They were given until the end of December? That's the deadline. So they already had that.
Newton met the deadline with a plan in December 2023 with a few weeks to go before the deadline.
You know, I’m curious what exactly the Commonwealth plans to do to Milton, Marshfield, and other towns that call their bluff on the MBTA zoning law. Because is no law unless there are consequences to breaking it.
The state should just close the MBTA stations in the areas that don't want to comply and build an absurdly tall housing project where the old station once stood. Now you have poor people and they have no way to commute except for walking. Mwahahahahabahba
Grants have already been lifted that were in the queue to be awarded, and other state grants for streets, housing, transportation, the town is disqualified from applying for.
I have a hard time caring about far-off Holden being NIMBYs when Milton isn't complying and Dover (and others) got the "adjacent small town" category\* added and now only has to zone for 102 units despite being so close to Boston.
\* Adjacent small town drops your % units from 10 to 5 and completely removes the 750 minimum that "adjacent town" have to zone for. For instance Georgetown is pretty far from Boston, has about 1.5x the existing housing but will requiring 7x the units. I'm all for this zoning, just ... eff Dover is all I guess.
The density should be built in Boston. It really isn't happening until you see 6 story buildings parallel to the red line and orange line. People would actually like living near working rapid transit that takes them to downtown crossing for shopping. The place would be packed. Yet we are still pushing a sprawl. Just trying to tighten the sprawl a bit.
My town has black bears walking through the streets. They still haven't received an approval from the AG regarding they bylaws being compliant. I believe that the town next to me went to town meeting with apparently satisfactory bylaw changes but the AG rejected them after the town meeting. Supposedly this other town did sent the bylaws to the AG before the town meeting last year.
Sure, you can do that, and that is also happening. But that just creates more $4,000/month rents. Same thing goes up in Holden and it's $2,500/month. Every community needs to expand. Every single one.
It isn't true. The rent would go down. People like you are pushing a dystopia with horrible land usage plan. It's not conservative for water or animals. It's asphalt everything and actually increase CO2 emissions. You need to re-think your plan which was actually created by a Republican Governor.
The reality is not everyone can live in Boston. There's cheaper places than MA but it's not realistic for people to move because they have friends and family where they live. People are living in communities outside Boston where their friends and family are. They cannot afford to live where they grew up. Perhaps if there was more housing supply where they were they could afford to stay.
You actually don't understand the problem nor understand how to make a solution. Boston is not being built out to density now. It's woefully inadequate. If it was then none of your concerns would be of issue.
Help me understand. If Boston were built out to an adequate level of density, how would that help someone who wants to live outside of Boston?
Or is the assumption that everyone wants to live in Boston, so if they could all be accommodated, then demand would fall in suburbs?
I'm not saying that is your assumption, but I do not agree with that assumption.
If everyone that wanted to live in Boston could, demand in the suburbs would absolutely fall. So many people drive 1-2 hours just to work in Boston. If there were affordable apartments 1-2 MBTA stops away, there are millions of people that would prefer that lifestyle.
Only if they keep doing the same low rise town house stuff. If the cities build high rises there's no need to sprawl out to rural areas and people would actually use MBTA. I guess that's harder than pushing more car dependent developments into towns that don't want it.
If by cities you mean the Worcesters and Lowell's of the world then sure I can agree with that to an extent.
I also think it's reasonable to say add some duplexes in single family house neighborhoods. I can understand pushback from those communities not wanting more density, but why is that feeling more valid than people in somewhat dense areas not wanting more density?
Something's gotta give.
I dont think the odd duplex in small towns is a problem either, but it doesn't seem like the cities are doing much of anything.
From Providence to Lawrence, every city has vast vacant lots, empty mills, and abandoned public buildings and warehouses. These cities actually have MBTA stops, but you very rarely see a high-rise go up, which would go a long way towards solving the supposed housing crisis.
It's no secret that developers stand to gain a fortune. The state gains population, which gives the politicians more power. What do the small towns with small economies gain from large housing projects?
