever get b..

I think it will take a long time.

So it will not be an overnight solution.

>> a few days ago, I was taking my dog for a..

He had difficulty communicating.

He finally managed to explain he had Social S.. That was the word he used.

He heard me talking about investing with ano..

I kind of left the conversation in tears bec..

But I left it enraged.

This man was homeless not because he did not..

He did.

And not because there was not a government a.. >> I think who suffers is sort of the least r..

When you have hundreds of thousands of homes..

The gentleman you were talking about may have..

It all filters down, the lowest rungs of soc.. Talk about the example in Boston, Boston has..

I think Boston needs to build more homes.

This law of MBT communities act doesn't even..

It applies to 177 cities and towns outside of..

Most of whom have built barely anything for a..

Many of these communities have not built anyt.. >> Jesse, thank you for joining us.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> Let's take a step back and hear from a co..

I'm joined by Lisa T Alexander, a housing la..

He's also the former director of planning and.. Lisa, how is the law trying to address the ho.. >> It is a state law that we are having a sta.. And each municipality has to bear its fair sh.. >> What does a fair share look like?

How is it allocated?

>> It will look different for each municipal..

Some municipalities close to transit have dif..

But the idea is the experts will assess what ..

It is the tendency of municipalities to res...

I think the law seeks to remedy that by requ.. >> Why have municipalities been successful h.. Why do they want to, and can it reverse the .. >> I think a lot of the current trend really..

There were concerns about type of housing hap..

It became very popular politically.

I think politicians rarely lost an election .. That is shifting a little bit.

But it was a winning political move.

Even local officials and planning staff suppo..

They report to the political leaders.

Political leaders often found it was popular.

>> Given that political dynamic, has somethin.. >> I think it has given a lot of impetus to c..

Which I think a lot really support.

>> I also would say the down zoning or the te..

It has been a long-standing way to create ex..

Creating those communities has reduced the su..

Therefore, it is elevating the price of housi.. People are realizing we need middle housing.

Housing for not the lowest income or the high..

I think more people are feeling that crisis .. >> Jeff, you use to handle this problem, how.. >> Most communities have done what they shou.. On the whole, I have been surprised with the..

There are always exceptions.

In general, I think sometimes having a state..

Your, earlier on how zoning has been used as.. That is wrong.

I'm glad to see the state taking action on th.. >> Is part of this is the exclusionary rules.. Are we going to see communities work around .. >> Traditionally, zoning has been a local pow..

It is rare that states take over that power o..

They usually defer to localities.

The tendency to defer to localities has reall..

I think many municipalities will want to have..

I'm not saying those values are bad.

But the reality is more housing, different ty..

The state said since we cannot rely on munici..

There is flexibility in the plan.

I'm not telling you what you have to do, but .. >> If a town doesn't meet these requirements.. >> The law specifies the types of state fundi.. That that -- they said the housing choice ini..

It is also clear there could be certain kind..

They have been quite specific that due to th..

There could be other penalties besides what i.. >> Are those enough to work, or is something.. >> They generally work.

There will always be communities that push an.. At the end of the day, if I was a community .. We always assumed powers comes from the citie.. We will see how plays out.

I think most are doing it in good faith.

Cracks the state delegates this power.

The state delegates the power to municipaliti..

When the state occupies the field and says h..

The state has incentives to come down hard on..

Which is why mostly every other municipality.. >> Do you see anything happening in Boston si.. >> I think Boston has a different dynamic in..

I think the political dynamic is different in..

There is more political support for producin.. >> I was also going to add, with respect to t.. Boston is undergoing its own rezoning plan wh..

But it has already put up quite a bit of the.. >> Lisa, Jeff, thank you for joining us.

>> thank you for having us.

>> frustrations rising for MBTA riders as sh.. Bob C joins me with the latest.

And with answers to some of your questions.

Thank you for joining us.

What happened on Thursday?

>> Thursday was a particularly significant day.

So many different things converged.

That was the day the MBTA was supposed to an..

But they never got to do that because they w.. Did not affect power to the trains, but effe..

It turned out to be a 30-year-old power cabl..

I checked today, and there is no explanation ..

In November, the MBTA released an inventory o..

The problem with the power system, and a lot ..

Unfortunately, everything came to a halt.

The trains had to be operated manually for a..

It took over two hours before things were br.. That was a particularly frustrating time for..

Especially since it was freezing.

>> right now, normal is not that great.

The tea has been announcing they are doing --..

I live in downtown, I take the green line.

If they ended the slowdowns, I don't want to .. >> they have not ended the slowdowns.

But they did tackle the most congested part o.. That is where the branches come together and.. And what makes the green line different is i..

So that you don't get the time to really acce.. 25 miles an hour at the most wear on the red .. You notice it more than on the green line.

The green line has more stopping and starting.

It does have this kind of congestion problem..

But the current green line shutdown, everythi.. People should see some results which will be .. >> that seems like progress.

I used to work in Tokyo.

If you -- your train was more than one minut..

It is possible to run the urban train schedu.. We seem to be failing spectacularly.

Why can't they even get the schedules right?

>> the schedules of the subway trains, that i.. One of the things is a lack of personnel.

Particularly, the operations control center.

The Federal transit administration moved in .. You've got to change that.

Not having enough dispatchers, they had to cu.. That did not help at all.

I think that is one of the main problems.

They are getting that solved slowly.

But there are still problems with minor delay.. >> when I asked my wife to move to Boston, I.. >> t can be taken in different ways.

>> what are the prospects of real, meaningful.. >> it is going to take at least a year befor..

It is because the system was neglected for so.. >> I know there have been suggestions about .. >> Congestion prices is the concept that peo..

Academics will tell you the only way to solve..

It is a very controversial proposal.

It is different when you apply it to the city..

This is a long way from reality.

It is the introduction of a concept I'm sure..

I think the debate will be good so people le.. >> we have questions from some viewers.

Sam from Cambridge had a question about Thera.. >> my question for Bob is when are the new fa.. >> they were supposed to be rolled out in 20.. Are we in 2024?

They will be eventually, but nobody wants to .. One of the ironic things that happened on Th..

When they were informed it was declared free,..

This is going to take a lot of education of c..

It is unclear to allot how it is going to work.

It will take time to rollout.

>> It sounds like we are going to be stuck in.. >> All of these things take a great deal of ..

So having patience is something T writers ha.. >> that is it for tonight.

Come back tomorrow for the battle of GBH form..

I will go head to head with Edward B her wit..

Tune in tomorrow at 7:00 to find out.

Thank you for watching, good night.

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