A rendering shows developer O'Brien Homes' proposal for 300 rental housing units, on a property that straddles the Dracut-Methuen Line. Image courtesy of O'Brien Homes

In a case that shows the lengths communities will go to stop a housing project from getting built, Methuen officials are trying to leverage the state’s use of a Days Inn motel as an emergency shelter for homeless families to block a proposal to build 300 rental units on a parcel that straddles the city’s border with neighboring Dracut.

It’s a novel wrinkle in the longstanding antipathy of many Massachusetts communities toward new housing and their desire to maintain local control. In this one, the city is invoking the migrant crisis that abruptly crashed into places like Methuen in a bid to stop the kind of development that state leaders say is desperately needed to address a housing crisis that threatens to bring the region’s economy to its knees.

Depending on who you ask, it’s either a ploy that underscores the deep-seated resistance of communities to helping address the state’s housing challenge, or the legitimate assertion of local control by a city that is bearing the burden of hosting more than 100 homeless people who arrived at their doorstep.

The showdown is centered on the state’s 55-year-old affordable housing law known as 40B. The law allows developers to override local zoning objections in communities where less than 10 percent of the housing is deemed affordable. Methuen, a city of 53,000 along the New Hampshire border, sits just under that threshold, with 9.9 percent of its housing stock considered affordable under state regulations.

An Andover developer, O’Brien Homes, has proposed a 300-unit project under 40B, with 25 percent set aside as affordable housing, as required by the law, and the rest market rate. While the vast majority of the units would be in neighboring Dracut, a tiny portion of the development – an estimated two units – would be in Methuen. State officials have said the project, known as “Murphy’s Farm,” appears to meet Chapter 40B’s eligibility requirements.

Methuen officials contested the 40B designation, arguing that the city exceeds the 10 percent threshold once the affordable housing count includes the 117 rooms in a Days Inn motel, just off Interstate 93, that have been used by the state as emergency housing for homeless people. The motel has housed individuals and families who “have migrated to Massachusetts from out-of-state and receive other types of public assistance,” according to a filing Methuen zoning officials made to the state’s housing secretariat.

The breakdown of the people living at the Methuen motel is in some dispute. A state official told CommonWealth Beacon about half are international migrants and half are homeless, long-term Massachusetts residents. Neil Perry, the mayor of Methuen, said the majority are Massachusetts residents, while the zoning board used the term “migrants” in its filings. Some of the people have been living at the Days Inn since October 2022, and the children living at the motel attend Methuen’s public schools.

Other communities have tried various arguments to block certain housing proposals over the years, but using the migrant shelter crisis may top them all, according to Jesse Kanson-Benanav, executive director of the advocacy group Abundant Housing Massachusetts. “I can’t think of another example that quite takes the cake like this one does,” he said.

Methuen’s argument didn’t fly with state officials. They said 40B deals with long-term housing, and the emergency shelter system is temporary, short-term housing. Officials in the office of Ed Augustus, Gov. Maura Healey’s housing chief, rejected Methuen’s argument in November, saying, “temporary emergency shelter for homeless families” does not fall under the 40B statute’s inventory of affordable housing in a community.

Methuen officials have also argued that 1.5 percent of the city’s land area is dedicated to affordable housing, another threshold that offers them “safe harbor” from  a 40B proposal. State officials also rejected that argument, saying Methuen had not met its burden of proof on the land area claim.

Methuen has appealed the housing secretariat’s decision to an administrative law panel set up under 40B, where it awaits further action. The appeals process could take months or years.

Perry, the Methuen mayor, defended counting the motel units towards the 10 percent under 40B, while vehemently saying the city is not anti-development. There are smaller 40B projects elsewhere in the city that his administration has supported, he said. “I’m willing to sell Methuen to anybody,” he said. “But it has to make sense.”

His city has regularly seen police calls, emergency and fire calls, and health and code inspectors sent to the motel, Perry said. “They’ve been over there as regular as rain,” he said. “That is borne on the back of the Methuen taxpayer. And that, to me, is not fair.”

Perry claimed state officials have signed a ten-year agreement with a nonprofit to help in providing shelter for homeless individuals at the motel. “That’s not temporary, my man,” he said in an interview. A state official acknowledged the agreement with the nonprofit, CTI, which is paying for the motel rooms, but the agreement isn’t tied to a location such as the Days Inn motel.

Dracut, where most of the proposed units would be built, is well under the 40B threshold, with roughly 5 percent of its stock classified as affordable housing. Local officials there, and a group that formed called Citizens Against Reckless Development in Dracut, are deploying more typical anti-housing arguments against Murphy’s Farm: They’re focused on concerns over traffic and operational costs to the town.

Edward Kennedy, a Lowell state senator whose district includes Dracut, wrote a letter to Augustus in January opposing the development. He warned that Murphy’s Farm would exacerbate an existing multimillion-dollar deficit for the town. Kennedy said the Murphy’s Farm proposal is 10 times bigger than what the developer originally proposed in 2017, before he switched it to a 40B project. He also claimed the developer has faced financial troubles in the past.

Kennedy said he supports another, separate 40B project in Dracut Center, and contrasts it with Murphy’s Farm, which he says is in a more suburban or rural part of the town, far from public transportation, meaning residents will be car-dependent. It also abuts an active quarry. “Maybe that’s not the right location,” he said.

The developer, O’Brien Homes, and its attorney, did not respond to a request for comment. Augustus, Healey’s housing secretary, also declined to comment for this story.

Kanson-Benanav, the pro-housing advocate, questioned the claim that new development is a burden on municipal finances. “They are growing the tax base whether it’s a 40B development or a market-rate development,” he said.

Methuen isn’t the only community looking for ways to avoid permitting housing and maintain local control. The state’s newest effort to boost housing production, the MBTA Communities law, requires communities within the T’s rapid transit, bus, and commuter rail service area to rezone in ways to allow for more density, through multi-family housing.

Communities served by the four rapid transit lines face the greatest requirements for the number of new units they must zone for, leading Milton officials to argue that the Mattapan trolley line, an extension of the Red Line that trundles through their town, shouldn’t be considered part of the T’s rapid transit subway service.

The maneuvers by communities like Methuen come as Gov. Maura Healey and other state leaders have made addressing the housing crisis – driven by high demand and low supply – a top priority. State officials say Massachusetts needs 200,000 new homes over the next decade in order to stabilize prices and rents.

Kanson-Benanav said Methuen’s moves are an example of the “consistent challenge we have in Massachusetts, with the notion that local control governs all else and each of the 351 cities and towns should plan only for themselves and only for what the current residents think they want to see, rather than successfully planning for the future, for affordable vibrant communities for all.”

Clark Ziegler, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, a quasi-public nonprofit, said cities and towns have raised issues over the years about what counts towards 40B, though this is the first time he’s heard of a community invoking the migrant crisis.

“What I keep coming back to is we have an extraordinary housing supply crisis,” he said. “Any time people quibble about the counting, it doesn’t address the question of how much housing we need in the first place. The bottom line is we need a lot more everywhere.”

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.