The task of keeping housing affordable for Boston residents and producing enough of it to meet demand is a constant balancing act.

One important piece of addressing the former is inclusionary zoning, which requires new, multifamily housing projects to set aside some of their new homes as affordable housing restricted to residents with low incomes.

But this year, inclusionary zoning has seen an unusual spotlight, even becoming a hot topic during the Boston mayoral campaign. That’s because one year ago, in October 2024, Boston increased the required percentage of units, decreased the maximum income level and reduced the minimum number of units in a project that would trigger the rules.

Since then, developers have increasingly said it makes creating new housing financially infeasible.

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