AMHERST — Significant cost increases to build affordable housing across the region pose a major challenge, but streamlining zoning rules, soliciting state and federal support, and pursuing local assistance can lead to successful developments, according to leaders with regional nonprofit housing developers.

Even with several projects either under development or going through permitting in Amherst, Northampton, Easthampton, Hadley, South Hadley and Pelham, nonprofit developers cited significant obstacles to continuing to expand the region’s affordable housing stock during a two-hour “Buildings Homes and Breaking Barriers” forum Thursday at Town Hall.

One such barrier is restrictive local zoning, and one example of local assistance would be getting Amherst to adopt the state’s Chapter 40R zoning, which would allow it to create a special zoning district to make it easier to construct affordable housing, developers said.

Laura Baker, real estate project manager at Valley Community Development, said at the forum that having a 40R district in Amherst would mean money for the town and a streamlined and by-right process that would encourage development.

“This is the most process-heavy place I’ve ever developed,” Baker said of Amherst. “We see that consistently, whether there’s opposition or not, and it just adds time, and time is money.”

One example of the benefits of Chapter 40R is in South Hadley, where Way Finders is building a four-story building that will have 60 affordable units on the former Big Y site at 501 Newton St.

“You’re telling them this is the bullseye, work here, and in return you get incentive payments when we build the housing,” said Keith Fairey, president and CEO of Way Finders.

Fairey cautioned that while considering where to zone for affordable housing, municipalities should consider what might be financially feasible. “Zoning on its own is helpful, but if you zone something that can’t be financed, it won’t be helpful,” he said.

The forum, moderated by state Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst, and sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, touched on the state’s $5.1 billion Massachusetts Affordable Homes Act housing bond bill. Even though well beyond the $1.8 billion housing bond bill in 2018, it’s not as big of a bump as it looks, Fairey said.

That’s because activity stalled during the pandemic, and now there are higher costs and interest rates. “There is a real cost of delay and it’s a wholly different world,” Fairey said.

Baker said it’s been a rocky ride for costs over the last couple of years, where the per-unit price to build had been under $300,000 in western Massachusetts, and only a little higher when East Gables at 132 Northampton Road in Amherst opened in the fall of 2023. Now, though, townhouse-style new construction in Northampton is close to $600,000 per unit, and the adaptive reuse of Northampton Nursing Home at 737 Bridge Road is coming in around $525,000 per unit.

“We’re seeing just incredibly high numbers in soft costs, and especially in construction costs,” Baker said.

Peter Serafino, senior project manager at Home City Development Inc., which is handling the two-building, 34-unit Amethyst Brook Apartments in Pelham, said the cost there is $600,000 per unit, though less than the $750,000 per unit cost in the Boston area.

Baker explained that to make it affordable for people who will live in these apartments, and to comply with regulations such as Northampton’s fossil-free rules, developers have to front-load costs and lean on public subsidies.

Reducing costs isn’t easy. Serafino said Home City Development also is handling the 96-unit, five-story building on a steel podium at 11 Ferry St. in Easthampton. The building was originally conceptualized as modular, and priced out as stick-built and modular, and ended up being a panelized build, with the panels built in Baltimore and assembled on site. These panels arrive at the site already complete with insulation and windows, walls, floors and ceilings. Serafino said 96 units wasn’t enough scale to make modular construction work financially.

Despite the challenges, Valley CDC is handling the Amherst Community Homes on Ball Lane that will break ground this year, Way Finders is undertaking the 78-unit mixed-income development of the East Street School and Belchertown Road properties, and a development of apartments and a homeless shelter is proposed at the former VFW site at 457 Main St., while Valley’s conversion of the Econo Lodge at 329 Russell St. Hadley is underway.

The former chairman of the town’s housing trust, John Hornik, said the challenges in private development in Amherst specifically are the demand for student housing, which market-rate developers pursue, resulting in a town that is mostly students and empty nesters, because those aging people have limited options for downsizing.

“Unless the Town Council makes major changes, it’s hard to be optimistic about the future,” Hornik said.

Renters are affected, too. During the pandemic, the Boston housing market softened, allowing for a dip in rents, yet rents in this area continued to rise. Fairey said there is a corresponding run-up in costs to operate housing, insurance costs have doubled and utilities and staff cost more — and those expenses get passed on to renters, whose rental vouchers can’t keep up.

“There’s not enough units, that’s why we need to be developing more units that are affordable for people,” Fairey said.

Domb said the state’s housing bond bill has money to speed up getting people into vacant apartments, but a real estate transfer fee to generate money to support new developments, with both Amherst and Boston having home-rule petitions, didn’t come out of committee positively and didn’t get through the Legislature.

“I think we have to keep trying, and we have to keep begging that we need money for it, and we need to launch a very large support for it,” Domb said

Fairey said a statewide campaign will be needed and that many municipalities will have to be involved.

Serafino cited having Community Preservation Act money available for housing production in many towns, while Fairey said housing trusts can add top sources of funding.

With respect to Amherst, Hornik said the University of Massachusetts will have a role, as there is a desperate need for housing on the campus, and in recent years UMass has severely restricted housing for families on campus while only providing a small boost in graduate student housing.

“The university needs to do a lot more than it’s doing, and we need to apply some public pressure to the university, hopefully to get them to move in the right direction,” Hornik said.