Good morning.

Uh, thank you all so much for being here for the record.

My name is Gabriela Caladez Apata, District One City Councillor, and I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Government Operations.

Today is April 10th, 2026, and the exact time is ten eighteen.

This hearing is being recorded, and it's also being live streamed at Boston.gov forward slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, Files Channel 964.

Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.go at Boston.gov and will be made a part of the record and available to all counselors.

Public testimony will be taken in the middle of this hearing, and at the end.

Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up, and we'll have two minutes to testify.

If you're interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber.

And if you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison, Michelle Goldberg at M I C H E L L E.

At Boston.gov in your for the link and your name will be added to the list.

Today's hearing is on Docket Zero One Six Three Petition for a Special Law regarding an act relative to a real estate transfer fee and senior property tax relief.

This matter was sponsored by counselors Henry Santana, Rutsi Louis Jeanne, and Chair Durkin, and referred to the committee on January twenty-eighth of this year.

Today I'm joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councillor Rootsy Louis Jeanne, Councillor Liz Braden, Councillor Henry Santana, and Councillor Flynn.

I'll now pass it before we go to the panel.

I'll pass it to my colleagues for any opening remarks they may have, starting with the lead sponsor, Councillor Santana.

Good morning.

Um, and thank you, Counselor Colorado Sapata, for working alongside um me and my colleagues to make this hearing a reality.

Uh, I want to thank Councillor Du Jan and Counselor Durkin for um joining me as co-sponsors, and thank you for our panel for spending this Friday morning with us discussing discussing this very important topic.

Our city is in a housing emergency.

Without intervention, these communities are at risk for displacement.

This is this displacement tears at the fabric of our communities, and it's everyone's responsibility to guard against these harms.

That's where our city can and should step in to fund property relief for our seniors and to keep communities together.

We must tap into currently untaxed high-value property transfers.

Wealth is increasingly being concentrated in an ever decreasing amount of individuals and companies.

These individuals and companies need to pay their fair share, and that's the at the core of this policy.

It's about fairness.

It's about addressing gaps and inequalities and how we collect fees, and it's about being able to decide as being able to decide as a city how we take on and take care of our seniors and residents.

These taxes are modest fees, and they're tailored to exclusively target the most high-value property transfers in our city.

By exempting the first two million dollars of a properties purchase price, we ensure that our working class and middle class families won't be burdened.

Through their tailored specific taxes, they have real impact by reducing financial burdens, we support our seniors and respect a right to Asian place.

In short, by imposing transfers fees, we're asking the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share to support our most at-risk communities, the same communities this wealth is extracted from.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Santana.

Councillor Louis Jen.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank the lead sponsor, Councillor Santana, for his work.

I want to thank community for being here.

Um this transfer fee is so needed in this moment.

This is our third time on the Boston City Council hearing this matter.

Um when I heard it the first time uh when we were under the Biden administration, and we were we still had ARPA money, it was something that we needed.

Uh now under an administration that has been really challenging our ability to provide for our most vulnerable residents, we need it all the more.

And given the financial situation and the challenges that we have here, the city level, we need to be thinking about for all of the reasons mentioned, uh alternative forms of revenue to do the work of providing ho housing and opportunity for our most marginalized, our most vulnerable residents.

With this transfer fee, we're talking about uh something that could generate anywhere from 50 million to upwards of a hundred million dollars a year to help us do the work of uh ensuring housing as a basic right for all of our residents.

So I think all of the folks who are here today for your advocacy.

I know that so many projects could benefit from the support of this money.

Overall, we're talking about um uh a transfer fee that would affect less than 10% of the housing portfolio here in our city.

Uh, we've heard so many times from so many of our advocates and members of community from our seniors about how this would be important to them.

The senior exemption that is part of this is also important under 41C.

So we are really hoping that we can partner and work and collaborate with our State House partners.

And once this passes the Boston City Council, as it has in the past, to make sure that we make housing a reality for all.

Uh, I'm very happy that just a few weeks ago my office introduced uh senior tax exemption that other cities around the commonwealth have been able to take advantage of from Arlington to Cambridge to uh to Belmont to make sure that our seniors uh are that we adjust do a cost of living adjustment every year for the senior tax exemption.

That's work that we can do on the city council alone, and I look forward to shepherding that through before uh uh June ends so we can get it applied to our next tax bill.

So I just I want to thank everyone who is here from our seniors to our affordable housing advocates to the administration as we do the work of partnering together to ensure affordable housing for the residents of our city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Louisiana.

Councillor Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and good morning, everyone.

I'm delighted to be here to yet again discuss transfer fee.

I think it's critically important to put some money into uh the coffers so that we can develop more housing that's uh available for everyone, affordable for more people.

And we are as counselor um sentana already mentioned, we're in an incredible housing crisis, and we do need revenue to help uh alleviate the situation.

In our particular situation in Alston Brighton, we have many projects that are proposed by developers.

Uh and we go through the whole public process and residents uh sit on IAGs and they put a lot of volunteer time into it.

And then the project gets approved by the uh BPDA or this planning department, BPDA, and it's approved by uh the ZBA, and then uh you know, weeks later, the proponent is flipping the project and making millions of dollars out of the transaction.

And that money doesn't stay in our neighborhood, and it makes it uh really challenging uh and and leaves uh us with a feeling that our neighborhood is being used like a an ATM machine.

So uh all the power to folks who want to come and invest in our neighborhoods and build build stable housing, but we really resent the fact that you know in this sort of flipping uh process that um people are making a lot of money off the neighborhood, and we're not actually getting the benefits.

So having a transfer fee would help alleviate some of that uh that um inequity that we see.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Braden, Councillor Flynn.

Thank you, madam chair, and I was I was uh one minute late for today's meeting.

I was in South Boston with Congressman Lynch.

We did a meeting with residents at the Foley Apartments, um, which is a BHA development.

We were talking about public safety challenges that are taking place in the development, including including drug dealing, um a lot of a lot of crime that's taking place.

I represent the most residents that are uh that live in public housing of any of any district city councillor.

I want to see us do more work in support of residents also in BHA developments, providing safe and healthy environments that residents deserve.

I want to learn more about this transfer fee.

I do know that we have a housing crisis.

Part of that housing crisis, in my opinion, is providing safe safe environments for people living in BHA developments.

But we have to acknowledge that we have significant public safety challenges in many of these BHA developments, and I'm gonna do everything I possibly can to provide the safest environments for our residents living in public housing.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn.

Um I will essentially wave my opening remarks because I'd love to get into uh presentation from all of you.

Simply put, I'm proud to have supported this and will continue to support this.

As it's been mentioned, we are in a housing crisis.

East Boston in particular could benefit from the potential revenue that we would be generating from this.

So uh my goal is to move this expeditiously through the council.

We've done it before through a 12-1 vote.

Uh, this is our third time doing it, and so just proud to support it and really look forward to again getting into the presentation.

Um I see cult councillor Culpepper has joined us.

Councillor Culpepper, would you like uh to provide any opening remarks?

Thank you, Councillor.

And thank you, Councillor Department, for holding this hearing.

Thank you, Councillor Santana, for bringing this home rule petition forward.

We're confronting reality.

We all recognize Boston continues to face a severe housing affordability crisis with over 43,000 households, including nearly 14,000 seniors struggling under the weight of housing costs.

Well, traditional funding sources decline.

While this proposal has the potential to create tens of millions in annual funding, the key question before us well, how will it impact housing production?

How funds will be allocated, whether it's equitable and sustainable, and how it complements existing efforts.

Ultimately, this is not just about building more housing, and good to see you uh see Dylan.

Uh it is about insurance ability for residents, especially our seniors at risk of displacement.

Emily, you've been doing a great job.

Good to see you.

Director Bach.

But the fact of the matter is our seniors are at risk.

And designing a policy that is both effective and accountable and meeting the scale of Boston housing needs is why we're here today.

So I thank Councillor Zapata and Santana for bringing this forward.

You know, I've got a lot of ideas about senior housing after the 27 years at HERT.

So I'd like to discuss and explore some of them.

Just good to be with you this morning.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper.

Uh, we've been joined by Councillor Weber.

You now have the floor for any opening remarks.

Uh thank you.

Uh nice to see everybody uh here today.

Um, you know, I I had a chance to speak at the budget breakfast about you know the need for us to be able to have some control over uh you know how we raise revenue and to to raise revenue for housing uh and to help uh people here.

I know Chief Dylan talked about how impactful something like this can be uh for people who need housing the most in our city, and so just want to thank the filers and uh look forward to working on it.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Weber.

Okay.

Uh I'll now pass it over to our panel, which includes Chief of Housing, Sheila Dillon, Administrator from the Boston Housing Authority, Kenzie Bach, and our um Commissioner of Age Strong, Emily Shea.

Uh please feel free to start in your report order.

Great.

Uh I'll I'll kick it off and then um pass it on to my esteemed colleagues, but thank you, uh Council, for having this very important hearing.

Um I think it was Councillor Coletta Zapata that's head, or maybe it was Councillor Louis Jean that said now more than ever, right?

We it would have been very important to have this passed in years uh in previous years, but now it is critical.

I'm going to spend a very short period of time going over the the proposed policy and what it would mean for us.

So the home rule petition would enable the city to impose a transfer fee up to 2%, as been discussed on certain real estate transactions.

And this fee would greatly increase, of course, the resources of available for affordable housing, including supporting the creation of new income restricted housing and the preservation of uh the housing that we have.

This petition would also increase housing stability for Boston seniors, um, homeowners by expanding the eligibility of and increasing the tax relief provided uh to senior homeowners.

And Emily is going to talk uh a bit about that.

So I just putting up a very simple um example of how one transaction um could you know make a difference and uh you add those up and um we'll talk about how much this policy could indeed raise.

So, as was mentioned, uh the transfer fee exempts the first two million of any transaction.

It allows a fee of up to two percent, uh, and it permits the city of Boston to create other exempt uh other exemptions by ordinance, including affordable housing developments uh and housing that is owned by vulnerable populations.

So while the ordinance, the ordinance gives us some flexibility after it's passed to really work together and figure out the right exemptions.

It does cover all property types, both residential and commercial.

And here the example, the sales price is five million.

Uh, we exempt the first two million, which was discussed.

We apply the two percent to the value to the remaining value, and we get a transfer fee of sixty thousand dollars.

This is a really important slide, and we just update we updated these numbers.

Um, in the last four years, if we had passed this, you know, previously, we would have raised 180 million dollars as a city for our affordable housing programs.

And that that's that sum is just stunning, and there's no reason to believe that those numbers won't won't be sustained, right?

We're going to see very, very uh large um revenue sources that would that could be raised through this policy, but 180 million dollars.

Um why do we need a transfer fee?

I've been here, it seems like now uh several times over the last week or two talking about the need for additional uh affordable housing and additional resources.

But just to uh really drive home this point, we right now in the city of Boston, even though we have built a lot of affordable housing, and I think we can all be very proud of that.

We have 43,000 households, 24 percent of all renters that are extremely severely rent-burdened.

That means they're paying more than 50 percent of their gross income and rent.

13,000, almost 14,000 of those households are our older adults.

And homeownership, as we all know, is out of reach for many.

So we have been working really hard uh to build additional uh new income restricted housing and uh buying uh di existing portfolios in the market and converting them to affordable housing.

Administrator Bach and her team have been working very hard to increase the supply and to preserve what we have, but all of that activity we know is not enough.

What makes this all the more important right now, this discussion all the more important, this effort all the more important is that we do have declining funding.

Um we uh you know that because we you're looking at the budgets right now.

But HUD grants, even though we are uh watching them very closely, uh they we are seeing small declines, and we're continuing to fight to hold on to all the HUD all the HUD funding that we have.

Our one-time pandemic funding uh that you all helped us spend and craft ARPA, the CARES Act is winding down.

Revenue tied to linkage, inclusionary development is also down due to a weakening real estate market, and the city budget is constrained.

So what would we do with all this money if we had it?

We would we would be very, very happy one.

We would celebrate, and the fees would go into the neighborhood housing trust for good stewardship.

This is a city board that currently manages the funds that the city receives from linkage fees.

Funds can be used for the development or preservation of income restricted housing to a variety of housing types if the incomes are less than 80% of AMI, and the vast majority of what we spend our money serves a much lower income population.

This uh this very important legislation would also provide tax relief to senior homeowners, and I'm going to certainly pass this uh off to Emily Shea to talk about that in more detail.

Sure.

Um thank you so much.

Uh Chief Dillon, um Chair, uh Vice Chair and Council members, um, thank you for having this hearing today.

Um, age Strong supports both the transfer tax and changes to the 41C exemption.

Like you, we see older people every day who are in need of affordable housing or who are having trouble meeting all of their expenses.

Many older adults in Boston are facing challenging financial situations.

