This week, during the City Council Committee meeting on Tuesday, November 26th, 2024, a lot of topics were to be discussed, like new tax rates in Worcester, rent control, and the Hero Act for veterans. However, most of these topics got tabled, which simply means moving the discussion of a topic to another meeting. This week’s meeting was pretty short, as a lot of things got tabled, and things like road signs and streetlights were spoken about, which aren’t really interesting. The main topic this week was about affordable housing, but we’ll get to that later.

Rent Control

A proposed argument on the rent control program during the meeting suggested that the city set fixed rent prices for government-owned property in Worcester based on income, as the city is in debt and needs ways to pay it off. It wouldn’t make any sense if the city is accommodating people who can help pay it off, but as I said, the matter was tabled, so it wasn’t fully spoken on.

Tax Prices

The city looked at a table of its rates for the average prices of things in Worcester and compared it to the costs in other cities close to us, like Shrewsbury, Northboro, and Sutton. Prices differed, with some being more expensive than others, but Worcester was the cheapest out of all these cities. We certainly don’t know if the city is planning on increasing the rates, as we were the cheapest out of these cities, but time will tell.

Hero Act

The Hero Act is an act that is supposed to support veterans and active-duty personnel by giving higher discounts, annuity payments, and property tax exemptions. The list goes on. The city is thinking of increasing benefits toward veterans, but it hasn’t been discussed yet.

Affordable Housing

Affordable housing in Worcester is something that is not talked about enough, as different luxury apartments are being built in the city and prices of apartments and houses just keep going up, making it harder for the average person to afford housing. The city’s plan for building these luxury apartments was to attract rich people from other cities in Massachusetts to come to Worcester and become residents of this city, as they know it will have a positive impact on the city. Most of these apartments built in Worcester were placed on TIF and TIE. TIF means that the taxes to build these apartments were cut to a more affordable price, making it easier for these companies to pay to build these buildings, which was encouraging to these companies, as the city and companies both benefited from it. TIE means they are completely exempt from paying taxes to build these buildings. In 2020, the City Council granted 16 companies TIF, meaning they partially paid taxes to build the buildings they built. But would you say the city’s plan worked, as most of the buildings that were built are empty? But I guess time will tell.

Ultimately, a lot of things discussed this week were tabled and will be talked about more in another meeting, which I will recap in the next article as information about some of the topics is limited.