Redevelopment of Stow Acres Country Club by Harvard-based MCO & Associates will include 40 cottage-style rental homes. Image courtesy of MCO & Associates
A golf course redevelopment in Stow and high-profile site in Amesbury await as test cases for a resurgence of a housing style that consumes less land and takes a smaller bite out of household budgets.
The Stow Acres project in Stow and Rocky Hill development in Amesbury will demonstrate modern-day models for cottage-style housing.
And they’re being mooted as housing advocates campaign to legalize small house lots statewide. The change could spur construction of more modest, relatively affordable single-family homes across Massachusetts, according to housing advocates and the sponsor of the Starter Homes ballot question.
Voters may have the chance to legalize small house lots on a statewide basis pending the certification and approval of a ballot question for the 2026 state election.
“Most builders would tell you they prefer not to do large homes any longer,” said Bob Dale, a New Hampshire developer who is nearing final approval for a 379-unit project in Amesbury. “People aren’t looking for the maintenance of the big yard, and it would be extremely appealing to builders and easier to get away with a lot less infrastructure costs.”
Ballot Question Seeks Starter Homes
The Starter Homes ballot question would legalize single-family homes on lots as small as 5,000 square feet that have 50 feet of road frontage, and public water and sewer service. Sponsored by Andrew Mikula, it needs almost 75,000 voter signatures to appear on the 2026 ballot. Mikula’s group said last week it had submitted over 84,000 to Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office.
Mikula is a senior housing fellow at The Pioneer Institute but is organizing the ballot question in a private capacity.
The goal of the initiative petition is to resurrect a remnant of residential living that once proliferated in suburbs and small towns. Cottage-style homes could fill a sought-after niche offering home ownership or rental opportunities for first-time homebuyers or downsizing families, developers and housing researchers say.
“The product is a little more attractive for people in terms of having their own four walls and more privacy and more light,” said Mark O’Hagan, owner of Harvard-based development firm MCO & Associates.
Outer Suburbs Block Cottage Projects
MCO & Associates is set to begin construction next spring of a cluster-style development including single-family homes, rental cottages and age-restricted apartments on a portion of the Stow Acres Country Club property. Image courtesy of MCO & Associates
O’Hagan specializes in cottage-style housing projects in the outer suburbs, where land acquisition costs tend to be lower. But cottage-style projects still face obstacles from the large minimum lot sizes in many communities.
Such is the case in Stow, where the existing zoning requires 1.5-acre minimum lots for single-family homes.
After O’Hagan began discussions with the owners of Stow Acres Country Club about acquiring the property for development, town officials contacted him to discuss a compromise that would preserve some of the land for open space and conservation.
O’Hagan received approval through Chapter 40B, the state’s affordable housing law, for a $100 million cluster-style development including 124 single-family homes, 40 cottage-style rental houses and 25 age-restricted apartments on 69 acres. The town agreed to acquire the remainder of the 175-acre country club property for conservation.
In Lancaster, O’Hagan previously completed the Lancaster Village development of single-family cottage rentals. The 32 houses there range from 800 to 1,400 square feet and rent for $3,000 to $4,000.
“There is a lot more appetite for this type of development,” he said. “For 30 years, single-family Colonial was the product that was almost exclusively built. People are aging out of them and they’ve got no place to go.”
O’Hagan is scheduled to close on the Stow Acres acquisition next month and start construction next spring.
Existing Tools Give Developers Leverage
Inner suburbs with small house lots carved up before modern zoning are largely built out, minimizing the opportunities for new construction, said Amy Dain, a senior fellow at the Boston Indicators think-tank at The Boston Foundation. Further from Boston, many communities have large minimum lot sizes, encouraging developers to build luxury-sized homes to recoup their investment.
“This law would create a lot of opportunities for subdividing larger lots and building more single-family homes as infill across the region,” Dain said.
Legal tools like Chapter 40B and the MBTA Communities law already give developers leverage to push back with an alternative to large lot subdivisions, such as cottage homes.
A plan shows the layout of Dale Development’s proposed Rocky Hill project in Amesbury. Image courtesy of Dale Development
In Amesbury, Dale Development originally planned to use Chapter 40B to develop the town’s most prominent site: the Golden Triangle located between Interstates 95 and 495 on the New Hampshire border.
Amesbury officials subsequently included the site in their MBTA Communities zoning district, complying with the state law that requires 177 cities and towns to allow multifamily development near public transit.
The 64-acre Rocky Hill development proposes 379 housing units, including apartment buildings, townhouse-style buildings and 10 cottage-style homes, which will be offered for sale.
Dale said the mix of housing mix, which includes 83 for-sale units and the remainder rentals, was determined through discussions with town officials. The project is undergoing a site plan review, its final local approval, and is expected to take three or four years to build out, Dale said.
Steve Adams
State Land for Homes, with Density
A six-month-old Healey administration program could provide the impetus for more cottage-style housing, as it offers surplus properties to private developers through a mix of auctions and requests for proposals.
The State Land for Homes program includes a high-density caveat: conveyed parcels need to be built out with at least four housing units per acre, or slightly under 11,000 square feet per lot. Administration officials estimate it could spur construction of 3,500 housing units.
In Bedford, the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance sought proposals last month for a 5-acre surplus parking lot for Middlesex Community College at 210 Springs Road.
Gregory Minott, a Boston-based developer and architect, said such a parcel would lend itself to a “pocket neighborhood” with 1,100-square-foot homes clustered together on 8,000 square-foot lots.
Such densities enable developers to save on infrastructure costs such as construction of roads and utilities, and pass along the savings to buyers of starter homes.
“We need friendlier zoning that allows these projects by right,” Minott said. “Having this kind of product type for downsizing households or young families who want home ownership at a more obtainable pricepoint; we see that as a huge demand.”
The Starter Homes ballot question includes language that would let communities regulate setbacks, bulk and height of structures, which could be a key to shaping the type of homes that are built and their price ranges.
Scott Bailey is CEO of Bequall, a startup which partners with builders and developers using modular construction in response to recent reforms legalizing accessory dwelling units and other higher-density housing across the U.S.
Bailey, a former MassChallenge executive, said the potential policy change could bring new companies into the Bay State seeking to tap into the starter home market.
“You’re going to have to be strategic and thoughtful: what is the market comp for what you are trying to build? It may not be profitable if you overpaid for the land,” he said. “Even if you upzone the entire state, like ADUs, adoption is still a challenge. It’s still complicated, and most people are not builders or developers.”