And all too often, the generation that made our cities and communities the thriving places they are today are forced to choose between paying their housing costs, eating food, and paying for medications.

In fact, for older people over 65 and living independently, over two-thirds of individuals and 43% of elder couples have incomes that are below the elder index, meaning that they have less income than it costs them to live in our city.

This makes the expansion of the 41C elderly exemption, the additional access to affordable housing that the transfer fee will support, and other benefit programs critical as they help to bridge this gap.

You can see uh on the screen the chart that outlines some of the changes that are being proposed for the 41C exemption.

Um the income limits would be increased to 50% AMI.

Um, the asset limit would be doubled for so it would move to 80,000 for an individual and 110,000 for a couple.

Um, and the amount of the exemption would also increase.

Um right now uh the exemption is a thousand, and assessing if you're eligible, can add an additional one thousand dollars.

Um, it would increase to uh 1,500 for the base amount, and assessing would be able to add an additional 1,500 to that to make a total of 3,000 for some people.

Um so we are excited about this proposal, continue to be excited about this proposal, um, and encourage the city council to move it forward.

Thank you for all of your support and advocacy for older people and folks needing assistance in the community.

And um I will turn it over to Director Bach.

Thank you so much, um, Commissioner Shea and Chief Dylan, and thank you, counselors, um, for holding this important hearing.

Uh it's something certainly a piece of legislation I was very proud to vote on when I was a counselor.

Um, and I only wish that you were not in the position of voting on it again because it had already passed.

Um, but I think it as my colleagues have already testified to, it's a really critical moment for for this piece of legislation, and so now more than ever.

Um I just wanted to reflect a little bit on why this is so important for the Boston Housing Authority.

Um, Councilor Flynn alluded to the fact that we have uh uh quite a lot of federal public housing that we're very proud to own here in Boston, but it receives still really a pittance in terms of the monthly um subsidy that supports it, and we're one of the uh we're one of those cities in the country with the most public housing authority when you put aside New York, obviously, um, that still has that's still on that old what's called the Section 9 program.

Um and one of the real challenges of affordable housing like finance is that on the voucher side you get a lot more money per month, and then on the public housing side you get a very, very small amount per month, and that really hurts our operating budgets, right?

So it means that like when we're talking about things like having security guards or additional maintenance and capital investment, like you're just not getting the money for that.

But you're gonna catch 22 because the feds won't let you switch the public housing to voucher subsidy unless you make a whole bunch of upfront investment in order to add the accessibility and the kind of like modern conveniences that this housing that we have from the 40s and 50s lack.

So in Boston, we've been in kind of this trap where in order to get to a place where we would get more money to pay for all the things that we want to support our residents in our buildings, we first need a big chunk of money in order to make those improvements.

And so, you know, the city has been incredible in stepping up or the federal government stepped back with these one-time grants to help support us on that.

Um, but it's just with the current revenue situation, just hard to get there from here in terms of how much of that support we need.

And it just to Councilor Flynn's point makes a real difference in the lives of our residents.

So I I do want to stress, you know, this this funding is both about creating new housing, but it's also about that stabilizing and long-term preservation of some of the like critical communities, especially um as has been referenced here, senior serving communities that we at BHA have in um almost every neighborhood of the city of Boston.

So I just want to stress how important this is, and also to say that you know, I think we have every reason in Boston to be really proud of the fact that we, you know, when we had this opportunity with ARPA, we actually like put spent the majority of it on housing, and we spent more of our ARPA dollars that were at the city's discretion on housing than any other city in America.

Um, and we have huge fruits to show from that.

And there's a lot of people here in this room today who've been involved in creating new housing, using that that resource.

Um but it also means that we've built a system that can continue to produce more housing if it has the resource, and it's just going to be like a real shame if as that resource diminishes the sort of pipeline and like system of like really impressive housing professionals that we have here in Boston are not able to continue to do that in the same way.

And so I just think like a lot of times when people are talking about a revenue stream, they're then worrying about some of those questions about like is this gonna be stewarded appropriately?

Will we have the infrastructure to like actually use it well, et cetera.

I think what's amazing here is that we really don't have those questions.

We know that we have the infrastructure to use it well, like we're doing it.

Um I think we're the envy of many other places in the country on that, but we just the need is so high, and and we just we really need this funding.

And and I think that these decisions are super important, they have really long tails.

Um I was thinking, Counselor Flynn, about I think one of the most like probably one of the most long-lasting accomplishments of Mayor Flynn's administration was the invention of linkage, which I know that um uh Chief Dylan mentioned, um, and you know, that continues that was something that was put in in the 80s, and it's a very small surcharge on the commercial property development, but it has funded just these like thousands of units over the 40 years since, and it is the it's a big piece of the reason that we're that city with the highest deed restricted housing in the country.

And I mean, when you think about I think I was looking up the number the other day, and like since linkage was enacted in the 80s, it's brought in 300 million, and that has turned into, like I said, that's just thousands of homes for low-income Bostonians.

So I really I'm grateful for the leaders of the past who have done things like this in those moments, and I I think it's really great if the council um can you know take that action and then ask the state house to take this action in this moment.

And I will just say on the state house, the one thing that I wanted to add before seating the floor, Madam Chair, is just that um, you know, I think this is a particularly important moment to act because we know that at the state house there's a lot of um weighing of legislation that happens in the first year of their session, and then it's often in the second year of their session, and because of the election cycle, specifically the first half of the second year, kind of up through July 31st, when a lot of the definitive action on bills happen.

And so we know that there are a number of other cities and towns that have their transfer fee um home rule petition up already.

And so I think that getting ours up there as well before the kind of like reporting deadlines and um and definitive action steps that are gonna happen uh in the later spring and summer happen is really critical, and we we because of all the urgency everyone has expressed, we cannot afford to wait another two years.

So I would just urge the council's expeditious action, and I think it's also a good reason to to sort of get it up there, knowing that the state house, you know, it's an amendable petition and they are likely to think about it in terms of all these other ones and think about how to harmonize them.

So I think it is a situation where we want to make sure that we just get something up to them as soon as we can.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much.

Uh administrator, and thank you all for your testimony.

I want to acknowledge we've been joined by counselor Fitzgerald.

Uh, before I pass it over to the lead sponsor, I do just want to um thank you for elevating the um the urgency that we have right now, or that uh that we're operating in as a city uh and where the state house is.

I think this is why, as chair, it is my goal to move this expeditiously because this is the moment to send it up to the state house and stand united as a city and really send a message to the state house that this is a priority, and this is a tool that um that we desperately need here in the city of Boston.

So thank you for that.

I'll now pass it over to Councilor Santana for his questions.

Everybody will get six minutes uh think about awesome.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, and thank you for for to our panelists.

Um I'm gonna start with um Chief Dylan, and I think you know, you think you touched on it and touched on this question.

I think Administrator Bach just also touched on it as well.

But can you break down how a transfer fee would fit into the city's broader housing strategy, um, including production preservation and anti-dis um displacement efforts?

Sure, I think you know, I uh one that if this passed, we would certainly be working with the council, the administration to really look at what the needs are at that time and come up with uh a spending plan that gets a lot of input.

But I can tell you that right now we have um uh a very long pipeline of fabulous income restricted housing that we now have to push out two, three, four years because we don't have the resources to act.

And as administrator Bach mentioned too, you know, public our public housing is always it doesn't have enough resources to really be preserved, and so I mean I think there's a very big preservation component, and I think we know we have a pipeline of fabulous projects that we could advance.

Uh of course, then they have to go to the state and other places, but still we would be able to fully fund and and move those things forward, whether we spend it more on housing for our seniors or BPS families or you know, uh supportive housing for folks exiting homelessness.

We would work be working very closely with the council to look at the data at that time, but the need is endless, and we we do uh as was mentioned, we do have really wonderful partners that we we want to support, we want to support because of their talents.

So short answer would be working very closely with you, but the need is is significant, and we've got a pipeline already.

Thank you.

Um and Commissioner Shay, I you know I really appreciate you being here.

Um I think uh when drafting this, right?

I think we we all think about our seniors um and uh the situation that many of them are going through.

So I know you touched on it, but uh could you know how would an additional targeted relief um funded through something like the transfer fee translate into real tangible support for our seniors and I you know I do want to thank all of our seniors who are here with us today who have been working on this um for so many years.

Um but um Commissioner Shay um if you may.

Sure.

Um we know that um uh that having more people eligible for this benefit and the 41C exemption and also uh having that be more money would be enormous to our older people.

We just held a series of cost-saving clinics across the city, um, and we were out there enrolling people in the 41C and other benefit programs.

Um when you hear some of the stories out there of folks that have done everything right in their lives and um still don't have the money to meet their basic expenses.

Um it just I I think really puts uh a face to the fact that these programs are are critical.

Um and so it's being able to expand eligibility for the exemption um and making it more money, I think would would have a huge impact on people.

Thank you.

Um thank you for your efforts um and in leading um uh you know our seniors.

Um administrator Bach, um really appreciate you being here.

Um, and you know, as someone who grew up in in public housing, I um you know I have a real interest on how um this transfer fee would help our our public housing residents um and in particular you know our seniors.

I know I know you touched on this uh as well in your opening remarks.

Um what with with this transfer fee?

How how what would what can public housing residents expect um and real life change um you know once it's transferred.

Yeah, so thank you, counselor.

I think it's both um it's both the you know funding to make those big one-time investments.

Um, and again, we're it's not that we're not doing those.

We've got we're very excited to have the St.

Patolf project underway in the Back Bay, for example, but it's just that we have so many of these large senior buildings that need those kind of investments, um, and this would let us do more of them.

But also the key thing is it's not just the one time because when we make the one time, we're able to make that switch to a subsidy that provides a more like reasonable ongoing operating budget so that you also don't end up with the same deferred maintenance needs that you that you have with the really low budget today.

So I think it's really transformative and and really as I said the the BHA is already like has a plan to transform all of our senior developments.

It's just that the time horizon of it is so extremely long without more resource.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you.

Um, Madam Chair, I think it's clear you know the urgency um that is required at this moment.

Um so I really appreciate Madam Chair that um uh you're prioritizing this, you know, moving forward and and and hopefully we're able to pass this quickly through um through our through the council.

So um again, thank you to our panelists for being here.

Um I'm very much in support of this.

I'm very much a support of our seniors who who need the relief.

Um, and we want to make sure that they age um and play its way with respect and dignity.

So um thank you, Madam Chair, for um for allowing me to ask questions.

Thank you, uh Councillor Santana, and shout out to the seniors who are here, massive action.

We have we got CBA here, we got a great group of folks that I can't wait to hear from.

But uh we'll now go to Council Luigi for her questions.

Thank you, uh Madam Chair, and thank you to the administration um for your presentation.

Um, a lot of the statistics are just incredibly sobering when we think about the needs.

And yeah, I I I remember being on a panel after this new administration came in and just the warning signs of how important it is for us to think about at the state and local revenue how we can generate our own revenue in light of everything that is happening, um, and it becomes more and more pressing.

Um a few weeks ago, I was at the Woods Mulling Shelter, Woman's shelter, and uh I was with talking to the friends of the Boston Homeless who told me that there's uh she's been seeing a significant increase in the number of our elderly women who are facing housing insecurity.

I'm wondering, Commissioner Shea, if you can, you know, and that was startling to me.

It was a statistic that just made me completely uncomfortable and made me think about what are we doing and what can we do to push back against that reality for our seniors who have given the city so much, who have done so much for the city, and who should be able to be living in their uh golden years stress-free.

So I'm wondering like what is behind that statistic, and I'm I'm assuming the transfer fee is one of the things that we can use to address it, but would love to hear from you.

Sure.

Um, so you're I think um, you know, you've you heard me talk about that elder index and the cost of living versus incomes.

I think uh there's a lot of complicated pieces that go into how much money someone has at the end of their life, and certainly for women who may have had lower paying jobs, who may have had time out of the workforce.

Um, most Social Security payments are uh you know dwarfed in terms of the size, you know, they they don't pay all of the expenses that somebody has.

So if someone has a small Social Security payment, um they maybe maybe have a pension um, but probably not, um, then they're not going to be able to meet uh the cost of living in Boston.

So then I think what you're left with is figuring out then how do you help someone access the benefits that are available.

Um so maybe they are lucky enough to get a BHA unit where they're paying 30% of their income for rent.

Um but uh but if they're a property owner, right?

What are the tools that we have that allow them to then kind of cover that gap?

Um there's the property tax workout program, there's a senior circuit breaker tax credit at the state level.

Um, but this elderly exemption is a huge part of that.

Um what what this uh transfer fee would do, or what this um bill would do is more than double um the uh the um income guidelines for people, so it would take it from 22.4% AMI for an individual to 50% AMI.

Um that's a lot more people who might be eligible to get that assistance.

