Boston, MA
If Boston really wants to open for business, it needs to cut the red tape – The Boston Globe
![If Boston really wants to open for business, it needs to cut the red tape – The Boston Globe If Boston really wants to open for business, it needs to cut the red tape – The Boston Globe](https://bostonglobe-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/y3LATfZji87pvsTMhDoaF1G9zTM=/506x0/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/bostonglobe/WQ5HEX37KCH6MLPSED6ZJQ5TWI.jpg)
Extreme regulation in Massachusetts has reached a tipping level the place state and native authorities crimson tape has created obstacles to entry that hinder innovation and unfairly discriminate towards entrepreneurs who can not afford a military of legal professionals and lobbyists to open for enterprise.
Contemplate the instance of eating places within the metropolis of Boston:
▪ It takes as much as 92 regulatory steps, 22 varieties, and 14 metropolis businesses inside a mean span of 260 days, at a mean value in metropolis charges of $5,554, to open a restaurant in Boston.
▪ Metropolis businesses regulate far past primary public security pursuits, like meals, hearth, and alcohol. Immediately, if a restaurant proprietor desires a pool desk, they want permission from the federal government. Desire a TV for purchasers to observe the Patriots or Bruins sport? Higher hope the federal government official chargeable for leisure licenses agrees.
▪ Businesses regulate the particular mannequin of apparatus within the kitchen and decide hours of operation. One Boston restauranteur described the licensing course of as inflicting “confusion, worry, lack of inspiration, and frustration” for house owners.
There’s a higher method.
As an alternative of a stifling tangle of crimson tape for brand spanking new or increasing companies in downtown Boston, town has the chance to experiment with a daring strategy to encourage free enterprise and set an instance for different cities. Simply because the Legislature launched the statutory idea of “complete permits” to hurry building of inexpensive housing, Boston may create a brand new administrative strategy for “complete business permits” to consolidate, simplify, and speed up the native allowing course of.
Right here’s how it will work: Boston may create a pilot mission to undertake an administrative overlay district for its downtown that creates another for brand spanking new and increasing companies primarily based on threat administration relatively than regulation. For instance, restaurant house owners preferring to endure the prevailing arduous path to opening their doorways in fact may proceed to use as earlier than. However restauranteurs may elect another path of administrative overview that boils down all required allowing to a few areas: hearth security, meals security, and alcohol security. All different areas at the moment lined by regulation and allow would get replaced by one complete requirement for legal responsibility insurance coverage together with protection for noise nuisance.
As an alternative of making use of for a number of permits past hearth, meals, and alcohol security — for pool tables, televisions, and the like — entrepreneurs would merely want to supply proof of satisfactory legal responsibility insurance coverage. If a enterprise is an effective threat, legal responsibility insurance coverage could be bought at an inexpensive worth. If a enterprise is seen by insurance coverage firms as a average threat — for instance, if a TV falls off the wall and hits a patron, and there could be a declare for any hurt ensuing from the incident — insurance coverage can be attainable at a better value. And companies which might be a poor threat can be unable to acquire insurance coverage and can face as an alternative the regulatory hurdles that now confront all companies in Boston. The chance-based various to regulation would create incentives for house owners to keep up well-run and accountable venues and supply an accessible path for entrepreneurship that doesn’t discriminate towards underrepresented house owners.
Eating is the spine of town’s nightlife and our cooks deserve higher. Changing laws with threat administration to encourage free enterprise is value a strive. If we do, downtown Boston may actually get cooking.
Dan Winslow is the president of the New England Authorized Basis. Will Sampson is a analysis assistant on the New England Authorized Basis and a scholar on the School of the Holy Cross.
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Boston, MA
Boston falling behind rest of state when it comes to housing, Boston Policy Institute says
![Boston falling behind rest of state when it comes to housing, Boston Policy Institute says Boston falling behind rest of state when it comes to housing, Boston Policy Institute says](https://assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2022/05/17/8b9d324d-769e-4d6c-9801-3c61615a83e9/thumbnail/1200x630/838fff2859b8a23490deb0413a5d8e1e/boston-generic-2021-summer.jpg?v=f303dc12868a012283443d8b9123e5fe)
Once again, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has filed a bill asking the state legislature for permission to temporarily raise the commercial property tax rate beyond legal limits in order to deal with projected revenue losses tied to the sharp decline of commercial real estate values.
Wu’s tax bill based on Menino bill
We’re now entering year two of debate over this problem, which was initially made widely public by a report commissioned by the Boston Policy Institute, a new non-profit dedicated to analysis of city issues.
