Mayor Michelle Wu is seeking to transfer town towards banning fuel hookups for brand spanking new buildings — a big change cheered by local weather activists however jeered by real-estate professionals who mentioned it may hinder growth.
Wu, joined by pols, activists and a remarkably massive farm canine in entrance of City Hall on Tuesday, rolled out the proposal, which technically can be a home-rule petition that must be handed by the council after which Beacon Hill with a purpose to give town the choice of opting into a brand new state program to restrict natural-gas hookups.
“We need a policy that will provide cleaner air, lower energy costs, less carbon emissions, a better quality of life and so much more in terms of the possibility and potential for our residents,” Wu mentioned, noting that some new buildings such because the Boston Arts Academy that’s quickly to open in Fenway already are constructed like this.
The specifics would nonetheless must be labored out, together with what the constraints can be and what varieties of constructing the foundations would cowl.
Locally, municipalities together with Brookline and Cambridge have applied comparable bans. Wu’s workplace cited different main cities together with New York City and Seattle in taking comparable steps.
Several of the parade of audio system attribute to a Wu press convention seemed to get forward of the criticism that these necessities will value folks cash and stifle growth.
“We’ve been successful,” Patrick Haydon of the Haycon building firm, mentioned of constructing “all-electric” buildings. “It works.”
Others, nevertheless, had been much less thrilled, together with the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, which mentioned it’s “deeply concerned” by this concept.
“Construction costs are already too high due to inflation and national supply chain challenges,” CEO Greg Vasil mentioned in an announcement. “Banning fossil fuels in new developments will only increase costs further. This ban would be especially problematic in a city like Boston, which produces huge levels of housing and is an economic engine for all development. Housing production is key to overcoming our state’s housing crisis.”
Wu, requested whether or not there might be stress between constructing housing and implementing the ban, mentioned, “Nope. We’re going to accomplish all of these goals together. And in fact, making our new housing healthy for residents to live in, cheaper for them to live in because you don’t need to pay for utility costs that will attract even more families to be able to stay and afford to live in the city of Boston.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”