And I think when we think about benefits out be quick, but um it it's not just one thing that's gonna help people.

We need people to be eligible for a whole range of things to be able to cover cover the gap.

Right.

Um thank you for that.

And one again, shout out thank Mass Senior Action Council has been incredibly active in just alerting us to these issues and just hearing them and seeing them in real time was just really sobering.

And so I want to thank you for the work that you do.

Um uh commissioner Bach, yeah.

Administrative Bach.

There you go.

Um I remember, you know, this is the third time that this issue is before the council.

Uh I was glad to vote on it every single for me, and I think for you as well, every single time.

The legislation has also changed.

Actually, I um I think one of the first time that it came, I was not on the council, but the second time I was.

Um I and I think it's worth mentioning that some of the you know that this legislation has changed in response to some of the feedback already.

Because originally the legislation was gonna capture um all of the value above two million uh including the two million dollars, and right now it's the value just above two million dollars.

And I want I want to express that this legislation has responded to some of the criticism that is out there.

It's not just this is our this is the way and it must be this way.

You know, we we've listened to some of the concerns and it has changed, you know, maybe capturing less overall money for affordable housing, but doing the work that I think is important in policy and in politics of negotiating so that we can advance what we need to do as a city and get revenue.

So I just wanted to put that um the record because before it was capturing um all value above two million dollars and above, and now it's just the two million above the two million dollar amount, which is a lesser amount, but would still generate anywhere between depending on a number of factors, 50 to 100 million dollars projections are.

I know that we are not when you look when you look at local housing solutions around the country, transfer fee is often one of the first ones listed as a way of generating affordable housing, and I always ask about the comparative lens to other cities that have something similar.

Um so whether it's Chief Dylan or Administrator Bach, um, if you could address that question about cities that have enacted transfer fees and what we've seen there.

Do you know that?

Um there's a number of jurisdictions.

I'm sorry, I don't have the list in front of me right now, um, counselor, but we can get that for you.

Um but uh I mean it's funny, it's actually something that um we have in a very small way here in Boston on the the BPDA um parcels that were redeveloped in Charlestown at a time when they had like you know they had like no economic value, but the city wanted to see economic value, it sort of gave that value away to people, but it said, hey, in the future when this is worth a bunch more money when you sell it, we're gonna take a little two percent um transfer.

So the funny thing is we actually have that even here in that specific circumstance.

Um you know, in in Massachusetts, there's some specific trust funds out on the CAPEM that operate this way.

Uh and um and and I think in many ways they're just responding to the same issues that we have.

So this is not a novel, I think I want to emphasize this is not actually a novel framework even here in the Commonwealth.

Um, and uh, and to your point, it has been adjusted.

I think the original threshold was one million too.

Did it go up?

I think it was always two.

Always two, but yeah, but we got rid of, as you said, all the number, and and and I think like also the mass senior action's been mentioned several times, but they were a huge part of adding the senior property tax piece that um Commissioner Shea's been talking about.

So, like you say, there was a lot of a lot of editing and and amending that happened.

Sorry, the only thing I would add is that there are so many cities and towns in Massachusetts that also want have filed home rule petitions because they're they're running into the same issue that and and we support them because we want this to be a regional solution, a statewide solution.

So it's not just Boston, it's there's so many, you know, towns, cities that want this tool, and that's why it's it's just so critical that they they make it available to us, of course, but they recognize that cities and towns need this now.

And I think one of the benefits, just when we think about because we're obviously in a season, every city in town, not just Boston is under a lot of financial pressure right now in Massachusetts, and so you've got a lot of towns right that are talking about prop two and a half for overrides.

One of the challenges of that, because it's broad-based, is that anybody who's having the type of issue that Commissioner Shea was talking about has the same issue.

If you do an override and you're going up higher, then if they're sitting in a house with a lot of value but they don't intend to go anywhere, then they're trying to figure out how to find that additional payment out of pocket.

The wonderful thing about a transfer fee as a narrowly tailored policy approach is that you are only taking the fee at the time of the transaction.

So you're taking it at the time when there is cash liquidity available.

You're not saying to somebody, oh, I need you to get cash out of this house that right now you're living in like as a home, right?

So I think it's actually a very well-designed policy intervention compared to that broad base, like, oh, just do an override.

Well, that's really gonna hit everybody who is not currently doing a transfer.

Yeah.

I 100% agree.

I think it's narrowly tailored, it affects 10% of housing, it would affect 10% of housing transact transactions that people obviously want this, cities obviously want this, and for the second time, I will be very happy to be voting in support of the transfer fee once again.

I want to thank Councilor Santana for his leadership and thank the chair.

Thank you.

Councilor Louise Jeanne, Councillor Braden, and then Flynn.

Thank you.

Um thank you to my senior action for being here and your older advocacy.

Um my particular question is probably just focused on I I think of an elderly tsunami of housing challenged uh populations and I as uh baby boomers age, we're we're gonna hit the peak of that.

And in terms of what do you anticipate in terms of increased demand and how we how will this policy really help address that in terms of more housing for our seniors?

Sure.

Um so typically I I don't like the word uh like silver tsunami, right?

Because I I feel like uh we should getting older is a good thing.

However, housing challenge tsunami, I think is probably the correct term.

Um I think that um uh you know we we have had a 61% increase in our older population in the last 25 years that will continue to climb through 2050.

Um so we are our oldest baby boomers are only 80 years old, um, which really is not that old.

Um so uh so I think uh we will just see um these challenges magnified.

Um you know, we're not going to have we're we're still going to have a huge number of older people that do not have the resources that they need to meet their basic needs.

And and as numbers, as age increases, as numbers increase, as people actually continue to live longer and need more resources to get through the end of their life, um, though that is just going to complicate things.

So that's the one one very pertinent reason why we need to have more have this transfer fee.

If you think of nothing else, yes, think of our our elderly population who are increasing the housing challenge.

So um so thank you.

I I really will support this yet again and hope that uh it is successful this time when it gets to the state house.

But thank you all for your advocacy and all the great work.

Um Madam Chair, who's um Mr.

Chair, um I will yield my time uh because we're really interested in hearing from our public testimony when we when it comes alone.

And um, Madam Chair, if I may, uh uh as you know, I um I actually have a meeting with the state about a large um development in Councillor Braden's district, Fannual Gardens, um, where the state's giving us 20 million dollars again back on this big nut, and uh they scheduled a meeting with the undersecretary for 11.

And when you're receiving the 20 million dollars, you don't say can we reschedule?

So I um I I am unfortunately having to exit, and I'm sorry about that to the council and all the counselors.

I would just say go, go go.

Thank you, Administrator.

Um apologies, Councilor Brandon?

Uh Council Flynn, you now have the floor.

Thank you, madam chair, and many of my questions were about BHA developments and how we support our BHA residents.

Um obviously the administrator has left, so I'm gonna have to change my questioning, unfortunately.

Um want to say thank you to Emily Shay and to Sheila Dylan for the important work you've done, work with both of you for eight years and respect the work you do.

Um and worked with Sheila on on many of these um developments over the last eight years.

Sheila, um let me ask what what is the do we be before we vote on this, do we do we consider the reasons why it wasn't approved at the State House before?

And do we tailor the arguments in any any way that is different because it wasn't um approved, and do we learn anything from previous home rule petitions that we're including now in in this discussion I think that's a that's a very fair question.

I I think the largest change that we've made is the exemption of the first two million dollars of value because we did hear that you know uh a homeowner or uh a small landlord might have one one or two assets, and it was important for them to be able to sell and and realize those profits.

So by exempting now uh the first two million, I think that really was a very responsible um response to that.

Uh I think what I would add as well is that it was very popular at the State House last time, and it came down to just uh a few individuals at the very end that had some issues with it, but overall it was very, very popular, and people felt very good that it was a reasonable, rational, almost conservative response, but that would have yielded a big result.

So I think we just need to be working with everyone up there and answer their questions.

Um lastly, I would say that, and I think this is the theme today, times have changed, and uh if we're gonna continue to be Boston and build a lot of income restricted housing, especially for our families and our older adults, then we have to pass this.

I mean it's critical.

There's no other resource.

So I think the I think the conditions have changed, but I think we have been listening and we have made modifications.

Thank you, Sheila.

I also want to recognize the seniors that are here and the residents, many from the South and Chinatown Chinese Progressive Association and the Chinatown Residents Association.

Does this impact, does this home rule petition, would it eventually impact other cities and towns in Massachusetts?

Is it focused on Boston?

And give us a little bit of background information on that, please.

Yeah.

So this home rule petition would only impact a transfers or sales in Boston.

As I mentioned earlier, there are many cities and towns in Massachusetts that have also already filed their own versions of transfer fee, but this would impact Boston only.

Are there are there a home rule petitions up at the State House that are awaiting debate or awaiting um approval?

Dozens.

And I can get you the list.

I don't have it in front of me, but I can get you the list of all the cities and towns that have filed.

Okay.

Sheila, um one one question I have.

Say say you own a home for a million dollars, and and and many working class families have a home for a million dollars.

It's not um it's not out of out of the possibility.

Sure.

Umtown Boston or or the South End of or South Boston or any neighborhoods, eventually it's going to be a two million dollar home, maybe in 15 years from now.

But does that mean if you sell that home or or give it to your family, a family member, are you also subjected to that transfer fee?

So um f it right now in the ordinance uh transfers between family members are exempt or transfers of convenience, sounds like a legal term, they're exempt, and we can do more exemptions.

We we have the authority in the ordinance to do more exemptions, so we would be working closely with you on that.

In the scenario that you put forth, if I understand it uh correctly, because you're selling it for two million dollars, you would you would it would not trigger, it would not trigger any fee.

Anything over two million?

Right.

Anything because it's if you sell it for like two million, you would Okay.

Because you're exempting the first two million dollars.

So if you sold it for 2.5 million, you'd be $500,000.

Your fee would be applied to the $500,000 only.

And how much would how much would you uh be taxed on on that if it was $2.5 million?

10 $10,000.

Okay.

And that money would go back into the City of Boston general funding.

It goes we go to the the way that it's drafted now, we go to the neighborhood housing trust, of which the city council has you know a seat on, and um they would disperse, they would disperse the the funds.

Well, um Madam Chair, I'm almost out of time.

Want to say thank you to Sheila, wanted to say thank you to Emily, wanted to acknowledge council counsel, former council block for acknowledging the incredible role the Flint administration played in linkage.

Um thank you for your time.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn.

Uh Council Culpepper.

Thank you, Councillor Zapata.

Uh Sheila, you know, we I heard you mention that times have changed.

I want to talk about a little bit about the 2028 program.

I remember how significant the 2028 program was.

What was the impact of the 2028 program?

And let's just forget about the 811 piece.

Let's just look at 202, the impact that that had on senior housing, and what's left of it, if any.

So I I loved the 202 program.

Um it was a wonderful for folks that are watching and that don't know um what it was.

It was uh it was a federally funded program and it was rigorous, it was hard to get, but we were successful because we work with a lot of good nonprofits, and the FUD would uh HUD would provide two things.

They would provide the capital to build the the the development, and they would also provide the operating subsidies to really reach our our you know lowest income seniors.

So it was just it was like gold.

And every year Boston would apply, and I wasn't in this role, but I was in a different role, and we would get one, if we were lucky, two developments.

Now it doesn't sound like a lot, but if you get one or two every single year, that is very those are translates into thousands of units over time for our older adults.

And we have, and I didn't bring it with me, but I can certainly get it for it for you.

We have you know thousands of two or two units here, and then we would do our own thing, right?

We would fund our own projects, but we'd had that steady federal source.

And I'll go to my grave not understanding why the the federal government stopped the program.

So I mean, but isn't there a piece of the tool two program left?

There is there is there is, but it's much, it's much reduced.

Do you want to and so do we get any of that money from the tool two that it's it's very hard to get the the pot is much much much smaller?

There's there's one.

I think we got one.

It's it's a it's a very small amount of money.

And um, is it just for it's just for operating?

Just for operating.

It's just for operating.

It's very hard to do.

So it's not capital.

Yeah, it's not capital.

But it's it's it's it's um, and we can get you this information, it's much, much smaller as a general as a line item than it ever than it ever was.

And our last building was 2012.

Yeah.

That our last like over by Franklin Park with the Howard Johnson's used to be.

Oh, that was a full 202.

That was a full.

That was a full 202, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And that was a you know, I watched them develop that from Howard Johnson's to the now.

And it's a beautiful building.

Beautiful community.

Let me just ask you something about the transfer fee.

Is there some way to convince the legislature that with this transfer fee, in a sense, it would be replacing what was ended by Congress with the 202?

We'd certainly make the make the case um that it we don't we don't have a uh source right now that's dedicated uh for senior housing, although by hookup by crook we have been building a lot of new senior housing, but it's uh you know it's certainly not enough, and it's taking resources away from from other needs.