Institute Director Greg Maynard tells WBZ-TV that “The bill that Mayor Wu is supporting in the state Senate is actually based on something that was passed 20 years ago under Mayor Menino, and that was enabling legislation that let cities and towns all across Massachusetts choose to do the same thing that Boston is trying to do now. Mayor Menino got support from a whole bunch of mayors all over the state, as well as from Governor Romney, and so he was able to put together a coalition and really, really get that done, make the case that it was important. Mayor Wu, although she’s using the same legislation that Mayor Menino did 20 years ago, didn’t put anything close to that coalition together, and she didn’t get anything close to the coalition in terms of business leaders.”
The Mayor’s previous effort stalled in the Senate and a compromise with business leaders fell apart when it turned out potential tax hikes on residential property owners weren’t as severe as the city had forecast. But the relationship between the mayor and many elements of the business community has been rocky for some time, and we asked Maynard why. “I think an important part of it is, you can see the reaction from the Wu administration to BPI’s report last year. Our report came out, the mayor and members of her administration called it misinformation and said that it wasn’t true. And then shortly after that, offered this piece of legislation we’re talking about now, which is designed to solve the problem that BPI’s report identified.”
But Maynard notes: “I think that Mayor Wu’s tax bill actually brings up some really important questions about how Prop. 2 ½ [the state law limiting local property tax growth and establishing the two-tiered tax system for commercial and residential property] actually operates, and whether a split tax rate…[is] actually legal or constitutional.”
Housing enters mayoral race
Meanwhile, the 2025 Boston mayoral race is underway, with challenger Josh Kraft and Wu already engaging on issues like housing development.
On housing, Maynard says “the debate we’ve seen over the last two weeks in Boston shows how far the housing debate in the city has come. It’s really focused on supply, and so Boston is finally starting to move into a debate around how to build more housing, which is something the rest of the state has been engaged in for a long time. But Boston’s politics, for whatever reason, has been really resistant to talking about the core of the issue…the MBTA Communities Act [requiring communities served by the T to reform their zoning to allow for more multi-family housing] brings up a really important issue that I think is going to be addressed in this mayor’s race, which is that because of the MBTA Communities Act, there are communities around Boston that now have denser by-right development just on the other side of the line from Boston. So it’s tougher to build in Boston now than it is in the communities that surround it and some of the suburban communities…so towns like Everett and Revere have built way more housing as a percentage of their total stock than Boston…the state has legalized ADUs [accessory dwelling units], the city has not done that. They haven’t followed Cambridge’s lead, either with the parking minimum abolition or with this massive upzoning. And so Boston is really falling behind the rest of the state in terms of making it easier to build. The city’s made it more expensive to build with stuff like increasing inclusionary zoning and increasing environmental requirements, but they haven’t done anything to loosen restrictions like we’re seeing in communities here in Massachusetts and all across the country.”
Maynard also discussed recent developments in the city’s push to install bike lanes. You can watch the entire conversation here, and please join us every Sunday morning at 8:30 for extensive discussion of the key issues in the mayoral race and elsewhere across the region on the weekend edition of “Keller At Large.”
Boston, MA
Full outlook on winter storm
![Full outlook on winter storm Full outlook on winter storm](https://assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2025/02/15/21515e55-1529-4ecb-bff5-17265f6ed339/thumbnail/1200x630/4420dc76b700b33dd49f97cf382a7f06/6309acac705e3c12d96a599996e04dcf.jpg?v=f303dc12868a012283443d8b9123e5fe)
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Boston, MA
Red Sox’s Alex Bregman Gives 1-Word Answer On Joining Boston
![Red Sox’s Alex Bregman Gives 1-Word Answer On Joining Boston Red Sox’s Alex Bregman Gives 1-Word Answer On Joining Boston](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_5903,h_3320,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/inside_the_red_sox/01jm2ye05zd9sr5av0xk.jpg)
The Boston Red Sox have another superstar in town.
Fans around Boston have been looking for the Red Sox to go out and make a big splash and the club did that this week by reportedly signing former Houston Astros All-Star Alex Bregman. He’s a two-time World Series-winner and will give the Red Sox exactly what they need from the right side of the plate.
Boston is lucky to have him and it seems like he’s excited to be in town too. This isn’t shocking after landing a three-year, $120 million deal. He arrived in Fort Myers with Spring Training kicking off and had a one-word answer when asked how it feels to be with Boston by WCVB CH5 Lead Sports Anchor Duke Castiglione.
“Awesome,” Bregman said with a thumbs up.
Before joining the Red Sox, he spent the first nine years of his big-league career with Houston. He was a two-time All-Star, two-time World Series, Gold Glove Award winner, Silver Slugger Award winner, and All-Star Game Most Valuable Player.
It has been reported that the expectation is that Bregman will be the Red Sox’s starting second baseman in 2025. Spring Training is just kicking off and anything could happen, but an infield featuring him, Triston Casas, Trevor Story, and Rafael Devers certainly is exciting to think about.
Bregman had 26 home runs and 75 RBIs last season for the Astros 145 games played. He also had 4.1 wins above replacement. If he can stay healthy, the Red Sox are going to be contenders.
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