Gov. Maura Healey’s administration is getting ready an government order that targets modular housing, or houses which can be designed and constructed in a manufacturing facility to be rapidly assembled at a desired location, in line with an ethics disclosure filed by one of many authors of the order.
The order, which was in draft type as of Might 27, would create an “Interagency Modular Housing Task Force” comprised of state staff and an exterior advisory council. The 2 teams would advocate reforms to help modular housing growth and manufacturing in Massachusetts, in line with the disclosure.
Benjamin Bryant, the director of coverage implementation on the Government Workplace of Housing and Livable Communities, stated he helped develop a proposed construction, scope of labor, and set of deliverables for the duty drive and council.
“I anticipate that I will be required to continue to support the refinement of the (executive order) language and possibly help present the content to the Governor’s Office over the coming weeks,” Bryant stated in a disclosure he filed with the State Ethics Fee final month.
Karissa Hand, a spokesperson for Healey, stated the governor “intends to create a Modular Housing Task Force and an Advisory Council” in step with the suggestions of a housing manufacturing fee.
“The goal will be to explore how to support the growth of modular housing in the state, which is an effective tool for increasing housing production and lowering costs,” Hand stated in a press release to the Herald.
Healey has signed 39 government orders since she took workplace in January 2023, along with her newest accredited in the beginning of Might to advertise “age-friendly policies and practices” throughout the manager department.
In a June 2022 report, federal officers stated off-site building of housing — together with manufactured housing, modular houses, and prefabricated structural elements — might assist make housing manufacturing extra environment friendly, enhance high quality, and decrease prices.
Solomon Greene, a former official on the U.S. Division of Housing and City Improvement throughout the Biden administration, stated within the report that factory-built housing and off-site building “continue to struggle with scale and uptake” in the US in comparison with industries in different nations.
That comes as rising costs for residence consumers and renters are “forcing Americans out of their homes and making housing unattainable,” the report stated.
“Offsite construction, the design and delivery of housing using an industrialized and manufactured-style approach, has the potential to deliver more affordable and accessible single and multifamily housing at scale,” the report stated.
Bryant stated he filed the ethics disclosure as a result of he might envision himself making the case that he ought to be appointed to the advisory council as soon as he leaves the Government Workplace of Housing and Livable Communities this summer time to review at Harvard College.
“In either case, I’ve realized that I have a financial interest in the ongoing work I’m supporting to establish a Modular Housing Task Force and Advisory Council via executive order,” Bryant wrote within the ethics disclosure, a replica of which was obtained by the Herald.
Bryant stated he “temporarily paused” additional work on the draft government order whereas he awaited a willpower on the best way to proceed from higher-ups within the Healey administration.
Housing Secretary Ed Augustus determined that “the financial interest is not so substantial as to be deemed likely to affect the integrity of the services which the commonwealth may expect from the employee,” in line with the disclosure.