So I think what I'm hearing today, and I feel it too.

I think a lot of this new resource would be certainly dedicated for for housing for our older adults.

And what about for the operating costs?

Because we know 202 gave the operating money for the assisted living, that's where the assisted living piece came in.

Would this transfer fee also go to the assisted living piece?

We'd have to operate funds.

We'd have to talk about that because you know, um right now we've been at least getting on our old our our buildings with for older adults.

We've been using project-based section eights or the MRBPs from the state.

Um I'm always a little bit worried about uh this is a pretty consistent, this would be a pretty consistent source of funding, but what if there were no sales?

And you know, I think we'd have to think through whether or not there's any risk of using it for operating, but that would be a nice problem to have.

And and with regard to the project-based Section 8, even though they are senior in a sense, there's not the operating piece that goes with that Section 8.

Those seniors are still making do on their own without the additional funding for an assisted living development.

That that is true.

I'm gonna hand this over to Emily.

I will say though, that um because the housing authority is using small area FMRs, they they oftentimes are throwing off some money, some money for seniors, but uh the very talented nonprofits have been using pace and various other outside uh resources.

But Emily, I don't know if you want to add.

I I'm I I think that you're talking about resident service coordination in buildings and that type of resident service coordination, I think is critical to making a good building, right?

Uh one where residents can live and have some support and and um age within the building.

Um it is uh it is certainly challenging unless you have the right funding model for that.

I I will say add one thing though, when if we are funding a building for older adults or uh any kind of special population that needs services, we are requiring very detailed service plans before we fund.

We really want to make sure that the developer has thought things through and and there the the plans that we typically get are very satisfactory.

Well, Sheila, thank you.

My time is up, and uh I'd like to continue this discussion.

Yeah.

Um good morning to see the Mass Senior Action Council.

Good to see y'all here this morning.

And the uh Asian Community Development Corporation along with the East Boston Community Development Corporation.

I've got to run to that EMT graduation, but it's just good to see you.

And uh I think it's important that we continue the discussion, especially with regard to that two old tool money that disappeared.

And hopefully we can get this transfer fee passed.

Just one real question.

Uh let's say it gets to the House.

Is there much discussion going on with the Senate about this transfer fee position provision?

It I um you know I'm looking at IGR and everything, but I I to the best of my knowledge, we we really want to pass as as Administrator Box said, get this up and start those dialogues.

Uh, there's a lot there, you know, that they're um involved with right now, so I think we need to move this so we have the time to have the discussion with both the House and the Senate.

Great, thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Culpepper.

Uh we'll go to Council Weber and then Councillor Fitzgerald, and then we're gonna go to public testimony because I know some folks um do have to go.

Uh Council Weber, you have the floor.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh it's great to see everybody, including uh I know uh Councilor Flynn's constituents who I got to meet with uh in in Chinatown uh this week uh or a few nights ago.

Um so uh I I have to leave here for a forum at BC on housing for students.

Uh and um you know we've we we've talked about there's you know uh five thousand homeless uh students uh students in BPS experience homelessness every year.

So can you is there would there be an impact or you know, on where would we be able to uh address that issue with the uh with the money we get from the transfer fee?

Absolutely.

So, you know, the one of the I mean the main reason people are homeless is because they're they can't afford their housing.

Uh the main reason.

And you know, in every development that we fund, there's a set aside for homeless families or homeless seniors, and and so it's 10 percent.

So even if we're not building housing that's dedicated to homeless populations, which sometimes we do, we are we have over 5,000 units dedicated for for homeless families and seniors.

So the more affordable housing we build, the more people will have opportunity to live in something they can afford.

What beyond that, you know, do we help them?

Do we spend some of this money on programs or uh you know access to counsel or other things?

That we would have to debate uh and the ordinance gives allows us to do that.

Okay.

Um and then you know, it's something about this where I I know uh I I think at the State House there have been proposals to you know have tax relief, but without revenue sources coming from other places.

I I do like the this you know how this is presented in that we can provide tax relief, but we're not gonna have to cut other needed programs to give that tax relief.

There is a transfer fee built in.

Can you just talk a little bit about that that balancing act?

Sure.

Uh I mean I I think the ability to raise revenue and provide targeted relief need to go in tandem.

I I mean I we're about to enter budget cycle, and I don't think anyone is happy with budgets.

Um and so when there's not enough money to cover um, you know, when that money isn't there or or you're taking in less revenue, you're going to have to cut on the other side, and you're gonna be cutting some things that people um that are really important to people.

I don't think we're we're at a point where there's like excess stuff that we're doing that um is easy to cut.

Everything that's being cut are things that are really important.

So okay, and then uh I guess I I think each year we look at um like the fair share amendment and the the revenue seems to be above what they've anticipated.

Like is I mean we you you gave us your sort of like what we would have seen the last four years if we had this um you know it I I don't know if if our experience with that has informed, like do you know do we think that there will be additional funds or I guess I'm asking you know how do you respond to maybe an argument that people aren't gonna be selling because of the the transfer fee and um you know unintended consequences.

Sure.

I I um I think that's a fair question.

I can't imagine um an owner foregoing very, very, very large profits, millions and millions and millions of dollars in some cases, tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars in some cases, for relatively small fee.

Um if people need to sell or want to sell, they sell.

Um so I don't I can't imagine a two percent fee being, especially if we're exempting the first two million being a deterrent.

Um I just I I can't imagine.

Maybe I maybe there's something I'm missing there, but it it doesn't seem logical to me.

Um so I I think that's all all the questions I had.

Thank you very much.

I I I apologize to the second panel and all the amazing advocates who are here recognized a lot of you.

Uh but I I have to go to this uh housing forum in Councillor Braden's district.

Uh but uh so thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh Councilor Fitzgerald?

Thank you, madam chair.

Um so I'm still like on the fence of of this uh transfer free if he of um not only like should we have one, but also I guess the details that are in this specific proposal of what it is because I think about you know a couple of questions I have that just when I first first blush at it is like the exemption of two million and in the future, I think council Flynn sort of uh alluded to this is the the future values for middle class families of is that gonna be the average cost of a middle class home in the future of you know two million, two plus the three, et cetera.

Um I'm thinking if I can stick around and and give my house or build equity in my house to to give to my kids, you know, how much of a chunk of at that age will I say, wait, I worked my whole life to to build up this and put it in and um uh and then to take you know, whatever, 10, 20, 30.

I mean it's still that's still a sizable amount of money.

Um I'm sorry, these are just like if I could just interject something.

The ordinance does allow for a revaluation of the exemption every five years, and it looks at the percentage change in the real estate market.

So it does keep pace.

So 30 years from now and your house is worth 150 million dollars.

Like it would be.

Yes, you've seen my house, right?

Okay, you know.

It would it would it would keep pace.

So the exemption for the average person would would would be the correct one.

Okay.

No, that that that's that's great news.

I appreciate that education.

Um there some more qualifiers around the exemptions that we could add.

I know like I'm thinking of taking care of our own, taking care of those that live in Boston, born but raised in Boston, are sticking, put their roots down and said, I'm making this my home.

If they qualify for residential exemption, can they be exempt from a transfer fee or have a greater exemption on the transfer fee or a higher I think the the well, I know the ordinance does allow for us all if it passed for all of us to add exemptions, reasonable exemptions.

So those conversations could certainly take place, and and um speaking for myself, I would love to have them because we don't want to harm the average person doing the right thing, providing for their family.

We just want to capture something from those that have like a lot to share.

So, you know, I think we are really truly all ears, and I love the language, it really allows us to have those debates and discussions.

Um thank you.

Um I can appreciate and understand the need to find more funding for housing, right?

We know that it everything else is uh all the spigots are off and and we're trying to grab it whatever we can.

I just have I'm slightly wary of doing so at the potential, you know, your average resident of Boston that they're the ones that are going to be saddled with yet, maybe they'll they'll I'm just trying to think of people saying another tax, this is all you guys are and after all these years, all the work I put in and you know the work I put into this house and I've worked for the city and da-da-da-da.

And then you're just gonna take more, and I I I just I hope it's not viewed as such, but you know people will feel that way ultimately.

Sure, that's why I think education is gonna be very, very important, especially as this advances, right?

You know, my house personally, I mean, I it I it's not worth two million dollars, right?

So I will I now but if if this every five years we will increase the exemption, you know, I I you know wouldn't pay in, although I would gladly, but I I I won't be required to.

So I think it the the safeguards for the average person or the average homeowner are very much built in here.

Great.

I appreciate that, Shaw.

Thank you.

Um does this in from a timing perspective, given that uh Boston from an investment level standpoint, you know, nationwide, we're sort of at the bottom of the list I hear.

People, you know, there's a lot of different things going forward with people saying, you know, between cost and policies and this and that.

Um is this something that we think like at this moment, does this sort of just kind of add to that of like just another reason like well, keep your money out of Boston.

Um and you know, just thinking about development and spurring all that stuff, creating jobs, creating growing the tax base, et cetera.

Um does this help that story or um I guess it depends on who you speak, you know.

Yeah, no, right, right.

These are the things I'm thinking about.

No, I I I I I understand and I I appreciate that argument.

I guess I would say if you're really looking at this moment in time, and this is Sheila Dillon speaking, we have never needed additional resources more, and I forget who said it.

We can't even count on the federal government anymore.

It's it's just and we are really debating whether we have to start saying no to our our pipeline, and this is housing for seniors, families, homeownership developments, right?

Oh it's such good stuff.

And we're starting to say no, we're gonna have to say no soon.

And so if developers or very you know wealthier developers are a little discouraged, I would like to work with them and hear from them, but I'm I guess I'm more concerned about really turning off the sp spigot to like just wonderful development that's gonna house our residents.

Yeah, I mean, uh I'm all for the speculative developers and the folks that are you know live outside the city and own multiple units, and when they decide to sell off and things like you know, all emission hill and all of the you know, a lot of all bright and a lot of these the rental neighborhoods, like absolutely like pay up, right?

They've been they've been doing just fine off our backs for a long time.

So completely agree with that.

Just trying to think of more protections around the residents of the city of Boston.

Of course, yeah.

Uh but um thank you very much for the answers.

They were very helpful to help me understand a lot more.

And um, I I see back my last 15 seconds.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Counselor Uh Fitzgerald.

I just have one question.

Um, you had mentioned uh this could have generated 180 million dollars for affordable housing programs.

What does that roughly translate to in terms of units?

So um, you know, it all depends like homeownership because there's only there's few resources.

We you know, we typically put in over a hundred uh thousand dollars a unit, a rental would be less than, so we could just sort of do do the math.

I mean, I we could I'm looking at Chris.

Um, but we could do we could get that to you, like on average of if we look at what we're putting into projects, both homeownership or or rental, what our average is over the last same time period, four years, and we could get you that number.

Okay, and just yeah, a lot.

Uh yeah, a lot, a lot.

But we could we'll get you the exact number, what we based look at the averages.

It would take us, you know, an hour to compute.

I would love to get the data, but just based on my iPhone calculator.

If it's a hundred thousand dollars for homeownership, you said, right?

Or through the little a little over a hundred for homeownership, so say a hundred and twenty five, yeah, 150, and then rental would be less than about about a hundred, Chris, or a little less than about a hundred.

So that's 1800 right there.

Yeah.

So I think that's that's a huge number.

It is a very, very big number.

And you think about it once this passed every single year, it just makes such a difference.

Yeah, vital, vital resource.

Thank you so much for being here.

We're gonna transition to public testimony.

Uh yes.

Uh, I just wanted to ask one question.

Do we have is it yet set up whether or not this is going to funnel through the neighborhood housing trust or what like how that would work?

In the ordinance, it does go to the neighborhood housing trust.

Um, which for for folks that don't follow this maybe as closely you all do, because you've had members that are you've had members that are members, it's a really well-run, and there's community members on there, there's it's I got a discipline.

Oh, I think it's great.

Yeah, it's really a it's a good safe place to put the money.

Do you know how much money is in the neighborhood housing trust right now?

Chris?

Okay.

So this would substantially add to that.

Not enough.

Okay, yeah.

And I just want to reiterate it's the math shows that it would affect 10% of the sales in the city of Boston.

Yeah, which is a super minority.

And just for the record, because you had said uh five million in there right now, and they're gonna collect 10 million this year.

Okay, great.

Just because people couldn't hear you.

Yeah, all right.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

We're gonna start with uh Chinatown um progressive association.

We have Jenny Huang and Bing Ma.

Like to approach the microphone, just sit your name.

And you have two minutes.

Hi, my name is Jenny Huang, and I'm testifying on behalf of Chinese Progressive Association.