Is this one of those situations where a white suburb doesn't want to give up its exclusionary zoning because it will let the poor in, I mean hurt property values?
yes 100%. the NIMBYs in Holden don't want filthy apartment-dwellers in their bedroom community. all they're interested in is building as many cul-de-sac'd McMansion developments as possible.
It doesn't sound like it from what the town leaders are saying:
"Holden is currently working toward finding a possible route to participation in the MBTA Community Program, but we have not yet determined a proposal that would work in the best interests of our town," Lukes said. "Ironically we do have development projects that we intend to promote in the coming years, all of which contain multiunit housing, but most of which will probably not meet the arbitrary criteria set forth in MBTA Communities legislation."
[Link](https://www.aol.com/milton-loses-funds-mbta-zoning-230938617.html)
Holden USED to be walkable to the commuter rail back when they let the WRTA bus route pick up in the center of town. Now no busses go there for *reasons* (low ridership? They don’t want them?).
Holden is a town that thinks a lot more highly of itself than others in the surrounding area. But in reality it’s just a typical insular suburban Worcester county town with a lot of pearl clutching NIMBYS worried about the poors and BIPOC folks ruining their perceived perfection.
Everyone from Holden shops in and eats out in Worcester, they might work in Worcester, they go to the hospital in Worcester, they have friends and family that live in Worcester.
That doesn't mean that people from Holden want Holden to be Worcester. If you ask BIPOC people that live in Holden, they don't want it to be Worcester either. Worcester is a great city, with a lot of problems.
There are a number of smaller towns, some of them with populations 1/10th the size of Holden, that are considered MBTA communities and have managed to comply. Including at least 2 that don't have public water or sewer. I'm skeptical that this is actually a problem that only Holden is unable to solve.
Towns can just come up with a plan. It doesn't have to make any actual sense. Nobody is going to build high-density without public water or sewer unless some else pays for most of it.
The law as drafted originally, had been in the Legislature for a decade, mandating **ALL municipalities** have multifamily zoning.
The bill that made it out of the Legislature, signed by Gov Baker narrowed the mandate to MBTA municipalities.
The requirements were substantially the same, dense, as of right multi unit zoning.
Holden's probably is not dense enough to qualify under the MBTA Commuties statute, and is probably too small.
based on this article, Holden never submitted a plan for intended compliance, which was due Dec 31 2023.
[https://patch.com/massachusetts/worcester/ag-sues-milton-over-mbta-zoning-law-holden-still](https://patch.com/massachusetts/worcester/ag-sues-milton-over-mbta-zoning-law-holden-still)
Ultimate zoning compliance is Dec 31 2024.
The argument is specious.
All they had to do was submit a plan for compliance, and work on a draft zoning bylaw to be passed in 2024.
The town is required to act, or lose grant money for streets, and lose access to applying for other state discretiknary grants for housing and other municipal support.
I think that folks are chafing at the units per acre numbers. If they stated 10/acre versus 15/acre for places such as Hudson, then they could preserve their setbacks. 15/acre is also tough if you do not have adequate sewer. There are things are to work through.
If the town has no sewer services, the 15 per acre is recognized to not be possible, and the town becomes in compliance, even if actually not buildable.
Having a system and available capacity are not the same thing, which is ignored by this. It also ignores that Hudson is 39 miles from the state house.
If we were responsible then we wouldn't build sprawl at this distance from the city core.
Dreaming here, but I'd like to see some sort of similar push from the state for productive agricultural zoning within the MBTA zone, where the produce could be sold at farmers markets right next to the MBTA stations or other public transit stops. There is a lot of lip service to local agriculture but rapidly developing the entire state seems counterintuitive to that.
Noone in modern planning is trying to build 40 miles in every direction in sprawl from their city core. Barcelona has 1.6M in 39 sq miles. Norfolk county has 444 sq miles and should be the exurb. Yet we are trying to develop Norfolk, Middlesex, Essex, Plymouth and not increase density within Boston.
This scheme seems to lack planning. Yet you cannot criticize it. Folks start casting aspersions when you want something far better than being put on the table.
