MassDOT photo
The attorney general said she will “push the town to continue to think about what happened yesterday” after Marblehead voters rejected new multifamily zoning required by the MBTA Communities Act in a special election Tuesday.
“Obviously, was disappointed to see that result. I know it was a close one,” Attorney General Andrea Campbell said on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio” when someone who identified themselves as Paul from Marblehead called in to ask her opinion on the town vote. “We continue to work with municipalities to make it crystal clear to them that the MBTA Communities law is mandatory and it is not an unfunded mandate. The courts have made that crystal clear. We’ll continue to provide that technical assistance, Paul, to the teams who are working on these issues in that community and others and push for compliance.”
The vote was a referendum on zoning changes approved by Town Meeting in May – 3,542 voters opposed those changes while 3,297 voters supported them, according to unofficial results provided by the town.
The 2021 law is viewed by supporters as a method to spur development of much-needed housing in more than 170 eastern Massachusetts cities and towns that host – or, like Marblehead, are adjacent to – MBTA service. It requires those cities and towns to zone for multi-family housing by right in at least one reasonably sized district.
Campbell touted the law Wednesday as an important state-level tool for addressing the housing crisis at a time when she says “chaos and confusion coming from the federal government” is slowing housing development.
“But if we don’t get our act together, stakeholder by stakeholder, community by community, we’re suddenly going to have a Massachusetts that looks very different from the current neighborhood in which you live. It’s going to be more available for those who have a lot more money. In addition to that, an economy that will suffer. You can’t have a functioning economy if you don’t have housing, and a range of housing for our people,” Campbell said. “So I would push the town to continue to think about what happened yesterday, and then I’ll circle back. We’ve always wanted to work in collaboration with communities, not bring a hammer to every situation.”
Marblehead and other communities face a July 14 deadline to prove compliance to the state. Cities and towns that are not compliant by the deadline face the revocation of and ineligibility for state grant awards, and could face legal action from Campbell as was the case with Milton. Communities designated as adjacent small towns still face a Dec. 31, 2025 deadline to adopt compliant zoning.