And so on behalf of our members and residents of Boston Chinatown, the Chinese Progressive Association, it's here today to support the home rule petition, sponsored by Councillor Santana, Luigi and Dirk in for the real estate transfer fee and senior property tax relief.

So for those of us who live and work in the Chinatown neighborhood, we have witnessed the impact of housing and commercial development boom.

But at the same time, we have failed to see how immigrant and low income families have been able to reap the benefits of this kind of development.

And we see how difficult it's been for our working class families to find and secure safe and stable places to live within such a limited supply of truly affordable housing in and around Chinatown.

Many of our residents work in the service industry in restaurants, grocery stores, and hotels, and constantly worry about being displaced.

With rent surging, our city our city desperately needs additional resources to expand its affordable housing stock, especially for a low income residents.

So a transfer fee would generate millions of dollars each year for their affordable housing programs that are critical to the stabilization of our communities.

By passing petitions like this one, our city will have the funds it needs for the kind of housing development that will truly support our immigrant and working class families.

So we urge you to pass this petition and thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Jenny.

So my name is Ma Bing Xiang.

My family, a household of three, lives in Chinatown, and I urge all counselors to support the petition for a special law, the actual relative real estate transfer fee and senior property tax relief.

We have lived in Chinatown for over 13 years.

It was a single year unit, yet the rent was already exorbitant at 1,035 per month.

And subsequently, my landlord decided not to renew the government agreement that preserved the building as affordable housing, forcing all 12 households to vacate.

With the exception of just one family, the remaining 11 families, even those holding Section 8 housing vouchers were unable to find suitable housing within Chinatown and were forced to move out of the neighborhood entirely.

However, I only had six months to find a new home, a time frame that made finding a home in Chinatown virtually impossible.

Over the past decade or so, I've witnessed numerous low-rise buildings in Chinatown change ownership.

Invariably, whenever a building changes hands, the low-income families residing there are once again subjected to forced displacement.

Take 106 Tyler Street as an example.

As around 2016, the original owner sold the property to a new owner who paid over $3 million to acquire it.

Immediately thereafter, the new owner evicted all the low-income tenants, including the hair salon located on the ground floor.

Now that same owner is looking to sell the building again, listing it with an asking price of 4.5 million.

You can find further details in the attached documents.

Therefore, I stand before you today to make a feverant appeal to the government and please pass this policy.

It would serve as a deterrent against real estate expectators driving up prices while simultaneously generating additional funding for affordable housing initiatives.

It's a win-win solution.

I sincerely hope the city will take action to stabilize our working class community and pass this legislation as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, next up we'll have uh Michael Kane and Cortina Vann, Adam Block.

Thank you, Counselor.

Thank you for holding this hearing.

Uh I'm Michael Kane from the Mass Alliance of HUD tenants.

We're a statewide tenant group in privately owned subsidized housing.

Um, and we strongly support efforts to get more money for low-income renters.

Uh should note that the city rent subsidy program has been reduced by two million dollars in the mayor's budget request, which I hope you all can fix during the budget process.

Uh but I want to emphasize that this home rule petition is mainly gonna tap the large commercial and industrial and office developers who buy and sell uh property like a monopoly game in the seaport in downtown.

That's where the real value is.

It's not the homeowners so much.

It's these large developers.

I'll give one example.

Skanska, a Swedish company built 101 Seaport for 150 million dollars in 2015.

They flipped it two years later for 450 million to a German company.

So there's 300 million dollars of speculative gain that inflates all the overall market that is was left on the table.

The city didn't get uh hardly any of that money.

Uh and who would care if they were taxed if there was a uh transfer fee taxing these two large corporate global investors?

That's where most of the uh 50 to 100 million dollars a year would come from, not the homeowners.

So uh those there's a condo owners uh at places like uh uh the millennium building.

Those condos are selling for 10, 20 million dollars.

Who cares?

Uh you know, they can afford a small, the buyer or seller can afford a small fee.

So I just wanted to emphasize that.

Strongly support passage of this home rule petition.

We need to concentrate on the Senate to get it passed, and uh looking to the counselors that could help with with uh Senate uh Senator Collins, for example, who's been an obstacle in getting any kind of home rule petition from Boston.

Uh so we need help at the State House to get this stuff done.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Michael.

Uh Cortina Van good morning.

Um thank you to uh Chairwoman Coletta Zapata, um, the leading sponsors of this um submission and members of the committee.

My name is Courtina Van.

I'm an organizer.

I'm also part of the board of the BNCLT, Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust, and I'm an organizer at Maha, Massachusetts Affordable Home Ownership Alliance.

We encourage you to pass this proposal and set it into the State House as soon as possible.

As city and state budgets come under increasing strain, passing a real estate transfer fee on multi-million dollar transactions is one of the most important actions Boston and state legislators can take to address our affordability crisis.

Our people need relief, and we need legislation to increase our collective capacity to respond.

We thank Mayor Wu and all of you who have supported this effort.

Let's make sure we get the new petition passed and through the legislature.

Maha's mission is to educate and mobilize people, to break down barriers for first-time home buyers, first generation home buyers and homeowners.

We teach homeownership classes and offer participants the opportunity to help advocate for the resources and policies our communities need.

We graduated over 1,800 home buyers in 2025 and over 1,300 from our homeowner classes.

72 of them have household incomes below 80% of AMI area media income.

We are committed to opening up opportunities for these buyers, stabilizing our community homeowners, and reducing the racial homeownership gap in Boston and across the state.

To do that, we need dedicated affordable housing production resources like the transfer fee.

Maha also supports the provisions in this proposal related to updating the income limits for property tax relief for Boston seniors.

Many are really struggling to make ends meet, as we've heard, and we know.

Maha welcomes the opportunity to engage with the mayor, the mayor, members of the city council, state legislators, and other stakeholders to pass this locally and at the state house.

Thank you once again for allowing me the opportunity to express Maha's support today.

Thank you, Cortina, and thank you for everything you do.

Adam and then Corinne.

Thank you, uh Counselors and Madam Chair.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

My name is Adam Block, and I'm the director of real estate for the Commonwealth Land Trust.

We're a Boston-based nonprofit.

Our mission is to preserve neighborhoods and to prevent homelessness.

We focus on servicing very low-income residents and individuals who face significant barriers to housing, including those transitioning out of homelessness.

We've been committed to developing and preserving deed-restricted, deeply affordable housing in Boston for over 40 years.

Today, we develop and operate affordable housing with integrated supportive services.

Our model is a proven solution that stabilizes neighborhoods and stabilizes lives.

We've worked very closely with the city of Boston and in particular with a dedicated and professional team, the mayor's office of housing, over the past several years to advance our mission.

During this time, we've developed 50 units of supportive housing for Boston residents and will soon close on our financing to develop an additional 16 units that will bring to market next year.

Over the course of the last five years, residential condominium values in Boston have appreciated by more than 15%, while single family homes in Boston have appreciated by 30%, both of which far outpacing salary uh growth that significantly and adversely affects housing affordability in the city.

Funds collected from the subject transfer fee would represent a critical source of financing affordable housing.

Local city funds are a requirement to unlock state and uh other sources of financing.

These projects require strong um, these projects require strong partnerships that enable the city to leverage state, federal, and other private sources to help address local needs.

The city's involvement is an integral piece of that effort because city committed funds trigger um trigger additional funds that can double or triple the actual amount from the city itself.

So it's a critical resource.

We're grateful for the city's continued partnership and commitment to expanding affordable housing opportunities, and we look forward to uh working uh on this together.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Adam.

Next up, we have Corinne Morissett.

Okay.

Um we're gonna move to the advocates panel and then take uh the second round of public testimony after.

Um so at this moment I'd like to welcome uh Tanya Hanal, who's the co-executive director of the East Boston CDC, uh Angie uh Liu, who's the executive director of the Asian uh CDC, ACDC, and Lily Bryant, the Boston chapter president of Mass Senior Action Council, to come and uh sit on the floor with us.

And then if folks have signed in but do not want to testify, we're gonna put this back up there.

If you want to just put an X near name for the second round, please feel free to do that.

Thank you.

Okay, welcome.

We're so happy to have you.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be here.

Um I'll pass it over, I don't Tanya.

I know you, so you're going first.

So please feel free to state your name, your affiliation, and uh whatever opening remarks you have, and then we'll go to Angie and then Lily.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Um, my name is Tanya Hinnell, and I am a co-executive director of the East Boston CDC.

We've been locally rooted in the neighborhood of East Boston for over 50 years, building affordable housing here in the city of Boston for over 30 years.

Thank you, counselors, for having me here today.

I'm gonna speak a little bit about how the transfer fee will impact our city and in particular our neighborhood's future.

And I may get a little bit nostalgic on you guys because I realize that I personally have been building affordable housing in the Boston area for over 20 years.

I started very young.

And I can tell you that I've personally seen the cost of building housing go from 350,000 a unit to 750,000 a unit.

It's been it has more than doubled.

We're demanding better construction with lower emissions so that our children can remain in the city and live long, healthy lives.

We're using more sustainable renewable materials in our buildings.

We're thinking about indoor air quality with energy recovery ventilation systems.

We're building better stormwater retention systems so that our neighbors don't take on water in their basements.

And so that our aging stormwater system lasts longer.

We're contributing to safer sidewalks and intersections, building with mobility and sensory impairments in mind.

And I've seen a lot of this change happen in the last 20 years.

But do you know what hasn't happened in the last 20 years?

The federal resources to fund these buildings has not more than doubled.

In fact, it has either stayed relatively stable, or in the cases of home and CDBG, it has gone down.

And one of the key programs that Councillor Culpepper brought up earlier that CDCs like the East Boston CDC have used to build truly deeply affordable senior housing, the HUD 202 program, is all but eliminated.

True story.

Our early senior housing buildings, approximately 300 units, were almost entirely federally funded.

The capital, the operating subsidies, we did not have to rely on local and state money.

Whereas HUD's federal resources, this is how you know I'm really a dork, used to account for 78% of the resources for housing and community development in the city's 2005 consolidated action plan.

It now only accounts for 50% of the resources in the city's 2025 consolidated action plan.

That is a 30% decrease when the cost to deliver that housing has more than doubled.

So we do need to use every tool in our toolbox to raise revenue for the programs that fund affordable housing.

And now I'm gonna talk a little bit about how that impacts our neighborhoods.

Because 10 years ago, East Boston CDC was able to acquire properties off the private market using just local funding.

We could go out, use the AOP money, and stop speculative investors from issuing no fault evictions and displacing long-term residents.

And now, just 10 years later, that program isn't working in our neighborhood anymore because it can't keep up with the market.

And the city just doesn't have the resources to keep up with the private market with what we've seen in the federal government.

And it's not just acquisition programs that are falling behind.

Even with the long permitting timeline for Boston projects, there are more affordable housing projects permitted and ready to go into construction than the city can afford to fund.

East Boston CDC alone has 57 units that have been fully permitted for over two years that are still awaiting funds.

And we could acquire and permit more if we thought there was any chance of it getting funded.

That is a sad truth.

As hard as it is to acquire sites in Boston and permit them, we would happily do a lot more of it if we thought there was enough money to fund more projects.

So it's not a lack of capacity.

And it's certainly not a lack of demand.

I have a wait list that is more than 800 people long for units that have no rental subsidy, no elevators, and no parking.

Imagine my wait list for new units.

Local funds are actually the most valuable, the most flexible funds we can leverage for housing, and they do the most good.

The AOP program I mentioned previously, the one that keeps people in their homes and their neighborhoods and preventing displacement, that's local funding.

The extra money that's needed to create permanent supportive housing that makes sure there's local services for those units.

Overwhelmingly, that's local money.

Homeownership that's actually affordable to our long-term renters who want to stay in their neighborhoods and grow their roots, that's local money.

And so this policy is not extraordinary.

It is actually the right investment of one's profit to make sure that everyone has a place to live in Boston.

And it is actually what's needed if we're going to keep up with the cost of building some of the best affordable housing in the country.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just really quick, Tanya, you called yourself a dork, but I will call you an affordable housing champion.

We're just really grateful to have brilliant affordable housing nerds like you in District One.

So thank you for being here.

Angie, the panel is full of them.

So thank you.

Oh, Mrs.

Long.

Okay, I'm another twerk.

Um thank you again for city counselors.

I know we're kind of creeping into lunchtime.

Um, but um thank you for the opportunity to speak um about um the proposed um transfer fee and a senior tax exemption um home rule petition.

So I'm Angie Liu.

I currently serve as the executive director of the Asian Community Development Corporation.

We are a 39-year-old uh nonprofit community development corporation, much like Tanya's, um, that creates affordable housing, um, and we also provide housing and financial counseling programs in Boston's Chinatown, but also um for other low-income Asian American residents throughout the greater Boston region.