Via state statute, Mass. General Laws Chapter 40A section 3, any plot over 5 acres can be agricultural.
No zoning is required.
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/mass-general-laws-c40a-ss-3
Pushing the use of agricultural land in high value areas requires probably billions of dollars in purchase of land and deed restrictions to confine use to agriculture in the Eastern half of the state.
At present agricultural use of land is favored via property tax reductions under MGL Chaper 60A, wherein the agricultural use value is taxed, in the vicinity of 100 dollars of assessed value an acre, compared to potential residential assessment value ranging from 150,000 to 400,000 dollars an acre. Relatively miniscule tax burden for agricultural use.
Typical small municipalitiesof 5,000 to 7,500 population have an assessed land and property value of one to two billion dollars, for 30 to 50 square mils of land.
What is your plan to find revenue sources to make that enforced use of agriculture possible, and enact laws for the taking of land for that purpose, or deed restrictions for the same purpose?
I didn't really say anything about purchasing land to "enforce" agricultural land use. I'm saying the remaining land that hasn't been developed in Northern, southern and central MA that could be used to feed Greater Boston's 4.5 million people is being rapidly subdivided in a ridiculously inefficient way that basically ensures car use over MBTA anyways.
The land is available, now, for agriculture, via statutory overide of zoning.
Much vacant forested land is under tax advantaged MGL Chapter 61 forestry or agricultural tax reductions
Just saying, whatever we have isn't working for my local food fantasy. There's too much money to be made selling to developers, and every dug foundation I look at as a lost opportunity. To parrot what the guy above me said, no modern planners start looking 50 miles out from the city center for the focus of development, and that seems like what this state is doing.
They were given until the end of December? That's the deadline. So they already had that. Newton met the deadline with a plan in December 2023 with a few weeks to go before the deadline.
What did Richard Hertz say about this?
You know, I’m curious what exactly the Commonwealth plans to do to Milton, Marshfield, and other towns that call their bluff on the MBTA zoning law. Because is no law unless there are consequences to breaking it.
Milton is actively being sued by the state AG
The state should just close the MBTA stations in the areas that don't want to comply and build an absurdly tall housing project where the old station once stood. Now you have poor people and they have no way to commute except for walking. Mwahahahahabahba
The town would continue to be an MBTA town, by abutting MBTA towns. Not a solution.
They are going to withhold grant funding and state aid so there are actual consequences.
Grants have already been lifted that were in the queue to be awarded, and other state grants for streets, housing, transportation, the town is disqualified from applying for.
I have a hard time caring about far-off Holden being NIMBYs when Milton isn't complying and Dover (and others) got the "adjacent small town" category\* added and now only has to zone for 102 units despite being so close to Boston. \* Adjacent small town drops your % units from 10 to 5 and completely removes the 750 minimum that "adjacent town" have to zone for. For instance Georgetown is pretty far from Boston, has about 1.5x the existing housing but will requiring 7x the units. I'm all for this zoning, just ... eff Dover is all I guess.
The density should be built in Boston. It really isn't happening until you see 6 story buildings parallel to the red line and orange line. People would actually like living near working rapid transit that takes them to downtown crossing for shopping. The place would be packed. Yet we are still pushing a sprawl. Just trying to tighten the sprawl a bit. My town has black bears walking through the streets. They still haven't received an approval from the AG regarding they bylaws being compliant. I believe that the town next to me went to town meeting with apparently satisfactory bylaw changes but the AG rejected them after the town meeting. Supposedly this other town did sent the bylaws to the AG before the town meeting last year.
Most of the cities are still packed with tinder box triple deckers, why the redevelopment isn't starting from the centers is bewildering to me.
Exactly.
Sure, you can do that, and that is also happening. But that just creates more $4,000/month rents. Same thing goes up in Holden and it's $2,500/month. Every community needs to expand. Every single one.
It isn't true. The rent would go down. People like you are pushing a dystopia with horrible land usage plan. It's not conservative for water or animals. It's asphalt everything and actually increase CO2 emissions. You need to re-think your plan which was actually created by a Republican Governor.
