A trolley on the MBTA's Mattapan Line rolls down tracks in Milton. Photo by Derek Yu | CC BY-SA 2.0

Milton residents were originally scheduled to hit the polls today to vote on overturning or keeping a transit-oriented zoning package approved by Town Meeting late last year.

State law required Milton and other communities served by the MBTA’s subway, trolley and bus rapid transit lines to rezone areas near their transit stops for new housing development by Dec. 31.

Milton successfully passed its own package of laws Dec. 11, which rezone an office building, a state-owned parking lot and an American Legion hall near the intersection of Granite Avenue and the Southeast Expressway close to the Quincy city line, plus several parcels near the MBTA Mattapan Line trolley’s terminus and near its station at Dorchester Lower Mills for buildings between 4.5 stories and 6 stories and floor area ratios between 1.1 and 1.

However, disgruntled zoning opponents used a provision in the town’s laws to force a community-wide referendum on the issue. It’s the only such referendum rezoning opponents in any of the 12 towns that faced a Dec. 31 deadline were able to force.

Due to a strong nor’easter originally forecast to hit the Boston area today, but which ended up passing further to the south, Milton officials secured permission from Norfolk Superior Court, Judge Joseph Leighton to push the vote back by one day, to Wednesday, Feb. 14.

It’s unclear what impact the delay will have in the vote’s outcome, and what impact a potential ballot-box loss might have on the MBTA Communities transit-oriented zoning law in general. Both Attorney General Andrea Campbell and nonprofit advocacy group Lawyers for Civil Rights have said they would bring legal action against any community that doesn’t comply. But dozens of communities served by the T’s commuter rail network face their own end-of-2024 deadline to put transit-oriented zoning in place and some observers worry a win by zoning opponents in Milton could, regardless of any subsequent lawsuit, embolden zoning opponents in these other towns and cities.