House Speaker Ron Mariano speaks at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce's 2026 Government Affairs Forum at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Boston on April 9, 2026. Photo by Ella Adams | State House News Service
House Speaker Ron Mariano on Thursday urged proponents of an income tax cut ballot question to sit down with the House, while also railing against the Trump administration and calling on the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority to expand services to Weymouth to unlock 6,000 new homes at the Southfield mega-development.
In his remarks at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Forum Thursday morning, Mariano acknowledged that “there’s still a long way to go” to address the state’s housing crisis in the wake of the 2024 housing production law. Massachusetts must build more than 200,000 homes by 2035 to meet demand, according to the Healey administration.
The South Shore Democrat called on the MWRA to formally commit to extending its service area to include the town of Weymouth, which would enable it to serve a former naval air field and unlock 6,000 new homes at the slow-moving Southfield mega-development site.
“After decades of incremental progress, and a few setbacks along the way, we are finally on the precipice of beginning construction on thousands of new homes where the Base once stood,” Mariano said, adding that 3,000 homes are “officially under agreement,” with another 3,000 in the works.
“There’s only one problem: water,” Mariano said. “In the midst of the commonwealth’s housing crisis, we simply cannot allow bureaucratic indifference and outdated concerns to get in the way of this vital project.”
The 1,400-acre Southfield site split between Weymouth, Abington and Rockland has been the site of on-again-off-again development that’s produced around 1,000 new homes since the mid-2000s. But promises of thousands more homes have been held up for years due to inadequate water and sewer infrastructure, in addition to the challenges of coordinating laws between the three towns that hold slices of the former base.
Mariano has championed the idea of MWRA expansion since 2024 as a way to move the Southfield project forward now that major investment firm Brookfield Properties and local firm New England Development have taken over as master developers. And the Legislature last year passed a different but equally key law to align zoning on the site among all three towns.
Speaker Pushes for Tax Compromise
Mariano also railed against the Trump administration’s alleged “recklessness and incompetence” during his speech, suggesting that since the outset of President Donald Trump’s second term the House’s work has been about “how Massachusetts can mitigate the most damaging actions happening at the federal level.”
Until his speech Thursday, Mariano had not indicated that he would be open to compromising with proponents of an initiative petition that would cut the income tax from 5 percent to 4 percent over three years. Mariano has been publicly bashing the initiative petition process for months, as tensions have risen between lawmakers and reformers hungry for new laws.
“It’s my hope that the folks who are pushing this ballot question are willing to sit down with us and consider alternatives to their current approach,” Mariano said, according to his prepared remarks. “If they believe, as we do, that the commonwealth can tackle the issues of affordability and competitiveness in a fiscally responsible manner, the House is open and willing to work on solutions to those challenges, together.”
The tax cut would slash state tax revenue, and Mariano said if the question passes in November “we will have no choice but to make significant budget cuts to services and programs that our residents rely on.” He said school budgets, health care funding, infrastructure spending, the MBTA, support for cities and towns, and state investments in economic development could face reductions and repeated his claim that the question’s approval by voters “could force the Legislature to consider the need for new sources of revenue.”
“We appreciate the invitation to engage and see this as an opportunity to align around a shared goal: strengthening Massachusetts’ competitive position,” Chris Keohan, spokesman for the Taxpayers for an Affordable Massachusetts ballot committee, told the News Service in response to Mariano’s appeal. “We are committed to working in good faith, with the expectation that any alternative delivers tangible progress on the cost and affordability pressures impacting employers, taxpayers, talent retention, and long-term growth.”
