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Presenter: Eli B. Susskind

Faculty Sponsor: Brenda K. Bushouse

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Public Policy

Session: Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A60

ABSTRACT

The housing and environmental crises are among the most pressing public challenges of the 21st century. These crises are deeply connected: environmental regulations can constrain housing production, stagnating supply and driving up costs, while efforts to accelerate housing production can weaken those regulations and harm the environment. To achieve a balance between these competing priorities, policymakers must carefully consider their options. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has been at the center of this tension for decades. Critics argue that its expensive and lengthy environmental review process, broad scope, and robust enforcement mechanisms has contributed significantly to California’s housing crisis. By contrast, the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) has a generally less burdensome environmental reviews process, a narrower scope, and is primarily procedural. Still, to varying degrees, both CEQA and MEPA impede housing construction. In 2025, CEQA reforms streamlined the environmental review process to accelerate housing production, and in early 2026, similar MEPA reforms followed suit. Whether these reforms successfully balanced these competing priorities remains highly contested. This study compares the design and implementation of CEQA and MEPA before and after their most recent reforms, evaluating how policies involving environmental review can accommodate both environmental and housing needs. It concludes by offering policy recommendations, including guidance on the cost, duration, scope, and enforceability of environmental review across different housing markets and environmental contexts. In doing so, this study aims to work towards policy solutions that simultaneously tackle the environmental and housing crises.