03.19.2025

Can college dorms revive downtown Boston? | Wu pay deal with teachers union raises questions | Lexington ditches ambitious housing plan | A hotbed for anti-Israel protests, Columbia University scrambles to meet Trump demands | A parking space that costs more than a condo |

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Shining example no more: Lexington votes to dramatically scale back its compliance with a controversial state housing law - just months after being lauded by the Healey administration

So much for Lexington being the poster child for the budding YIMBY movement.

The tony western suburb won plaudits in the local mainstream media for going above and beyond the requirements of the MBTA Communities Act, which requires Greater Boston cities and towns to open their doors to new apartments and condos.

“In Lexington, the state’s housing law is on track to produce nearly 1,000 new homes,” The Boston Globe proclaimed last December.

The story went on to call Lexington’s seeming embrace of the controversial 2021 law “a hopeful sign” for the Healey administration, which has made the law the centerpiece of its campaign to boost anemic housing production and bring down rents and prices.

Healey’s housing chief even called Lexington the “poster child,” reports The Lexington Observer, an excellent new nonprofit news site that covers the town.

On Tuesday, the overwhelming majority of town meeting voters in Lexington voted to dramatically scale back the town’s compliance with the new law.

The 164 to 9 vote slashed the number of acres where new apartments and condos can be built without a special permit to 90, down from 227 previously.

When the lopsided tally was announced, “Town Meeting members and attendees broke out in a long and spirited applause,” according to The Lexington Observer.

That’s certainly telling, and comes amid a backlash against the new multifamily zoning law in a number of suburbs.

There is a small silver lining, though.

The vote will not impact the estimated 1,000 units, spread across several projects in Lexington, that developers began planning and other work on after the town’s initial approval of MBTA Community Act zoning rules back in 2023.

Labor peace could prove costly in Boston: Details sketchy on the Wu administration’s pay offer to teachers that preempted an embarrassing protest

So who blinked?

And how many additional millions of dollars will Boston taxpayers be expected to fork over following the Wu administration’s 11th-hour contract deal with the city’s teachers union?

Both questions remained unanswered a day after the Wu administration announced a deal with the Boston Teachers Union but declined to say how much of a pay boost city teachers will pocket.