So in Chinatown, we currently house over um 1,200 residents through a variety of affordable apartments and condos that we have developed, and through our housing counseling financial literally programs over the years, we have also helped over 3,000 households through first-time homebuyer education and match savings financial literacy programs.

So, all in all, we have built close to 400 affordable homes in Chinatown, mostly apartments, but there are a handful of affordable homeownership condos in there too.

And we're super excited that uh next fall we will be opening another 110 affordable units on Hudson Street.

So that is a the latest example of a project that um relied really heavily on local subsidy as well as um land from um uh the BPDA.

Um just uh getting nostalgic a little bit about the 202.

I did not have the pleasure to work on those in Boston, but um at that time I worked in Philadelphia and Seattle, and you know those federal resources, you know, at that time it felt like it, I guess you know we didn't really luck realize how lucky we were to have that federal capital program as well as um uh 100% of the units coming with those Section 8 project-based vouchers, so that could really make those low-income senior housing work.

Um those times are not coming back.

And the the times that we live in now, there's no one else coming to save us.

Right.

Um we we read about those threats to federal cuts, and the state is um scrambling to figure out how to uh make up holes in their budgets, so um, there's no one coming to save us.

We really have to um figure out creative resources if we want to continue to help the most vulnerable residents in our city.

So you heard earlier uh some testimony from Chinatown residents.

Much of our work at ACDC is about combat combating those gender fine forces in Chinatown so we can preserve and strengthen that neighborhood for the working class immigrant residents.

So in the past, we were successful in leveraging parcels that were owned by the city and the state to build affordable housing.

But a couple years ago, much like East Boston CDC, we also entered the private uh real estate market to begin looking at acquiring privately owned existing buildings so we could preserve what's sometimes known as naturally occurring affordable housing and make sure that the tenants living in them don't get displaced as a result of their building getting sold.

So a couple years ago, we were fortunate in doing that with significant help from uh Sheila's office because at the time there was a lot of ARPA dollars.

So we were able to buy 64 Beach Street that's by the Chinatown gate.

So we were able to save 14 apartments and a longtime Chinatown restaurant on the ground floor.

But since that time, the funding picture looks very different now.

Projects in our existing pipeline are now squeezed between climbing costs, right?

And declining funding.

All the ARPA dollars are gone.

You've heard earlier from Sheila that the city now has fewer dollars from inclusionary zoning and linkage payments, and we can probably also expect decreasing federal sources that typically funnel through the city like CDBG and home dollars.

So these days, when my office receives leads about potential sites for sale or for development in Chinetown, I had to have long and hard conversations with my staff about how realistic it is to get funding from the city to support these new projects because I've still got a couple other projects in my existing pipeline.

And Sheila, I'll be calling you next week.

I just got an email two days ago.

And you know, I'm like, oh gosh, should I do it?

You know, I don't I don't know if we can afford this, right?

This is the precise problem that Tanya talked about.

Um like Tanya said, it's not about lack of demand, it is not about lack of capacity on our part.

We're ready to go.

We have a pipeline building, but I've got to manage that pipeline if I do not think that there are if there are no resources that are gonna uh enable us to go after purchase these sites and to be able to develop them.

So those are um basically opportunities that are left on the table.

And without new resources, we're not gonna be able to sustain the same level of affordable housing development in Chinatown and across the city, and we will be falling even more behind behind on the demand for affordable housing.

You know, despite the pandemic and economic uncertainties, Boston remains the economic center for this region, and this is where we do have the concentration of luxury properties and high value commercial properties that trade in millions.

Um he he left, but Michael Kane earlier pointed out that yes, it is about transfer fee on luxury housing, but it's also about a transfer fee on high value commercial buildings that do trade on a regular basis in Boston.

So the idea of implementing a transfer fee in Boston is not a new idea, you know.

Um the city has tried a couple times and Sheila showed earlier all the resources that we left on the table if it was uh leveraged, you know, um, even just a couple years ago.

At this juncture, when too many of our residents are struggling with housing costs, and when we are faced with dwindling sources, we've got to get creative about looking for additional sources of funding.

I understand the potential um you know criticisms and arguments against such a fee.

Um, but like like I said, there's no one else coming to save us.

We really have to come up with a resources um in order to support our own residents.

So in conclusion, um I really hope that um this council will um vote to support this home rule petition, and then um you know, we will do everything we can to help us move uh in you know in the next step in the House and the Senate.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Angie.

We appreciate you being here.

Before we go over to Lily, I just want to actually invite up uh Intia Missie Ambrogi.

I know I said that wrong, I'm so sorry.

Um she's the uh VP of real estate from the Madison Park Development Corporation.

Um we'll be hearing from her as well.

I think her perspective is valuable here.

Uh Lily, you have good morning, uh counselor.

My name is Lily Bryan, and I'm proud to serve as the president of Mass and Boston chapter of Mass Senior Action.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today in support of Docket 0163.

The petition that establish a transfer fee on high value property sales and expand property tax release for seniors.

As a senior living in fixed income, I know firsthand the challenge that far too many seniors face.

We worked our whole lives.

We raised our families, we invested in our community, but now in retirement, we find every year it gets harder to afford our basic needs and stay in the community that we help build.

Right now, we feel the pressure of every we feel the pressure from every side.

Property tax and rent is arising by double digits, while food assistance and health care is getting cut for those that need.

You have heard many times from us over the years, and we thank you for continuing to the effort in expand and release.

Today, we also want to express our strong support for the proposal or transfer fee.

In Boston, seven out of ten seniors are living alone, do not have income to meet the basic needs in order to get by.

More than 39,000 seniors in Boston, including 25,000 renters, are paying more than 30 percent of their income in housing and waiting and on a waiting list for affordable houses.

Taking for excuse me, and waiting for on a waiting list for affordable houses, taking years, and many seniors becoming unhoused.

The transfer fee could help by placing a small fee on the high-value real estate sales.

We can get millions of dollars for affordable housings every year.

We know seniors are not the only ones struggling.

This is a difficult time for so many across the city, and we must come together to support each other.

Those that can't afford multi-million dollars home can afford to do a little more to support the seniors who help build this city and their hard working families to still can't pay their rent.

No one should be priced out of their homes.

The transfer fee and senior property tax release goes hand in hand.

Together, they reflect the value that most Boston strongest compassion, equity, opportunities for all.

On behalf of Mass Senior Action, we urge you to approve this home rule petition quickly and send a strong message that seniors are a valuable part of Boston future and that they don't need to have millions to live here in Boston.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lily.

Hi, good morning, or maybe afternoon.

Thank you to the counselors for your focus on this critical issue.

My name is Intia Ambrogi Isaza.

I am vice president of real estate at Madison Park Development Corporation, a CDC in Roxbury celebrating its 60th year.

So I haven't been doing it for 20 years, but the organization has been doing it for 60 years.

And I want to speak today in strong support of this initiative.

And mostly underscore that these types of funds resulting in transfer fees would be the most flexible kinds of funds as a developer with experience using IDP funds, for example, versus other sources.

So adding to that kind of truly flexible pool itself is very useful.

Also wanted to highlight something that comes up in every single community meeting that I attend, and I try to attend as many as I can.

I present regularly, almost monthly, to the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan Oversight Committee due to a few projects that Madison Park has had designated through that process for over 10 years in a few cases.

So in particular, which I promised to folks when they're expressing a lot of frustration at these meetings, that in rooms like this, I will advocate for the expansion of homeownership resources.

So specifically, I think this kind of pool of money would be a really critical addition to the pool of homeownership resources.

Of course, the rental component is also very important and would be wonderful.

But if you as a city counselor are really concerned about homeownership resources in particular, I think this is a very good tool to address that issue.

Thank you so much, Antia.

Okay, I'll go to my colleagues for any questions they may have.

We've uh we still have Councilor Santana and Councillor Rugen here.

Um I'll start with the lead sponsor, Councillor Santiana.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for our community panel.

Um thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for your patience.

I know it's out of noon now and start out you know earlier this morning.

So my first question is for um for Lily Bryan.

Thank you so much for for being here with us with us.

Um, and I think you expressed um how you're yourself are on a fixed income.

And I think you went into a little detail, but if you can go into more detail about just what that you know, you're here speaking on behalf of of many other seniors um here in our city of all uh here in our city, right?

So um can you just go through the day-to-day challenges right now of seniors who are on fixed income and why you know I think we understand why a transfer fee would be beneficial, but I think it'll be helpful for us to understand some of the struggles right now that our seniors are facing, particularly those on fixed income.

Thank you for the question.

Um I would say some of the challenge that you know we face is that it's a fixed income.

And you know, we don't work, or some of us can't work.

And it's the challenge is trying to really uh use the uh amount of income that you have to meet your regular expense as far as buying food.

You know, you might gain uh in one area uh uh getting the resource, but if you get in food stamps, that get taken away from you.

You know, if you uh uh get uh save on a copay again, something else is is going up.

Your uh emergency uh uh uh what do you call it?

Um when you go see your um position, I'm trying to think of the one that um that you um have to pay this um in away different things goes up.

You get you make money here and something else goes up.

So I just see it's just really day-to-day struggle trying to say what am I gonna uh um not pay to day or what bills that you uh just gonna let slide.

Uh a lot of times, you know, with my finance, I'm just gonna say about me.

I have so much that I have to take out of a fixed income that I just wait and just let and pay everything at one time.

But guess what?

Something didn't get paid because I didn't have enough.

And I hear this from more seniors all the time.

You know, we have some seniors that are still working up to 90 years old.

They are still working because they don't have the resources that they need.

So I just think that with this um expanding this um property uh uh um sales that it would help us in a lot of ways.

Thank you so much.

I answered you course.

You did.

No, no, thank you.

I appreciate you sharing your personal story, and I know that um you know, I think, like I said earlier, I think you're speaking on behalf of many other experiences here.

Um, so I really appreciate that.

What to Tanya?

I think uh thank you again for the work that you do.

I mean, East Boston is such an interesting neighborhood.

Um it used to be, I mean, like it can be an affordable neighborhood, and I remember when I graduated college, it was like you should move to East Boston, it's affordable, and there's just so much rapid development that's happened.

Um in the last five to ten years, right?

Um, my question to you is how is that specifically impacting our longtime residents and particularly our seniors in East Boston?

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, um, you know, most of us moved to East Boston because it was affordable and it was a wonderful community, and um, and there has just been a really rapid change over the last 10 years.

I moved there 15 years ago.

Um, and starting about 10 years ago, suddenly housing started to get on the radar screen that people were realizing maybe I won't be able to buy here.

Um, and then about five years ago, it was then it became the number one problem.

Um, I mean, and then it was I can't lose my apartment because if I have to move, I can't afford to rent here anymore.

Um so we on a daily basis are seeing families having to leave the school system.

And when our families leave the school system, they usually are leaving the Boston public school system because they're moving out to less expensive um towns to the north.

Um so families are losing their support system, they're losing all of their connections to family and extended family, which is helping to raise their family and allowing them to work.

Um so it really is uh, you know, the kind of rapid real estate speculation and the increase in the market rents that we've seen has been very destabilizing to our neighborhood and to the long-term residents and to the ability to families to put down roots and stay somewhere for 20, 30 years while their kids grow up.

Um and so I think that's why the transfer fee feels like an apt tool to address the challenging times because when the tides are rising in real estate, they should rise for everybody, and they're not, quite frankly.

And and I think that the city's done an incredible job of leveraging a lot of the the front-end tools like IDP and inclusion area, you know, to try to extract what we can from new development that's coming into the community to make sure that it's paying its fair share.

Um but the tool that we haven't really thought about is well, what about the people who are cashing out and selling to those developers, right?

How do we make sure that um because I'll tell you the truth?

If my house got to the point in East Boston where it was worth two million dollars, I would be ecstatic to pay some of that back to the city that helped make that happen.

Because it really is on the backs of the neighborhoods and the people who are living there cleaning up the parks and making them great and advocating for those parks.

That's why my house maybe would get to that point in the city.

So I appreciate you sharing that.

Um, and I appreciate every everyone's work on this panel.

Um and appreciate everyone's work on this panel and as a city.

Um so thank you so much for for the work.

Um thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Santana.

Councilor Louis Jean.

Thank you, um, Madam Chair, and thank you to everyone, all of the incredible advocates, all the public testimony that we heard earlier from um Maha, Messages Affordable Housing Alliance, the um uh Mass Alliance of HUD tenants, Commonwealth Land Trust, uh Chinese Progressive Association, really grateful for all of their work.

Lily, really thank you for bringing your um the experience of so many of our seniors into this space, incredibly important.

Um grateful for our policy dorks here, which I count as Antia and Angie and Tanya, who uh Tanya especially.

I remember when I we I remember when we first had a conversation before I even knew who you were, and we were just talking and nerding out about housing policy, and the beloved partner of my own policy director, so Tanya is uh one of our own.

