EDITORIAL: Pryor’s Appointment Is Critical to Solving RI’s Housing Crisis
Thursday, January 26, 2023
No one person is going to solve Rhode Island’s housing crisis, but putting an accomplished professional in charge of getting $250 million deployed is a critical step.
Governor Dan McKee’s appointment of Stefan Pryor as Secretary of Housing is a good start.
Pryor is a proven pro. He has had successes at the highest level in New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTGoLocal has not always agreed with his strategies when he served as Commerce Secretary in Rhode Island, but he is one of the state’s most adept public servants.
To give a sense of how inept Rhode Island’s elected officials — primarily former Governor Gina Raimondo and Mayor Jorge Elorza — were in dealing with the housing crisis, in Boston in the past decade, 45,000 new condos, homes, and apartments were built, not to mention the 140,000 new jobs and the billions in tax revenue generated by new development, according to the Boston Contrarian.
Those numbers are just for the City of Boston. In most years, Rhode Island builds a little more than 1,000 housing units.
In Rhode Island, even after voters approved a ballot question providing funding for housing, Raimondo scooped millions to fill a budget hole.
Add in the false solution, like Speaker Joe Shekarchi's chest pounding over a minuscule real estate transfer tax that generates $5 million a year. With the median price of a single-family home at about $400,000, the Speaker’s “solution” funds a dozen or so new units. Rhode Island needs a reoccurring funding source. Shekarchi’s solution is paltry.
Newly appointed Secretary Pryor will need to change the housing discussion in Rhode Island.
Here are a number of critical steps:
- Local zoning and regulations that are discriminatory need to end
- RI needs to go vertical. Providence, East Providence, Pawtucket, Cranston and Warwick waterfronts — to name a few — need structures of 10-20 and 30 stories. We need more condos and apartments
- There is no excuse for not dramatically increasing the number of assets available to house the homeless. We need to get away from short-term one-offs and develop a functioning program.
- Move fast.
The reality is Rhode Island is last in building new housing units. GoLocal reported in July on a study that ranks Rhode Island last in the U.S. for new home construction per capita.
The study finds that Rhode Island issued just 1.27 permits per 1,000 residents in 2021.
Massachusetts issued 2.82 permits per 1,000 residents.
McKee deserves credit for tapping Pryor, and now the two need to move the needle. This is not a short-term game, but in the next 24-36 months, Rhode Island needs to be building 2,000 to 3,000 units a year to meet some of the needs.
An editorial is the opinion of a publication — specifically, the ownership.
While based on facts and news reporting, it is an opinion intended to discuss critical community issues. Often, the opinion is written with the intention of positive change.
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