Mayor Thomas M. Menino today announced a plan to lay the groundwork for the creation of 30,000 new housing units in the Hub by 2020.
In a wide-ranging speech before the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Menino said the city will work with experts inside and outside of government to prepare Boston "for the housing needs of all of our people, not just some of our people."
The city's housing supply has grown faster than at any time in the last 50 years, he said. From 2000 to 2010, the city created 20,000 housing units, injecting $6 billion of investment into the economy. Of those units, 6,400 are set aside as affordable, including nearly 600 for the homeless. Over the same period, more than 10,000 new dorm beds have gone up, creating housing for students and freeing up apartments for families.
The city next will invest more than $11 million to complete the overhaul of Millennium Park in West Roxbury so that children can play on rebuilt fields and courts, and families can take advantage of a new athletic track, multi-use fields, two tennis courts and new lighting, Menino said.
And for the first time, the mayor will set aside $1 million for the city's youth to allocate through "Participatory Budgeting" so that young people can learn how the budget works and decide where to invest funds.
Menino also said Wegmans will open its first Hub grocery store in the Landmark Center in Fenway. He added that construction at the old Filene's in Downtown Crossing will begin in late spring, and with the new owners of the Bronstein Center, the city plans to make the Marine Industrial Park an even better home to innovative companies.
With a new e-permitting program that comes on-ine next month, he said, the city will streamline permits. Over the last six months, it already has cut average wait times in half.
Earlier this month, the city issued a report saying that 200 new companies had brought 4,000 new jobs to the Innovation District. But the pace of progress is such that new arrivals like CareCloud and NetSuite have already made that report outdated, Menino said.
"The fact is, we have more jobs than ever before in Boston," he said. "We have more development underway than ever. We have more young workers per capita than any other city."
The city broke ground on $1.6 billion of development last year, "which sounds like a lot until you realize that we expect to triple that number this year," Menino said.
Local universities and hospitals have $1.2 billion of construction underway, he said, and Harvard, Northeastern, Boston University and Suffolk all have active plans to grow more.
"Meds and eds are job creators here in Boston and around the country. That's why we will continue to fight against the sequester," Menino said, referring to the across-the-board cuts in federal spending that took effect this month.
"Once the federal government cuts funding for new discoveries, China will jump at the chance to take our place," he said. "We cannot give ground in Boston's leading industry. Join us in speaking out against these foolish cuts."
This year, the mayor said, he wants to see another 40 new firms hire young people for the first time, at a cost of only $2,000 per student. The city invests over $4 million in summer jobs.
Two weeks ago, the mayor said, he hosted a meeting with women business owners to talk about their unique needs. Last week, the city had its first session to help Boston's young women negotiate for better pay.
The city council this week will also consider a new ordinance that "will do for our buildings what consumer-friendly ratings have done for cars: give commercial tenants better choices and drive down energy use in Boston," Menino said.
Just this month, Standard and Poor's re-affirmed Boston's AA+ bond rating and Moody's confirmed the city's Aaa, he said. Days later, the city sold $145 million in bonds at 2.3 percent and retired old debt, saving taxpayers $2 million.
"We've been able to borrow affordably to re-invest in our neighborhoods," Menino said. "This year, we have invested over $200 million — a record for Boston. We've put it to use at the Ferdinand building in Dudley, at the Flaherty Pool in Roslindale and for re-paving more roads than at any time in a decade."
