BOSTON, MA – Brian Shortsleeve, Marine, business leader, proven government reformer, and Republican candidate for governor reacted to Maura Healey’s proposal to study a proposal to reduce the required number of stairways in certain new residential construction projects from two to one:
“Rather than taking bold action to address our housing shortage, Maura Healey once again offers a study committee,” said Shortsleeve. “For years, overregulation and outdated codes have made it too expensive to build housing in Massachusetts. Admitting that is progress, and the stairway requirement should be addressed, but it is another example of the sort of half measure we’ve come to expect from Healey.”
Shortsleeve offered four bold ideas that would immediately and significantly spur housing development and reduce housing costs:
Eliminate the Massachusetts Stretch Code. It layers costly, state-specific energy mandates on top of the base building code and drives up construction costs by an estimated 30 – 40%. That’s real money added to every unit. If we want affordability, we need to stop gold-plating requirements that other states don’t impose.
Follow the lead of Democratic governors like Kathy Hochul and pause MEPA permitting requirements for new residential construction for five years. Housing is a crisis. We should treat it like one. Endless environmental reviews for projects in already-developed areas don’t protect the environment, they protect delay and litigation.
Set a firm 30-day deadline for environmental permitting decisions. If agencies can’t act within 30 days, the state should automatically waive all associated permitting fees. Both Republican and Democratic governors like Glenn Youngkin and Josh Shapiro have shown that strict timelines create accountability and predictability. Massachusetts should do the same.
Stop Maura Healey’s plan to effectively ban new gas hookups for housing. Families deserve affordable, reliable energy options, but Maura Healey’s DPU wants to make it cost-prohibitive to install new gas hookups. Forcing all-electric construction before the grid is ready drives up costs and limits consumer choice. If we want to lower housing prices, we can’t keep layering on energy mandates that make every new unit more expensive to build and more expensive to heat.
“Housing costs are crushing families because Beacon Hill has made it too expensive to build,” said Shortsleeve. “Fixing one stairway requirement is a small, but extremely inadequate, step forward. Fixing the entire broken system is leadership.”