Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee recently led a group of visitors through a model apartment at Dexter Street Commons, showing off the amenities of the 150-unit mixed-use complex in Pawtucket near the Central Falls border.
“Let me tell you why you’d like to live here,” McKee said, adopting the pitch of a sales agent.
Sunlight streamed in through big windows. Each unit has a washer and dryer, and McKee said plans for a coffee shop, market and restaurant on the ground floor will spark more vitality in the area.
“And by the way,” he added, “you’re right next to where the train station is, so if you want to head south to Providence or New York City or want to head north to Boston, this is all there and within walking distance.”
In poll after poll, housing ranks high among Rhode Islanders’ top concerns – not surprising given that the median cost of a home in the state tops half a million dollars. With McKee and former CVS executive Helena Foulkes leading the Democratic primary for governor in a heavily Democratic state, tackling the state’s housing crisis will likely fall to one of them. That’s why Ocean State Media asked McKee and Foulkes to talk housing policy at a location that reflects their approach to the issue.
Construction underway
McKee said he chose Dexter Street Commons because it’s just one of dozens of construction projects underway around the state. He called that a signal of how, under his leadership, Rhode Island has finally started making headway against its housing crisis.
“The state has kicked the can down the road for decades,” McKee said, “and I inherited an issue that I needed to address and we addressed it.”
There are signs of progress. Almost 3,800 residential housing permits were issued in the state last year, an increase of more than 1,000 from the year before. He says close to 7,000 units have been built or are currently on a path to be completed.
McKee’s 56-page housing plan targets a goal of building 15,000 new units by 2030. It emphasizes utilizing partnerships, addressing zoning and regulatory barriers, and setting housing production goals for each Rhode Island community.
But McKee doesn’t mention that state support for Dexter Street Commons was first announced in 2020 by his predecessor, former Gov. Gina Raimondo, before the pandemic paused a lot of construction.
Or how the more than $15 million in state subsidies for 30 below-market units in the project is seen by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, as an inefficient way to promote housing affordability.
RIPEC Analyst Jeffrey Hamill credited McKee with streamlining the state’s housing bureaucracy. But Hamill said former House Speaker Joe Shekarchi was the person who really raised the state’s focus on confronting the housing crisis, saying that the former speaker “deserves a lion’s share of the credit.”
Hamill applauded McKee’s housing plan for including important elements, such as goals for overall production and affordable units. But he said it lacks an aggressive legislative component that could make it easier to develop more housing. Particularly, around what were once called “starter homes.”
“I would like to have seen a plan to stimulate market and middle-income housing across income levels,” he said. “And a plan that’s really going to meaningfully affect the supply, and I don’t see that in the 2030 plan.”
To go further than the series of housing packages backed by former Speaker Shekarchi, Hammill said, “we have to move past process fixes and use state law to make substantial changes. Make no mistake: these changes would be politically difficult to execute and would face backlash in communities protective of local control, but they are the only levers that would make housing development fundamentally easier.”
The kind of changes he’s talking about include allowing duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes by right in any residential zone where single-family housing is allowed, provided there is adequate water and sewer service; legalizing the single-room occupancy and co-housing typically banned or restricted by local zoning boards; and eliminating what Hamill called “arbitrary dimensional barriers” – like large lot requirements – that discourage more housing.
A dedicated housing fund
Helena Foulkes talks about housing on the campaign trail and in a recent TV ad emphasized her plan to reduce housing costs. Like McKee, she chose Goff Avenue near the train station on the Pawtucket-Central Falls border to discuss the issue with Ocean State Media.
The area feels like the early phase of a transition – some mills have been converted into housing, while others are dormant. Foulkes says more needs to happen. And she said she’d emphasize what she calls logical places to target growth if she assumes the state’s top job.
“Experts call it ‘transit-oriented development,’” Foulkes said. “And it just means, ‘let’s build houses and apartments along bus lines and railway connections.’ And this is a good example of it. Look at all the old mill buildings we’ve been able to see here.”
Foulkes also said creating more housing requires additional muscle at the Statehouse. For example, a 2024 law making it easier to build an extra apartment known as an Accessory Dwelling Unit got a lot of attention. But fewer than 100 ADUs were completed last year.
“For me, it says we need executive leadership, okay?” Foulkes said. “It’s one thing to pass bills, but it’s another to actually be a leader who’s pushing for results for the people.”
The centerpiece of Foulkes’ approach involves asking voters to approve a new constitutionally protected state fund to help build 20,000 new units over eight years. The money would come from the recently approved surtax on income over $1 million.
“Part of this proposal is a pool of funds with the millionaires’ tax, which will go toward giving developers loans while they’re living in the uncertainty of getting all their permits and approval(s),” Foulkes said. “That way I think we get it moved faster.”
McKee also supported the surtax, but said Foulkes’ housing fund is a non-starter because it would siphon money from other priorities.
In a statement last week, the governor’s campaign said, “Foulkes hasn’t explained what cuts she would make or what taxes she would raise to pay for her promises. By diverting the money collected from Rhode Island’s millionaire’s tax, Foulkes would be raiding the money Rhode Island is using to keep families connected to health coverage and protect them from Trump’s cuts.”
Foulkes said her approach is better than asking the state to pay tens of millions in interest costs when voters approve ballot questions to build housing.
Whether voters get to vote on creating the constitutionally protected housing fund envisioned by Foulkes would be decided by the General Assembly. Her campaign said the revolving fund would ultimately generate $1 billion in capacity, with funds restored through loan repayments.
Foulkes said the importance of housing justifies her approach. She recalled how her father was able to buy a $20,000 East Greenwich home while earning 10,000 a year in 1964.
“And you fast forward to today and a couple making $88,000 – which is the average income for a family in Rhode Island – it would cost them six times their income to buy a house,” Foulkes said. “It’s way out of reach.”
RIPEC analyst Jeffrey Hamill said Foulkes’ housing plan on her campaign website lacks some details.
“But from what I’m able to see in there,” he added, “there is more of an all-of-the-above strategy. For example, it includes rental assistance, it includes some public development, a revolving fund, and different types of production. From what I can see, that’s more in line with what we’ve been advocating for.”
Even though the state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to create more housing, the median price to buy a home has barely budged.
And regardless of how McKee and Foulkes finish in the primary on Sept. 9, the next governor will face a stiff challenge in making more progress.