We love Jesse and Tanya in our office.

So um thank you.

I want to also thank so many of you for uplifting the importance of the acquisition opportunity program.

I say all the time that it's easier to keep someone in their home than it is to build a new home and the money, and so I am hoping and that you're able to actually you know work on the project because we know that the best thing that we can do to prevent displacement um is to keep someone in their home and you know, sometimes making necessary upgrades and and and what have you to that home.

Uh, but I'm I'm wondering sort of what your experience and I I was also really glad to be on the council when we invested I believe it was 27 million dollars of our ARPA money into the acquisition opportunity program, supporting nonprofit developers, supporting community land trust with alternative visions for what it means to um own land in the city, but also who are who our industry, our real estate industry is catering to.

I'm wondering if you all can speak a little bit more to your experience with the acquisition opportunity program and how money from the transfer fee could help uh push back against the speculative market and the displacement that we often see.

I I can start.

Um I think it was a year or two ago, um, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council uh released a report about um in investor um held um properties specifically in the residential um sector, um, you know, and from that part of as part of the findings of that report, it told us something that I think we all already knew, which was that um tenants are the most vulnerable to displacement when a building gets sold, when their building um gets sold.

And you know, owners, even if it's a mom and pop, you know, owner that has held a building for many years, um, sometimes people need to retire.

There are life changes.

Um, but when the market is the way it is, um, you know, that's when um a lot of investors will want to come in and buy up those buildings.

Too many times in Chinatown, and I'm sure in other neighborhoods too, that's when we hear about um tenants um getting uh displaced.

And many times there's no formal, you know, notice to quit, eviction notices, many times it's um, you know, they're raising the rent or some excuses, and and the tenants get displaced.

They they can't find another affordable place to live in the same neighborhood.

And so what the AOP program is trying to do is acknowledging the problem that yes, we do need to produce new affordable housing stock, but um, there are these existing um naturally occurring for housing on the market too.

They don't have any existing D-restrictions protecting them, right?

The owner can sell to anybody they want.

And so um AOP creates this resource to help uh to enable nonprofits like ours to try to um you know take at least some of these buildings off the speculative market.

And so oftentimes, you know, when we go in, these are you know, the buildings or ha have existing tenants in them.

Um and um so it's a it requires a different set of thinking because if you just look at big picture numbers, which I understand Sheila's office has to do, right?

Looking at how many units you're producing every year.

So if you just look at that, maybe it's not increasing new net new units, but it is adding to the income restricted stock, and it is super super important.

So, you know, in 2022, when we were able to do that at 64 Beach Street, we had long conversations with uh our board.

We had a very short time to you know make an offer and negotiate with the seller.

We were, you know, in contact, you know, bothering the hell out of Sheila, you know, and talking to different lenders and whatnot said we got 30 days, you know, to do everything.

Um we collectively felt that it was such an important thing to preserve those 14 units, the tenants living in them, most of them are restaurant workers live uh working in Chinatown restaurants, and that ground floor uh uh Golden Gate restaurant that has been there for many many years.

Because we've seen that um story play out too many times in Chinatown, is we knew if the if we wouldn't show up with our offer and and they sold it to one of the other investors, probably within three months, six months, all those tenants are gonna be gone, and that restaurant might not be there.

You know, you asked specifically um, Counselor Louis Jen, about um you know how the transfer fee could help uplift the AOP program and make it even more effective than it already has been.

I think it's dollars and cents.

I think you know, I will talk all day about the difference that money will make in.

And the difference for us and for the city is that when you have, and you're seeing this nationally, more and more international investors buying property and owning occupied property um in our neighborhoods.

The difference is that when there's an issue with that property, when the tenant falls behind in rent, you pick up the phone and you call a local owner, a CDC, a non-profit, someone who the city has invested in, and we work it out.

Um, and we preserve those tenancies, and we keep we keep the rents low, we keep them affordable.

Because what we saw was that you know, the the houses when we started buying them were 600,000.

Ten years later, they're 1.2 million.

The people living in them for that 10-year period are the same people.

So there's no way that they can double their rent.

It's just not it's just not possible.

And the transfer fee can infuse that it can infuse that program with a lot more money and give the city a lot more flexibility to implement that program in neighborhoods that have seen higher cost increases and sales values.

Um it can give the city more flexibility in that program to think about the tenure types that it can address with that program, whether it's lease to own, you know, um, and how it can it's it's a really flexible program.

It worked in a lot of neighborhoods, but if the money runs out and we don't have ARPA anymore, then it it really I think would benefit from an infusion of cash.

Um I'll chime in to answer the question somewhat sideways about the acquisition opportunity program, which Madison Park has also used and has been a fantastic resource in Roxbury as well.

Um I'm also on the Article 80 steering commit modernization steering committee.

Um, and in those meetings and meetings hosted by the mayor's office of housing, um, we are hearing a lot about how the lack of a of a large development pipeline in Boston because of these really high costs and because of interest rates, all of these things, right, that we can't control.

Um there's not the same replenishment of those that IDP pot or other resources, and I think one of the really important things about the transfer fee specifically is that it does not rely on projects that make it to market in terms of like it doesn't rely on a project that gets all the way through the development pipeline to then replenish the pool.

It's something that enters at a much sort of it's a much lower friction transaction for an individual to sell a property, and actually the fact that there's not these huge developments happening mean that there's more and more value in those lower level individual family or individual investor transactions with one unit at a time or one property at a time.

And so I think the fact that this can capture the value of those transactions which are ongoing and are not going to stop increasing in value, um, really allows the flexibility to replenish a pool at the time when it's not being replenished by these sources that used to work, like linkage or IDP that rely on larger development projects to actually get to the finish line, which isn't happening.

I I will say to Intia's point, like we saw a big uptick in brokers calling to try to sell occupied buildings, performing assets.

And so you really do, it is a good way to balance the market in terms of where you're extracting.

Um because those kinds of investors are still looking for places and still looking for transactions, even if they're not building new ground-up housing.

And so those kinds of transactions and those sales on the large commercial level are still happening.

Yeah, if I majors at, you know, do you see in headlines uh, you know, even very recently, um, a lot of commercial and office buildings in a city that um are transferring hands at a deep discount, but they're still well over the two million dollar threshold.

Thank you.

Um, thank you uh for the response.

I think uh dollars and this is about dollars and cents and making that um making it real so that folks like that from Mass and your Action Council, Lily and everyone who's here, and you know, so many people that we know at I mean this week my office was involved in you know stopping an eviction um on Thursday on Tuesday in Boston Housing Court, we just get this overwhelming um sense all of the time that so many of our residents are carrying the stress of housing, and this is one thing that could be helpful to them.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Louis Jeanne.

Um, I just have one question.

Um, I think to quantify a little bit more, and you all had um to our to our CDC leadership.

You had um mentioned that you know this could help fill the gaps, and um you know, we're waiting for homeownership money and um the challenges that come from just trying to navigate the system without um any sort of creative revenue streams, especially with with the 202 being gone.

I learned a lot about two or two today.

I had no idea, and it's it's um it's almost impossible to think about East Boston in particular without some of these treasured uh senior spaces and the hundreds of people that live there, including my great aunt.

I don't know what I would do if Auntie did not have a place to live in her own community, and it's just it's it's crazy to think that in the future.

Um, if we don't get creative, if we don't utilize these tools, um, what that could mean for communities and the very fabric of who lives there.

So thank you for putting that into context.

But my question is more around the quantifying specifically.

If this were to pass uh the way in which we want to, you know, this July, we get this back, we get the ordinance, we push that forward pretty quickly.

How many units do you think that you can get online in the next year or two years?

As many as the city.

Well, everybody's everybody looked at MOH if you had a magic wand.

However much they have, I'm sure we can all put them to use.

I mean, I think I think that every CDC in the city would like to have a new project going into construction every year.

Um, and when you think about the real estate expertise that you have in the city, you could do it.

We could do it.

So I'd have to think about how to quantify that, but you know, an average project now can be anywhere from like eight to fifteen units all the way up to a hundred units, easy.

Um, so it really is a pretty large order of magnitude when you think about the kind of pipeline that MOH is managing with all of their funds.

I think we're talking about hundreds of units every year getting brought online because of this.

Correct.

Um I just met with uh the mayor's office of housing staff earlier this week to go over our pipeline, Madison Park has a 15-minute homeownership project under construction right now, um, but it is our first construction project in five years, and we do have a backed up pipeline.

Um so a very specific example is we have a 35-unit um homeownership project in Nubian Square that doesn't have the resources that it needs to move forward as a homeownership project, but could be permitted within like fully permitted within like six months if we knew that that funding was available.

Um so that's one that like as soon as that money was available, we could we would have that meeting again and realign the expectations because you know, right now we still don't see a path, a viable pathway to funding for that project specifically.

Um, and then you know, the rental pipeline is is kind of more complicated and depends on on larger sums of money from the state, and that might be the the barrier on advancing some of those projects faster, but especially on homeownership that wouldn't need to go through those larger low-income housing tax credit um processes that just have their own time scale.

Um, you know, I think we could all advance homeownership projects very quickly in you know, dozens at a time.

You know, I think we could all advance homeownership projects very quickly in you know, dozens at a time.

I don't know how many CDCs there are in Boston, 15 of us or something like that, right?

If we all had um, you know, 10 to 20 every year.

For you know, we could do that, I think each of us probably at least for five years before we ran out of ideas.

And that's the challenge.

The creation that just includes the creation, not the preservation or protection of some of the affordable housing that you're talking about.

So but I think this speaks to Kenzie's earlier point, just saying that the infrastructure here is in place.

We're very lucky in Boston to have the capacity, not just within MOH but within our community organizations, like all of you.

So really truly thank you.

Uh thank you for your testimony.

Again, I my plan is to push us for ASAP.

So if you uh have a uh time to everybody, and we're gonna go to public testimony after this.

Please call uh all of your city counselors, and then when it gets into the state house, we all need to charge up the hill in a very friendly way and tell the state house that we need this, and um just let them know uh exactly what the impact could be.

Um which we've heard here today.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

If you would like to stay, please please feel free.

But we have a couple people left on public testimony, and then we have two on the public testimony list here, and then we have two on Zoom.

Uh, we're gonna go to Amira Settles, uh, or and then Michelle Delima.

Meredith Levy, and then Lydia Lowe.

Amira, you have the floor.

Hi, I'm Americos.

Um, I work under Henry Santana, and today I'm gonna be testifying on behalf of Aliana Dave Davenor.

I'm an eighth grader at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Dorchester, and this is my testimony.

Going to bed with a full stomach and a full fridge every night is a privilege.

For people that are struggling with food insecurity, this may seem luxury.

Food insecurity is not having enough money to buy the foods you like or not having enough money to buy the food in general.

Solutions like SNAP benefits from the government aren't helping enough, leaving families to struggle even more.

The increase in prices is causing people to prioritize paying for other things over food.

Food insecurity is increasing, and families aren't getting enough to eat.

This is because inflation is making it harder for families to make ends meet and also feed themselves.

This constant not knowing where their next meal will come from can cause mental and physical problems along in the long-term run.

As someone who has struggled with food security my whole life, I can express the difficult how difficult it is to get past.

Having took four-foot meals, split money just to survive, isn't easy.

One thing that also doesn't help is the whiz with high rent in Boston.

A lot of the money my parents make goes goes towards rent because the landlords always increase the rent.

This makes it hard for me to afford things like shoes, clothes, supplies, and school things, and most of all food.

This constant demand for higher rent caused my family to move out of the city of Boston to South Quincy.

This is very inconvenient because getting to school in Dorchester takes me an hour and 20 minutes via bus and train.

I take this trip to and from school every day and often become late and tardy because of the public trends transit is not that reliable.

My family relies on SNAP benefits significantly, and the cuts in the funding has made it harder for us to buy groceries.

So now more than ever, we really are experiencing the effects of food insecurity.

Food insecurity is more common than you think.

According to the organization, Feeding America, one in eight children struggle with food insecurity, and one in nine children struggle with food insecurity.

It is not just widely talked about or advocated for, which needs to change.

So next time you're enjoying a nice warm meal, a noise, a nice warm nutritious meal.

Think back to the people who've only gotten a few meals per day.

Thank you for your consideration.

Aliana Dalven Mare.

Thank you so much.

What was the name of the individual that you were?

Um Aliana Dalvinaire.

Aliana.

Okay, thank you so much for reading it for her.

For her, and then to Aliana as well for her testimony.

Um, okay, we we're gonna go to Michelle, and then I made a mistake actually.

We'll go to Mary Celeste Brown, who had signed up a little bit earlier.

So uh take it away, Michelle.

Okay, thank you.

Um I know it's been a long one, so thank you so much for sticking around and giving me the opportunity.

Um I'm Michelle Delima.

