Breaking News/11.22.2024
More trouble ahead for Healey housing push: Key state initiative aimed at boosting housing production now faces repeal in Needham
With rents and prices at record levels, the Healey administration has made the MBTA Communities Act the centerpiece of its efforts to combat the housing crisis.
The 2021 law requires towns, cities and suburbs in the T’s service area revamp their zoning rules and open their doors to new apartment and condo buildings.
But even as a steady stream of communities votes to adopt the new rules, there are growing signs of discontent, and in few cases, open rebellion against the law, amid inflated fears of suburbs being overrun by denser, urban-style development.
On Friday, Needham became the latest flashpoint in the battle over the Healey administration’s housing drive.
Opponents of the new MBTA zoning for Needham have succeeded in submitting the thousands of certified signatures needed to trigger a referendum on the issue, the Needham Observer reported.
That, in turn, will trigger a town-wide vote, slated for Jan 14, on whether to repeal new zoning rules passed by Needham Town Meeting voters last month in order to bring the upscale suburb into compliance with the MBTA Communities Act, according to the paper.
Needham’s new multifamily zoning rules, in theory anyway, would allow for up to 3,300 new apartments, condos and other housing units to be built in town, according to Banker & Tradesman.
Opponents of the MBTA Communities Act have seized on that number to rally residents to their cause: visions of peaceful suburbs overrun by megadevelopments.
However, the numbers are based on zoning formulas that often have little bearing on what realistically could be built by developers, given market conditions, financing challenges, and a scarcity of available sites to build on, real estate executives and housing advocates contend.
“If the town’s voters decide to overturn the vote of Town Meeting, the unfortunate result will be that Needham does nothing to increase housing,” Select Board Vice Chair Heidi Frail told the Needham Observer.
The budding repeal campaign in Needham comes as Milton battles with state officials in court over its refusal to comply with the new law, which requires, among other things, a zoning district near public transit where new apartment and condo projects can be built.
Such outright rejection of the new law, in general, has not been the norm, with more than 100 different cities and towns across the Boston area having voted to adopt the new rules.
However, outward compliance may not always be the best measure, developers and others involved with building new housing have told Contrarian Boston.
In particular, a number of towns have complied with the new MBTA Communities zoning on paper, even as they have taken steps to make it difficult, if not impossible, to actually build new housing.
One tactic, for example, involves overlaying new multifamily zoning districts over already densely built-out downtowns or in neighborhoods packed with apartment and industrial buildings, real estate executives have said.
“We worked very hard for the last few years on MBTA Communities. We’ve given that up, except for Lexington,” Jay Doherty, CEO of Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, noted at Contrarian Boston’s webinar last week on the housing crisis in Massachusetts.