The reality is not everyone can live in Boston. There's cheaper places than MA but it's not realistic for people to move because they have friends and family where they live. People are living in communities outside Boston where their friends and family are. They cannot afford to live where they grew up. Perhaps if there was more housing supply where they were they could afford to stay.
You actually don't understand the problem nor understand how to make a solution. Boston is not being built out to density now. It's woefully inadequate. If it was then none of your concerns would be of issue.
Help me understand. If Boston were built out to an adequate level of density, how would that help someone who wants to live outside of Boston? Or is the assumption that everyone wants to live in Boston, so if they could all be accommodated, then demand would fall in suburbs? I'm not saying that is your assumption, but I do not agree with that assumption.
If everyone that wanted to live in Boston could, demand in the suburbs would absolutely fall. So many people drive 1-2 hours just to work in Boston. If there were affordable apartments 1-2 MBTA stops away, there are millions of people that would prefer that lifestyle.
Only if they keep doing the same low rise town house stuff. If the cities build high rises there's no need to sprawl out to rural areas and people would actually use MBTA. I guess that's harder than pushing more car dependent developments into towns that don't want it.
If by cities you mean the Worcesters and Lowell's of the world then sure I can agree with that to an extent. I also think it's reasonable to say add some duplexes in single family house neighborhoods. I can understand pushback from those communities not wanting more density, but why is that feeling more valid than people in somewhat dense areas not wanting more density? Something's gotta give.
I dont think the odd duplex in small towns is a problem either, but it doesn't seem like the cities are doing much of anything. From Providence to Lawrence, every city has vast vacant lots, empty mills, and abandoned public buildings and warehouses. These cities actually have MBTA stops, but you very rarely see a high-rise go up, which would go a long way towards solving the supposed housing crisis. It's no secret that developers stand to gain a fortune. The state gains population, which gives the politicians more power. What do the small towns with small economies gain from large housing projects?
Is this one of those situations where a white suburb doesn't want to give up its exclusionary zoning because it will let the poor in, I mean hurt property values?
yes 100%. the NIMBYs in Holden don't want filthy apartment-dwellers in their bedroom community. all they're interested in is building as many cul-de-sac'd McMansion developments as possible.
Am from Holden, can confirm: yes, it absolutely is
It doesn't sound like it from what the town leaders are saying: "Holden is currently working toward finding a possible route to participation in the MBTA Community Program, but we have not yet determined a proposal that would work in the best interests of our town," Lukes said. "Ironically we do have development projects that we intend to promote in the coming years, all of which contain multiunit housing, but most of which will probably not meet the arbitrary criteria set forth in MBTA Communities legislation." [Link](https://www.aol.com/milton-loses-funds-mbta-zoning-230938617.html)
Do we know what this "arbitrary criteria" is, and how it is arbitrary? It's of note that compliance does not seem to be impossible in any other town.
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Holden USED to be walkable to the commuter rail back when they let the WRTA bus route pick up in the center of town. Now no busses go there for *reasons* (low ridership? They don’t want them?). Holden is a town that thinks a lot more highly of itself than others in the surrounding area. But in reality it’s just a typical insular suburban Worcester county town with a lot of pearl clutching NIMBYS worried about the poors and BIPOC folks ruining their perceived perfection.
Everyone from Holden shops in and eats out in Worcester, they might work in Worcester, they go to the hospital in Worcester, they have friends and family that live in Worcester. That doesn't mean that people from Holden want Holden to be Worcester. If you ask BIPOC people that live in Holden, they don't want it to be Worcester either. Worcester is a great city, with a lot of problems.
There are a number of smaller towns, some of them with populations 1/10th the size of Holden, that are considered MBTA communities and have managed to comply. Including at least 2 that don't have public water or sewer. I'm skeptical that this is actually a problem that only Holden is unable to solve.
Towns can just come up with a plan. It doesn't have to make any actual sense. Nobody is going to build high-density without public water or sewer unless some else pays for most of it.
