Greater Boston mayors aim to boost area housing

Mayors from Boston and 13 neighboring cities are teaming up to dramatically boost the number of housing units in the area to help stabilize the market and make the region more attractive to businesses like Amazon, a city official said.

The partnership of the Metropolitan Mayors Coalition of Greater Boston will work with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to study housing needs over the next six to eight months and come up with a goal for area-wide development, Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development chief Sheila Dillon told the Herald.

The group’s goal is to “increase the pace of housing construction in every community throughout Metro Boston, sharing the burden of production in order to increase housing affordability for all household types and incomes,” a statement said.

The coalition includes Boston, Braintree, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Newton, Quincy, Revere, Somerville and Winthrop.

Dillon said while Boston has strongly pushed for new housing, other cities in the area have been less aggressive and the study was intended to show the benefits of greater development throughout the region — not to pick up the slack as Boston residents are priced out of their homes.

“We’re not asking the region to build more housing so people can leave Boston, we’re asking the region to build housing so there’s not as much pressure on Boston — it’s an important difference,” Dillon said, adding more housing can help lure companies like Amazon to the Boston area.

“We have to recognize that we won’t remain competitive as a region unless we build more housing for workforces ... a very common concern for businesses relocating in the area is the price of housing,” Dillon said.