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The John Adams Courthouse, seat of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is shown from Pemberton Square in downtown Boston in 2021. Photo by Sam Doran | State House News Service
Justice Serge Georges Jr. said the case against Milton, which centers around how to enforce the MBTA Communities law, “raises novel questions of law which are of public importance and which are time sensitive and likely to recur.”
But Georges did not agree with the timetable for the case that Campbell had requested. He recommended the full court hear oral arguments on the case in October, five months later than Campbell had sought. Campbell had hoped the court would clear up the legal confusion well in advance of Dec. 31, when 129 other communities are scheduled to file rezoning plans under the law.
The attorney general’s office issued a statement welcoming the decision to have the full court review the matter, but ignoring the delay.
“We are pleased that the single justice has recognized that this case presents an important legal question for the full Supreme Judicial Court to decide in the near future,” the statement said. “In the meantime, we continue to expect that communities take the required steps to comply with the law, and we commend the vast majority who are already doing so.”
The MBTA Communities Act requires communities to rezone an area of town near public transit to allow multi-family zoning to be built as a matter of right. Milton was designated by state regulators as a rapid transit community, meaning it was required to create a rezoning plan that could theoretically lead to more than 2,000 housing units. Milton Town Meeting approved a rezoning plan last year that brought the town into compliance, but residents rejected that plan in a special referendum in mid-February.
Since the town vote, Milton officials have not laid out a clear plan forward. They have indicated they will probably challenge the town’s designation as a rapid transit community and develop a rezoning plan that could theoretically yield less than 1,000 housing units.
Campbell’s lawsuit against Milton is designed to force the town to comply with the law and the guidelines regulators drafted to carry out the law and to send a warning to other communities nervous about the law’s zoning requirements that they must comply as well.
In its legal filings, Milton pushed back against Campbell’s claim that the case needs to be referred directly to the SJC on an accelerated time schedule. The town also challenged Campbell’s authority to enforce the law, noting her office is not mentioned in the statute. The town argued that the only punishment for noncompliance contained in the law is the withholding of grant money the town would normally be eligible to receive. The Healey administration has already cut Milton off from those grant funds.
Georges, in his referral to the full court, said the town is making the legal argument “that the statute permits the town to ‘opt out’ of the obligations” described in the MBTA Communities law and the law’s guidelines.
Campbell wants to snuff out such talk among municipalities quickly, but Georges did not give her the timetable she requested. She wanted the court to hear the case at its May seating and then render a decision in the summer. Georges, without explanation, put oral arguments off until October, which would mean a decision could come close to the end of the year.
This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
