Gov. Maura Healey talks to reporters Monday, Feb. 14, 2023 after attending an advocacy event at the State House. Photo by Sam Drysdale | State House News Service
A key pressure point in the debate about Massachusetts as a competitive destination is housing, where short supply and sluggish development has pushed prices to blistering levels in recent years.
Under a law Baker signed in January 2021, every MBTA city and town must have one zoning district near transit that allows multi-family housing by right. Nearly all of the 175 communities affected by the MBTA Communities zoning law met the first benchmark to submit action plans on how they plan to implement the law, a handful blew past the Jan. 31 deadline.
Middleborough officials in fact voted to ignore the zoning requirement in the law and plan not to comply because they believe it could lead to overdevelopment, the Boston Globe reported on Tuesday.
Asked by WBUR “Radio Boston” host Tiziana Dearing about her administration’s approach to cities and towns that oppose or resist the zoning reform law during an appearance on the show Wednesday, Healey said her team will deploy “carrots and sticks” and try to build understanding about the necessity of new development.
“Opting out is not an option,” Healey said. “But what we need to do is work with these communities and figure out a way to get there. You know, we’re a commonwealth. We’ve got to do this across the state. Every community is different, every community is unique, but this administration, this team, is really going to lean in here and figure out our way through this.”
“We have to,” she added. “If we don’t drive down housing costs by creating more housing, we are going to lose as a state. We’re going to see more people leave and go other places.”
The Lawyers for Civil Rights group on Monday criticized communities that missed the deadline and called out other “predominantly white towns” for submitting action plans with “listed characteristics that evince thinly veiled racism.” Examples the organization cited include Bellingham, which wrote it wants to maintain “existing neighborhood character,” and Ashland, which described “respect for traditional housing patterns.”
“These statements are exclusionary and problematic. Experts have noted that concerns about ‘neighborhood character’ may be racially coded and a federal court in New York has recognized that a community’s stated ‘interest in maintaining the character of a neighborhood [is] a veil for race-based animus,'” the group wrote in a press release. “All of this raises the specter that covered communities don’t intend to meaningfully comply with the Law.”
LCR said it “stands ready to compel compliance through legal action,” something it’s told the seven towns that didn’t file action plans in letters last week.
