Mariano: Real estate transfer fee an option
House Speaker Ronald Mariano views housing and health care issues as two of the biggest threats to the state’s economic future, and on Thursday he touched on a few ways the Legislature would address them, including by considering a new transfer tax on the sale of high-end properties.
Speaking to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Mariano pledged that the House would vote on a version of Governor Maura Healey’s $4 billion housing bond bill, which includes a controversial proposal to allow cities and towns to impose a new transfer fee of up to 2 percent on real estate sales above $1 million. Communities could then use that money to finance the construction of more affordable housing.
Mariano stopped short of wholeheartedly endorsing the transfer tax, saying instead that it’s among the options the House is “considering.” However, he did offer an explanation for why, knowing that the Greater Boston Chamber has officially opposed the measure.
“If you believe that the issue of housing affordability is genuine,” he said, “then we must explore all options that have the potential to make a real difference.”
Healey’s version of the transfer fee, included in the bond bill she filed in October, would allow municipalities to impose a fee of 0.5 percent to 2 percent on property sales over $1 million, or those above the county’s median home sales price in places where that exceeds $1 million.
Later, while speaking with reporters, Mariano said he believes the 2 percent maximum fee in Healey’s bill should be lower.
“You don’t want it to be an inhibitor to construction,” Mariano said. “When I read the governor’s [bill], my initial reaction was that this might be high.”
He said he’s not sure if he has enough votes in the House for the transfer fee option.
“I will talk to members, see where the support is,” he said. “The goal is to see if we can put some tools in the hands of some of the municipalities who really want to do this.”
Mariano also said the House’s version of the bond bill will include language to expand the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s service area, which would provide more water and sewer services to additional towns, as a way of addressing an infrastructure issue that is slowing housing development in many communities. The authority currently serves more than 60 municipalities in Greater Boston.
The Quincy Democrat said he’d prefer a larger bond bill than the $4 billion Healey proposed, in part to fund the MWRA expansion.
“My goal to expand the MWRA, it comes with a cost,” he told reporters. “I want to bond that cost.”
The expansion would bring water to the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station, a sprawling former military base where redevelopment has been challenged by infrastructure issues. MWRA water could pave the way for as many as 6,000 new homes there, Mariano said. He expects to bring the service area further south, at least to Brockton, and said the authority is also looking to expand further north of Boston.
Mariano, in his speech, also delved into the financial problems at Steward Health Care, a Dallasbased for-profit company that has seven hospitals in Massachusetts and another one under construction. He said the Steward crisis might have been avoided if Steward “hadn’t spent years hiding their financial information from state regulators.”
To address that, Mariano said he hopes to soon pass legislation to “better equip” state officials so they can monitor the health care landscape, and guard against transactions “that can drive up costs without improving patient outcomes.” State officials, he said, need better data to alert regulators to a problem before it becomes a crisis. He also wants a “robust regional and state inventory of our health care resources” to better evaluate the need for new projects and the effects of cutting services.
“We are facing the most profound realignment of the hospital system that we’ve seen in decades,” Mariano said in his speech. “We must ... ensure that we are better prepared in the future to respond to major disruptions in the health care landscape.”