Contrarian Boston/Nov. 22, 2021

In today’s newsletter: Affordable housing, unaffordable construction costs in Cambridge/Michelle Wu ‘s anonymous critics/Baker bounces back from tough vaccine rollout/Massachusetts Legislature drags feet on billions in federal relief/Boston’s largest hospital system’s very nonprofit-like expansion plans/Contrarian Boston seeks contributors

“Shocker” in Cambridge - affordable apartments cost more than $900,000 each to build

When it opens, the new Jefferson Park Federal public housing development will be one of the best deals in the Cambridge. The 278 apartments will rent for 30 percent of a tenant’s income.

But the projected cost of building the desperately needed units has been a “shocker,” the Cambridge Housing Authority’s Margaret Moran told the Cambridge Day, a nonprofit news site.

The project, currently in the design and planning phase, is expected to hit $251.8 million, or $905,755 per unit.

“The sticker price was a shocker” to city planning officials, Moran, the housing authority’s planning and development director, told the Cambridge Day’s Sue Reinert.

In fact, that number would likely be higher - say $1 million or more per unit – but for the fact there are no land acquisition costs, according to a quick, back of the envelope calculation by Contrarian Boston.

While $905,755 per unit is akin to what it could cost to build a luxury rental unit, apparently this hasn’t been enough to pay for a half decent design, either. Planning Board members used words like “tragic,” “blank” and “dreary” to describe various aspects of Jefferson Park Federal’s planned façade.

There is a desperate need for affordable housing across the Boston area, and especially in Cambridge, where the median price of a single-family home is $1.6 million, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, for which I write a weekly column.

Ultimately, putting a dent in prices and rents is a volume game - hundreds of thousands of new apartments, condos and homes are needed in Greater Boston over the next decade or two, various reports have shown.

But if it costs more than $900,000 to build a single affordable apartment, how will we ever get there?

Sorry, but anonymous critics no match for Boston’s new mayor                   

Are the knives already out for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu?

Boston Globe columnist Shirley Leung raises that disturbing prospect in a front-page column that ran last Wednesday.

Wu made history on Tuesday, becoming the first woman and person of color to be sworn in as mayor of Boston.

But Leung frets that Boston’s penchant for “political takedowns’ could combine in ugly fashion with bias against “the first woman, first person of color, first mother, and first millennial elected to the top post at City Hall.”

Fair enough, but here’s the problem. The Globe headline – ‘New, first, different.’ Skeptics are already whispering about Michelle Wu – promises more than it delivers. Ditto for the column itself. Given the incendiary set of issues here, that’s an issue.

To take the headline at face value, Boston’s new and groundbreaking mayor is already being targeted by some sort of whispering campaign by what we can only assume are older, entrenched male business leaders and pols.

Leung goes on to write the “skeptics were out in force” even before Wu was sworn in, citing chatter about Wu being “too young, too inexperienced. She’ll never win over Governor Charlie Baker.”

But while Leung cites a number of supporters saying positive things about Wu, she fails to cite any examples of this criticism, let alone naming anyone.

Does that mean it isn’t happening? Of course not. But give us a clue on who is trash talking Wu behind the scenes.

Oddly, though, there’s no mention of the key power dynamic that will decisively tip the scales in Wu’s favor against such backbiting, anonymous or otherwise – the power that comes with being mayor of Boston, the economic engine for New England, not to mention the state’s political nerve center.

Too many people, from developers and the business community to colleges and universities and hospitals, depend on the City Hall for permits, contracts, tax deals, funding and a myriad of other things as well.

Few people are going to risk getting in the crosshairs of the new mayor, whatever their personal political leanings.

Baker puts rocky vaccine rollout in rearview mirror

It seems like ages ago now. But it was just eight months ago, in February and March, that the local media was raking Gov. Charlie Baker over the coals for his handling of the vaccine rollout in Massachusetts.

To put it mildly, there certainly were problems with the rollout, with the state’s vaccine website crashing and long delays in appointments, for those lucky enough to be able to land them.

All of a sudden, the Globe, CNN and others ran stories questioning Baker’s reputation as a management expert, which he earned in the business/health care world bringing Harvard Pilgrim back from the financial brink.

Yet, there was also a partisan feel to the pile on, especially when the Democratic-controlled Legislature got into the act and started staging various hearings. Baker’s high approval ratings – especially among Democrats and Independents – have long been a source of frustration for party activists on the left.

But the attacks – and the attempt to redefine Baker as some sort of closet incompetent –  have failed to stick, as the results of a new UMass Amherst/WCVB poll show.

Baker now has a 67 percent favorable rating for his handling of the pandemic, up from 60 percent in March, when he was getting grilled by state lawmakers.

So, what happened? Most voters understand software issues are both tricky and nonpartisan. Other states were having their own rollout struggles as well, something rarely mentioned in the local coverage of the issues in Massachusetts.

But the trump card has been Baker’s overall handling of the state’s pandemic response, which, over the long haul, had been solid, and has remained so. State officials have slowly but surely worked through the issues with the website and have boosted vaccine availability.

Today Massachusetts has the highest vaccine rate in the country, with over 80 percent of residents having received at least one shot.

It’s hard to argue with the end result.

Build Back Better clears U.S. House, but hold the champagne

President Biden’s $1.7 trillion Build Back Better plan cleared the House Friday, with the potential for a $9 billion-plus payday for Massachusetts.

But the bill, which includes everything from child care subsidies to hundreds of millions in climate change initiatives, is not in the clear yet, with an even tougher fight ahead in the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate/conservative Democrat from West Virginia, has been balking over one provision over another in the sprawling bill.

However, if the Build Back Better plan finally makes it out of Washington, D.C., here’s hoping none of estimated $9 billion in BBB dollars with our state’s name on them has to go through the Massachusetts Legislature.

Massachusetts has been sitting on $5 billion worth of federal relief funds since the spring, with state lawmakers recently heading out on their seven-week holiday break without having come to an agreement on how to actually spend the money.

That prompted a jab from Gov. Charlie Baker, who unveiled plans in June for spending the bulk of the money on affordable housing and boosting the local economy.

Now we are looking into 2022 before the Legislature finally acts on this.

Mass General Brigham eyes lucrative suburban expansion plans

The state’s largest hospital system is giving a whole new meaning to the term nonprofit.

Mass General Brigham is seeking regulatory approval to open a trio of big ambulatory care centers in the Boston suburbs, with the new locations offering a mix of doctors’ offices and services like surgery and imaging.

Hospital executives say it’s all about going to where the Boston-based health care giant’s patients are. The new outpatient hubs, slated for Woburn, Westborough and Westwood, will give an estimated 227,000 patients a more convenient and lower cost alternative than trekking into the city to MGH or Brigham and Women’s.

Not so fast, says Attorney General Maura Healey.

Healey, whose office is reviewing the proposed expansion, has run the numbers based on the hospital system’s planning documents and come up with some surprising results, CommonWealth Magazine reports.

And the expansion, Healey’s office finds in a new report, could net Mass General Brigham $385 million profits annually.

Now that’s one very profitable nonprofit.

Contrarian Boston seeks contributors

Have a news tip? Is there an issue you would like to see explored? Interested in writing up a news item or short opinion piece? As Contrarian Boston gets on its feet, I would like to add more news and a wider range of commentary as well.

Intrigued? Drop me a line at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.