I'm here on behalf of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and the Greater Boston Community Land Trust Network.

Um, DSNI has been working on affordable housing and neighborhood planning in Roxbury and North Dorchester for 40 years.

And our community land trust stewards, 228 permanently affordable homeownership and rental units across our network of CLTs in Boston and beyond.

We house 300 families with 127 more units in the immediate pipeline.

Our member land trusts, our land trust residents, our staff and board are all in strong support of the transfer fee.

It would bring in major revenue while only affecting a small percentage of sales, ones that are primarily made by real estate investors, not residents.

The revenue would stimulate affordable housing production, support developers like CLTs and the lovely CDCs we heard from who are producing the right kinds of housing, the housing that our people actually need.

It would create work for the building trades and most importantly get residents into the homes they need and help them stay there.

We've heard a lot about AOP, so I won't get into it.

But just to say we are strong supporters, it has facilitated a lot of the projects that we do.

Trying to keep people in their homes, and it's the best tool we have to fight displacement right now, and we really want to see it supported, and we don't know how that's gonna happen without the transfer fee.

Um could also support both the transfer fee, could also support both project-based and mobile vouchers, which are key to helping low and no-income tenants stay housed.

Um and also, and it would support the construction of truly and permanently affordable housing by CLTs and other values-based developers.

We are managing to acquire and produce affordable housing with pretty limited resources, and we're ready to do so much more if we just had the resources.

As we've heard, you know, we have the need, we have the desire, we have the capacity, we just need the funding.

And I think this is a really smart way to get it, where we're taking a small amount from folks who can most afford it and using it to protect our most vulnerable tenants and residents.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

Right on two minutes.

Okay, um, Mary Celeste.

And then Meredith Levy, and then Lydia Lowe.

Thank you.

Unlike Michelle, I'm gonna talk about AOP.

Sorry.

Um, I am Mary Celeste Brown, and I'm here on behalf of Southwest Boston Community Development and the communities of Hyde Park and Roslendale that we serve.

Um in 2017, we were proud to be the first organization, I believe, yay, um, to take advantage of the acquisition opportunity program.

And um, in that instance, we saved eight families in um in a in a building on American Legion Highway.

Between 2017 and 2022, we acquired seven more buildings for 68 keeping 68 families from losing their housing in the speculative market because of the um acquisition opportunity program.

Um so you have my written testimony.

I'm going way off board since since you've heard so much today.

Right now, we are trying to rehabilitate those those 68 units in those eight buildings.

Um, another aspect, by the way, of those buildings, many seniors live in them in one building of six.

It was leased by family aid when we bought it for a transitional housing program for for families who had not had housing before then.

And we are very proud to still be leasing it to them today, and their many of their graduate graduates go into long-term housing in our buildings.

None of this would be possible without the AOP program and the funding that the mass the mayor's office on housing has given us.

Um those 68 units were awarded uh by the state in July of 2025 to be to be rehabbed so that we could lower the utility costs of those residents and make their housing safe and healthy.

Right now, because of the economic pressure, the national economic pressures, investors are offering less on the dollar, and now we have a gap, and we cannot move this project forward.

I was walking in here today with Chief Dylan, and she said to me, you know, in the past, we've been we've had a cushion at the mayor's office on housing that we could apply to a gap like this.

But they don't that gap that that cushion they have has narrowed.

And so they have been very supportive of us.

Thank you, Christine.

Um, in our effort to work with the state, um HLC to get more funding so that we can continue to save these these housing and the affordability of these units.

But we are a small CDC, and that is at risk at this moment.

What the transfer fee will do is it will give us money at a time when ARPA has gone away.

When you all know all that, I don't need to tell you all that.

It's in the writing.

But it is crucial.

And I wish I heard who the person was that Michael Cain said we should all be going up to see at Beacon Hill to convince them because the transfer fees, we've heard that dozens of communities have them.

We need every community has its own problems.

And so being able to use local funds for local problems is what we need from the state.

So I do thank you for supporting this.

Thank you for sponsoring the hearing.

Thank you for going to Capitol Hill with us and advocating for it.

Maybe this year we'll get it.

I hope so.

At the State House.

And then also that person is Senator Nick Collins.

For the record.

Thank you.

Senator Nick Collins.

And Brownsberger.

Okay, we'll go to Meredith Levy.

Leary?

Meredith Levy.

That's my handwriting.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Good mor uh good afternoon.

My name is Meredith Levy.

Thank you so much to the committee for hosting this hearing.

It's really valuable.

I'm the executive director for Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust.

And I'm I'm writing and I'm testifying to for our support for the home rule petition for a special law and actor relative to the real estate transfer fee and senior property tax relief.

So at BNCLT, again, this is repeating what so many people have said, but it's also our priority.

Our mission is to purchase properties in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Matapan as a way to make sure that people can stay in their homes and in their neighborhoods.

We do modest rehabs and make sure these homes are permanently affordable to families who otherwise may have been displaced from their beloved communities.

And by permanent, we mean permanent forever.

We are committed to permanent affordability, and our residents pay no more than a third of their income on rent, which in Boston is an accomplishment.

So that means in our buildings, the average monthly rent payment for our families is under a thousand dollars.

So that's a remarkable thing that we're able to do.

We know in Boston there's a severe shortage of housing for low, very low, and extremely low-income families.

Our organization, while we're small, we take up the strategy to purchase buildings in neighborhoods where residents are at high risk of displacement and make sure they are permanently removed from the speculative market.

And that also they're able to live in quality homes with a community governance social housing model.

So this serves as an additional purpose for keeping the neighborhoods intact as well as making sure families are able to make it.

As we know, the market here is red hot.

We're one of the most expensive cities in this in the country.

And to buy a building is no easy task.

As a small not prof nonprofit, we have we do not have the ability to acquire without public subsidy.

We keep our because our rents are low, that means we can't get big loans, and we really need between this the small loans we get and the public subsidy and other sources.

That is the only way we're gonna be able to buy.

The amount of funding for affordable housing programs at the city of Boston is shrinking rapidly, precisely at the moment when the need for this funding is at a peak.

The transfer fee is an obvious tool to refill the coffers this and every year forward to fund the critical affordable housing tools and programs in Boston, such as AOP.

We have an impressively talented team of housing practitioners and advocates in the city, both at City Hall and within the community who have established very clear housing programs that are effective.

It would be a shame to put these strategies and tools on the back burner simply because we don't have the funds to execute with our most vulnerable residents taking the devastating hit.

A 10,000 to 20,000 hit to a seller who stands to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars from a sale seems more than appropriate.

That same number may be the entire income for a household during a year.

And with strong affordable housing programs in place, these are families that can stay in Boston with support.

Which population should we be worried about taking this hit?

We are ready to put the essential money to work in the community.

We count on you to move this petition forward with expediency.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Meredith.

And then last but certainly not least, a friend to this chamber and affordable housing champion, Lydia Lowe.

Who really needs no introduction, but please again introduce yourself.

Thank you.

I'm Lydia Lowe.

I'm the executive director of the Chinatown Community Land Trust.

And I'm gonna be brief because there have been so much good testimony.

I don't have a lot of other points to add, but I just want to stress that you know we're not seeing a lot of cranes now, but property is still transacting.

And in fact, it's those, you know, big real estate investors and those flippers, they're the ones who are really you know out there still.

Uh so you know, this is really I think of this as kind of like a flippers tax, and that's you know, that's what we really need.

Um, a hundred, you know, 180 million dollars.

Um, that could make so much difference when you know we all know that displacement, you know, of you know, housing, affordable housing, displacement, saving working class neighborhoods in the city of Boston is the top issue in every community.

Uh so I want to speak, you know, I think that, and that money can go to new affordable housing that's in the pipeline.

It can go to the preservation of public housing, our existing subsidized housing that we don't want to lose, and taking housing out of the speculative market.

So the Chinatown Community Land Trust, like uh BNCLT is doing very similar work of taking housing out of the speculative market.

We've uh both uh preserved seven uh permanently affordable home ownership units and also um six permanently affordable rental units in Chinatown to date, and there are still a number of other buildings that we are working on acquiring, but you know, concern that there really isn't the city doesn't have that funding right now.

And city funding really is the main funding to do this kind of work with the acquisition opportunity program as well as the city voucher program, which has been very successfully paired by our community land trust with housing that we remove from the speculative market and then are able to use the um city voucher program to make sure we're serving the families who are most vulnerable.

So our renters also you know are you know way below 60 percent AMI, even though our units are at 60 percent AMI, and even our home buyers, you know, we have um are still been able to subsidize our homes through private fundraising in addition to the city dollars, so that we're able to um have home buyers you know buy their homes at a very low um purchase price that themselves are also um quite low income, anywhere from 40 to um 60 percent AMI.

So I just want to you know lend my voice to um all of the other voices and say please um keep our senior homeowners um stable and um give us a a way to continue um preserving and building affordable housing in Boston.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Lydia.

I um I I do want to go to Zoom.

We have two people, Phil Cohen and Marquisha Moore.

Phil, if you're still with us, thank you for your patience.

Are you are you Phil?

I I am.

Okay.

You came in person, it took that long.

I'm actually here in person.

I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it, but thank you.

Um happy to be here.

I will also be brief because so many great things have already been said.

Um, but it is impossible to understate what a consistent affordable housing funding source will do for the families of Boston in a time where affordable housing has never been more expensive and more complicated to construct, and federal funding sources in specific have never been less certain.

So we really need the housing certainty.

This funding source will pay dividends for generations.

It'll be able to uh help create stability for elderly um families in Boston, uh, for children for the next generation um and for those who really need it.

So this decision today or this year um will change the course of history, change how Boston progresses, impact affordable housing for years to come.

Um, and I absolutely think it's worth it.

Thank you, Phil.

Appreciate you.

And then last but not least, uh Markisha Moore, if you're still with us.

Thank you for your patience.

Marqueisha, can you see and hear us?

Hi, can you guys hear me?

Yes, we can.

Okay, I don't know if you can see me.

Feel free to um to oh there we go.

We can see you now.

Hello.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um hi, my name is Markeisha Moore, and I work with the Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust, and I've also a part of the CTAB through Dorchester Not for Sale.

And I just wanted to say, I feel like I'm not looking at you guys, but I hope that I'm looking straight at you.

My computer is all over the place.

Um I just want to say I was a part of advocating for the home rule petition and worked on this with CTAB in the city for a long time.

Um I want to make sure that this goes through like all of the things.

This is something that's really needed in the city of Boston.

Um a lot of people have said a lot of great things um about like how this will help um address the affordability crisis in Boston.

Um and a lot of that is like preservation and acquisitions.

Um we as part of BNCLT, we do acquisitions um and we do preservations.

Like we take homes off the spectrum of market before developers or investors are able to buy them when we can.

And our and this money helps us be able to preserve those units and keep them affordable.

Um, because we all see people leave in Boston because they can't afford to be here anymore, or um I've said this the other day, you can go right outside and see people right outside of um where you guys are out of City Hall and see the homeless people who can't afford to live anywhere in Boston.

So these will help make units that are um help us acquire units that are affordable and keep them permanently affordable.

And I want to stress, like I'm not gonna go into a whole bunch of things that everyone everyone has said so much great things.

I'm the last one to testify.

Um, but I want to stress that the it's only the first two million dollars is exempt.

So if you sell your house for 2.5 million, you're only gonna be taxed on that, like it's only gonna be that five hundred thousand that you're gonna be taxed on.

It's not the whole two million.

So it's not something that's gonna be harmful to smaller landlords and in homeowners, um, just regular everyday homeowners.

This is to target developers and investors who have who are going to make lots and lots of money off of the city of Boston, and it forces them to have to give back some benefits to the folks who all of this is going to um affect.

So I just wanted to put that out there.

Say we can't let developers in their temper tantrums um deter us from using the funding in the way um getting funding for in a way that is appropriate for the needs of the city of Boston.

Thank you.

Thank you guys for holding this.

Um, and thank you for letting me testify.

Thank you so much, Markeisha.

Uh, and I again just want to express my gratitude uh to everyone who is here.

We still even have MOH here um listening in.

And uh this is really a watershed and historic moment again for us.

I think it's it's made um even more important with the various revenue conversations that we're having in the city and lack thereof.

Um it is my goal to move this through committee uh with a vote on Wednesday.

So um look forward to that lively discussion on the council floor.

Please call your uh local city councillors to express your support as you have done here.

And I will just close this hearing by saying that this is the the the one hearing where Baby Zapatha has been moving the most, and so I I can I can hopefully foresee that this little this little one is probably gonna be an affordable housing advocate, just given how um how lively uh they've been throughout this entire conversation.

So I just figured I'd throw that in there.

Um but with that, uh this hearing on Docket Zero One Six Three is now adjourned.

Thanks everybody.