Towns face funding cuts over housing mandate defiance
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
There are 15 Massachusetts municipalities still out of compliance with a state law requiring multifamily housing zones near transit.
Why it matters: The towns risk losing millions in grants and are courting potential legal action.
State of play: The MBTA Communities Act has reached widespread adoption.
- 142 communities passed the required zoning changes to allow more multifamily housing.
- 119 municipalities are fully compliant.
Yes, but: There's a stubborn cohort of smaller towns that continue resisting.
The big picture: The 2021 zoning law was an aggressive attempt by lawmakers to override local zoning control and require denser housing stock in communities served by the MBTA.
- It required 177 communities to create districts where multiunit apartment buildings can be built without special permits.
Still on the state's naughty list:
- Dracut, where 669 voters rejected reconsideration of a measure to move into compliance.
- Marblehead, which twice overturned compliance plans.
- Winthrop, which has already lost $1.2 million in flood mitigation funding.
- The rest of the towns not going along with the state mandate: East Bridgewater, Freetown, Halifax, Hanover, Hanson, Holden, Marshfield, Middleton, Tewksbury, Weston, Wilmington and Wrentham.
Between the lines: Most legal challenges that claim the law is an unfunded mandate have sputtered out in the courts.
- A Superior Court judge dismissed lawsuits from nine towns in June, calling their financial impact claims "speculative."
What's next: Attorney General Andrea Campbell has warned that enforcement lawsuits will begin in January.
- Her office previously won Supreme Judicial Court backing to enforce the law in a case against Milton.
The bottom line: The standoff tests whether state authority can overcome the commonwealth's tradition of hyperlocal zoning control while a severe housing shortage grips the state.