07.20.2022

Big departures at Boston City Hall | Sinking newspaper chain fires off SOS | Doughty’s very deep pockets | Local housing construction cools | Quick Hits | About Contrarian Boston

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Trouble ahead: Developers in Greater Boston pull back on plans for new homes, condos and apartments

Given the record high home prices and rents in the Boston area, the last thing we need right now is for residential construction to start slowing.

But that’s what appears to be happening, with a 10 percent drop in the number of building permits issued for new subdivisions and new apartment and condo buildings across the region through the first five months of 2022, U.S. Census Bureau numbers show.

Construction of single-family homes took the biggest hit, plunging 22 percent, with just 1,722 permits issued in 2022 through May across Greater Boston, compared to the same period in 2021.

Multifamily construction also posted a significant, albeit somewhat smaller, 6.4 percent decline during the same time period, with developers pulling permits for 4,438 condo and apartment units.

While demand is still strong, surging construction prices, compounded by the shortage of key materials, have led home builders to delay or even stop some projects, said Jeff Rhuda, business development manager for Symes Associates, a Beverly-based residential developer.

In fact, construction costs are up 30-to-40 percent over pre-pandemic levels, Rhuda noted.

Ouch.

Still, with mortgage rates on the march over the past few months, it remains to be seen how long buyer demand will hang in there.

Good investment? MassGOP gubernatorial candidate writing really big checks to his campaign

Chris Doughty has taken campaign self-funding to an entirely new level.

The Wrentham businessman and candidate for governor in the MassGOP primary pumped more than $1 million into his campaign through the end of May.

Then in late June, Doughty doubled down, dropping another $980,000 into his campaign account, state records show.

By our count, Doughty, whose firm Capstan is an industrial gears manufacturer, has donated or loaned more than $2 million to his campaign, as we are still six weeks away from the Sept. 6 primary.

Doughty jumped into the race last January in a bid to provide a more moderate alternative to Trumpie Geoff Diehl, who won his party’s nomination at its May convention - for all that’s worth at this point.

Doughty has been spending aggressively on ads while focusing his message on the high cost of living and doing business in Massachusetts.

It’s easy to be cynical about money in politics. However, while Doughty is certainly wealthy, this is not the case of a billionaire mounting a vanity campaign. We suspect this is real money for him.

Odds are, Doughty’s gamble will fall short at the polls, with Diehl having wrapped himself with everything Trump - even hiring the ex-president’s political henchman Corey Lewandowski - in a state Republican party where hard-liners dominate.

But win or lose, Doughty has provided an honorable alternative in a party that is following the Trump crazy train right off the rails.

PS: Doughty and Diehl squared off Wednesday in what was their first and likely last debate.

Contributors to Healey’s campaign a who’s who of local business world

They actually make for a fun read, those campaign finance reports filed by Attorney General Maura Healey in her campaign for governor.

It’s like going to a swank party and people watching as the movers and shakers of the local business and political worlds circulate: You never know exactly who is going to pop up in the records, but you know they are going to be interesting, even if just in a name-dropping way.

Jeremy Jacobs, owner of the Garden, the Bruins and a nationwide food concessions empire, was of the biggest local celebs to donate to Healey’s campaign in June.

Jeremy, his son Charlie - who runs things locally for dad - as well as three other members of the Buffalo-based business dynasty all chipped in for the maximum $1,000 contribution each, for a total of $5,000.

Dick Friedman, the developer of the 60 One-Dalton luxury condo tower in the Back Bay, and a Democratic Party stalwart from the days he was an FOB (Friend of Bill’s), also gave the maximum, as did Cathy Minehan, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

We also noticed a number of $1,000 contributions from top executives at Eversource, the region’s largest utility.

If Healey wins the governor’s race this fall, her administration will take on the task of regulating Eversource and other utility companies.

Just keeping an eye on the till.

Key players moving on at Boston Planning and Development Agency.

There are going to be some very big shoes to fill at City Hall’s development arm.

Bonnie McGilpin, communications chief for the Boston Planning and Development Agency, Lauren Shurtleff, head of downtown and neighborhood planning, and Heather Campisano, the BPDA’s long-time chief of staff, are all moving on.