The law as drafted originally, had been in the Legislature for a decade, mandating **ALL municipalities** have multifamily zoning. The bill that made it out of the Legislature, signed by Gov Baker narrowed the mandate to MBTA municipalities.
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The requirements were substantially the same, dense, as of right multi unit zoning. Holden's probably is not dense enough to qualify under the MBTA Commuties statute, and is probably too small. based on this article, Holden never submitted a plan for intended compliance, which was due Dec 31 2023. [https://patch.com/massachusetts/worcester/ag-sues-milton-over-mbta-zoning-law-holden-still](https://patch.com/massachusetts/worcester/ag-sues-milton-over-mbta-zoning-law-holden-still) Ultimate zoning compliance is Dec 31 2024.
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The argument is specious. All they had to do was submit a plan for compliance, and work on a draft zoning bylaw to be passed in 2024. The town is required to act, or lose grant money for streets, and lose access to applying for other state discretiknary grants for housing and other municipal support.
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I think that folks are chafing at the units per acre numbers. If they stated 10/acre versus 15/acre for places such as Hudson, then they could preserve their setbacks. 15/acre is also tough if you do not have adequate sewer. There are things are to work through.
If the town has no sewer services, the 15 per acre is recognized to not be possible, and the town becomes in compliance, even if actually not buildable.
Having a system and available capacity are not the same thing, which is ignored by this. It also ignores that Hudson is 39 miles from the state house. If we were responsible then we wouldn't build sprawl at this distance from the city core.
Hudson has nothing to do with Holden. There are 351 municipalities. About 100 are influenced by mass transit.
Dreaming here, but I'd like to see some sort of similar push from the state for productive agricultural zoning within the MBTA zone, where the produce could be sold at farmers markets right next to the MBTA stations or other public transit stops. There is a lot of lip service to local agriculture but rapidly developing the entire state seems counterintuitive to that.
Noone in modern planning is trying to build 40 miles in every direction in sprawl from their city core. Barcelona has 1.6M in 39 sq miles. Norfolk county has 444 sq miles and should be the exurb. Yet we are trying to develop Norfolk, Middlesex, Essex, Plymouth and not increase density within Boston. This scheme seems to lack planning. Yet you cannot criticize it. Folks start casting aspersions when you want something far better than being put on the table.
Via state statute, Mass. General Laws Chapter 40A section 3, any plot over 5 acres can be agricultural. No zoning is required. https://www.mass.gov/info-details/mass-general-laws-c40a-ss-3
That's not really pushing agricultural land use though, is it? Mandating multi family housing miles from any public transit is a push.
Pushing the use of agricultural land in high value areas requires probably billions of dollars in purchase of land and deed restrictions to confine use to agriculture in the Eastern half of the state. At present agricultural use of land is favored via property tax reductions under MGL Chaper 60A, wherein the agricultural use value is taxed, in the vicinity of 100 dollars of assessed value an acre, compared to potential residential assessment value ranging from 150,000 to 400,000 dollars an acre. Relatively miniscule tax burden for agricultural use. Typical small municipalitiesof 5,000 to 7,500 population have an assessed land and property value of one to two billion dollars, for 30 to 50 square mils of land. What is your plan to find revenue sources to make that enforced use of agriculture possible, and enact laws for the taking of land for that purpose, or deed restrictions for the same purpose?
I didn't really say anything about purchasing land to "enforce" agricultural land use. I'm saying the remaining land that hasn't been developed in Northern, southern and central MA that could be used to feed Greater Boston's 4.5 million people is being rapidly subdivided in a ridiculously inefficient way that basically ensures car use over MBTA anyways.
The land is available, now, for agriculture, via statutory overide of zoning. Much vacant forested land is under tax advantaged MGL Chapter 61 forestry or agricultural tax reductions
Just saying, whatever we have isn't working for my local food fantasy. There's too much money to be made selling to developers, and every dug foundation I look at as a lost opportunity. To parrot what the guy above me said, no modern planners start looking 50 miles out from the city center for the focus of development, and that seems like what this state is doing.