Attorney General Andrea Campbell holds a press conference on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024 announcing that her office is suing social media company, TikTok. Photo by Chris Lisinski | State House News Service
Attorney General Andrea Campbell is preparing to “take action as appropriate” by the end of this month against any of the 12 towns that still have not complied with the multifamily zoning requirements of the MBTA Communities Act, she said Tuesday.
The 2021 law is intended to spur development of housing in more than 170 eastern Massachusetts cities and towns that host or are adjacent to MBTA service. It requires 177 cities and towns to zone for multifamily housing by right in at least one reasonably sized district.
As of Jan. 8, 165 of the 177 communities have either come into compliance or secured either interim or conditional compliance from the state, according to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
The noncompliant towns are Carver, Dracut, East Bridgewater, Freetown, Halifax, Holden, Marblehead, Middleton, Rehoboth, Tewksbury, Wilmington and Winthrop. All faced compliance deadlines of either July 14, 2025, or Dec. 31, 2025.
“We are on top of this right now,” Campbell said Tuesday on GBH Radio’s “Boston Public Radio” program. She added, “We gave folks to the end of January, based on our guidance last year, to come into compliance. And those that do not, we will take action as appropriate by the end of the month. And so just stay tuned. We’re evaluating those options, and we’ll have something certainly by the end of this month.”
In its July guidance to cities and towns, which also gave notice that lawsuits could begin this month, Campbell’s office pointed out that January 2026 will mark five years since Gov. Charlie Baker signed the zoning-reform requirements into law as part of a larger economic bond package.
“By that point, every MBTA Community will have had ample time – and considerable state support – to establish the legally mandated zoning. Because facilitating additional residential housing development is a foremost state priority – in the interests of those who reside in the Commonwealth and those who hope to, and essential to the success of our state economy – five years is more than sufficient time for each community to have achieved compliance,” the office wrote. “That is especially true because rezoning is but an initial, necessary step towards building the new housing that the Commonwealth so badly needs. The remaining steps will take time before additional housing is built, and we have no time to waste in addressing the Commonwealth’s continued housing shortage; nor in addressing impediments to that important work.”
Almost two years ago, Campbell sued the town of Milton, where voters rejected an MBTA Communities zoning plan, to force it into compliance. The Supreme Judicial Court nearly a year later upheld the law as constitutional while ordering the Healey administration to redo the regulatory process. A Superior Court judge in June ruled that the MBTA Communities Act is not an unfunded mandate, turning aside a lawsuit brought by nine municipalities including two that remain noncompliant.