McGilpin worked as former Mayor Marty Walsh’s press secretary for two years, before taking over as the agency’s communications chief in 2016 and doing a commendable job over the years, in our view.

Shurtleff helped lead the charge for Imagine Boston 2030, the first city-wide plan in a half century, while Campisano worked her way up the agency’s ladder after starting as an intern in the summer of 1999.

“Change is difficult - and the work we do by nature is entirely about change,” in a goodbye note to her BPDA colleagues. “We still have so far to go. Please know that the success of this Agency has been my passion - and that even when I am no longer here, I will be your biggest cheerleader, because I know the value that each of you offers collectively in helping to propel Boston forward.”

The departures come as Arthur Jemison, the BPDA’s new director and Boston’s first-ever planning czar, puts together his own team. As we’ve reported here previously, the agency is aggressively recruiting, with dozens of open positions.

There is also uncertainty hanging over the future of the BPDA, with Mayor Michelle Wu having pledged to “abolish” the agency, but also making clear that changes are likely to take time.

Gannett calls on readers to help save its floundering newspaper chain

Good cause, questionable proponent.

Gannett, which has been slashing and shuttering local newspapers in Massachusetts and across the country, is calling upon readers to help pressure Congress to pass the Journalism Competition Protection Act.

The proposal would allow local news chains around the country to team up to force Google and Facebook to pay newspapers for all the stories they profit immensely from, but essentially now get for free.

Gannett kicked off its campaign today with front page ads in the MetroWest Daily News and other papers it owns that warn readers that one-third of newspapers “are expected to be gone by 2025.”

Then there’s this kicker: “Help us make sure this isn’t one of them.” That’s followed by the number of the Capitol switchboard in Washington, D.C.

USA Today, the chain’s flagship paper, chipped in Tuesday with an editorial calling upon Congress to “help stop the hemorrhage in local newsrooms and provide tools for long-term stability.”

Yet rather than championing local news, Gannett has been in perpetual cutback mode for years, jettisoning reporters, editors and long-established newspapers in a bid to keep up profit margins and extract whatever value is left in the business.

Here’s the thing: If you want the public to rally to save local newspapers, you have to produce a product people care about and want to actually save.

And Gannett is failing badly on that front.

Headed for $1 million? Greater Boston home prices jump again

Yep, $900,000 was the median sale price for a home in the Boston area in June, according to the latest stats.

That represents a nearly 11 percent jump from last June, when the median home price was $811,500, the Greater Boston Association of Realtors reports.

Now let’s fast forward to June 2023. And for argument’s sake, let’s pretend prices have posted another 11 percent gain from the year before.

At that point, the median price will have effectively hit the $1 million in the Boston area (well, $999,000, to be precise.)

However, it’s unlikely we will get a repeat of the torrid price growth we have seen the last two years. While home prices set a new record in June, sales in the 64 Boston area communities GBAR tracks plunged 9 percent, a sure sign that buyers are getting priced out or simply can’t find homes to buy.

Rising interest rates will likely further depress sales, and may soon start taking a toll on prices.

But if we don’t get to the $1 million mark next year, you can bet on it within the next five or six years, barring either a dramatic ramp up in housing production or a deep economic downturn.

And that’s bad news, and not just for buyers, but for the economy and for the future of our region and state.

Quick hits:

Struggling malls mean less tax money for towns: “Some Boston-Area Malls Have Recovered, But Many Are Still Fighting For Their Lives” Bisnow

Will there be any takers? We’ll see: “Medford to Seek Air Rights Development at Wellington Station”    Banker & Tradesman

Understatement of the year: “MBTA is not ‘necessarily worth saving,’ says transportation committee chair” Boston Herald

Big changes at local landmark: “West Newton Cinema may become nonprofit center to support community arts”  WBUR

Better than nothing, but will it be enough to stop the Trumpists from another steal attempt? “Bipartisan Senate Group Strikes Deal to Rewrite Electoral Count Act” New York Times

What is Contrarian Boston?

I have fielded emails over the past couple of months asking what Contrarian Boston is about.

Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.

For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.

An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.

Our focus is:

·      Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;

·      Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;

·      The media and why it does what it does;

·      Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;

·      And whatever else catches our fancy.