The MBTA Communities Act foes are stirring
Opponents are outliers. Most municipalities are complying with the state law.
The article “Resistance grows to rules tying T, housing” (Page A1, March 4) focused on a few municipalities that are resisting state requirements to zone for multifamily housing in the district served by the MBTA. Although a few outliers are making a lot of noise and gaining a lot of attention, the vast majority of cities and towns recognize the desperate need for multifamily housing — both rental and condominiums — and are quietly fulfilling their legal responsibility to comply with state law.
The law applies to 177 communities in Eastern Massachusetts. Put simply, the closer you are to public transit, the more quickly you need to comply and the more housing you need to accommodate. So-called Rapid Transit Communities served by subway, trolleys, or light rail were required to comply by the end of 2023; 11 out of 12 have filed their zoning with the state and are awaiting certification. Most remaining communities must comply by the end of 2024, and some, more outlying communities need not comply until the end of 2025.
To date, 49 cities and towns either have complied, are under review, or have asked for “pre-adoption review” by the state. Many of these are seeking to comply well before their deadline, a clear indication that the law is working.
The MBTA Communities housing requirement was adopted after decades of incentives and pleas for less restrictive zoning failed to generate the housing we need for our growing population and economy. Now, in the midst of the worst housing shortage we have seen in modern times, it is heartening to see that most cities and towns are doing the right thing, complying with the law, and helping our region to build the housing we need. Everyone should follow their lead. MARC DRAISEN Executive director Metropolitan Area Planning Council
Boston
The MBTA Communities housing requirement was adopted after decades of incentives and pleas for less restrictive zoning failed to generate the housing we need for our growing population and economy.
The state is not some overlord — this is how government works
Residents’ reported pushback against the MBTA Communities Act in Rockport and other communities reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between municipal government and “the state” (“Resistance grows to rules tying T, housing”). As recorded in the Massachusetts General Laws, each city and town is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth created by the Legislature, right down to surveybased definitions of their geographic boundaries. Similarly, all municipal powers, including oversight of zoning, conservation issues, and planning, are granted in laws passed by our elected state representatives and senators. Those same elected officials can modify those powers or add requirements considered to be in the collective best interest of the Commonwealth.
There is no omnipotent individual, governor or otherwise, who arbitrarily created the MBTA Communities Act. Rather, this legislation was an attempt by our elected officials to solve a well-documented pressing problem: We need more, and more dense, housing.
Under our democratic process, if you don’t like the laws passed by our elected officials, then do the hard work of understanding the issues and engaging with your elected representatives to change them. In a democracy, you don’t change what you don’t like by talking about sending “someone to jail,” yelling at elected officials in public meetings, or openly defying the governor. NEIL MACGAFFEY
West Newton
The writer is retired director of the Massachusetts Office of Geographic Information. The views expressed here are his own.
How a Beacon Hill neighborhood put the welcome mat out
More than 50 years ago when we moved to the Boston area, we decided to live and raise our children in downtown Boston, not in a suburb. I had an uneasy feeling about the suburbs — that they might be unwelcoming to outsiders or too intent on conformity. But the feeling was amorphous and untested. What did I know? I grew up on an Illinois farm, after which I had lived only in university cities, never in a suburb.
Now, after reading in Andrew Brinker’s story about how residents of Milton, Dover, Rockport, and other suburban communities are behaving — unwelcoming and without imagination — I am happier than ever that we made the choice of urban living.
I live in Beacon Hill, which many observers might believe would also be unwelcoming to low-income residents. But my neighbors and I — often led by longtime housing activist John Bok, the late grandfather of Boston Housing Authority head Kenzie Bok — have helped establish low-income and affordable housing in five large buildings in the neighborhood. Guess what happened? Nothing. Our neighborhood is just as safe, beautiful, and interesting as it has always been.
Now we are welcoming another project in our neighborhood that will rise 12 stories, containing a new, expanded West End Branch Library and 119 affordable units of varying sizes.
I read that suburbanites decry density, but they don’t understand the benefits density brings, and they seem not to understand how to design and profit from it. We in Beacon Hill can attest that it can dramatically improve your life. More people can be a good thing. KAREN CORD TAYLOR Boston
Address the T’s woes and Milton votes will follow
State Senator Lydia Edwards says that Milton’s vote against rezoning under the MBTA Communities Act makes it look as if the town’s residents are “scared of outsiders” (“Milton must lose its fight,” Adrian Walker, Metro, March 6).
The real problem? The accessibility of the MBTA service that’s supposed to be a central feature of the law.
Because so many people will choose Interstate 93 over Milton’s woeful public transit, the law won’t serve its purpose and instead will send even more traffic onto the clogged routes out of Milton.
Fix the T and the votes will follow.
LAURA MURRAY-TJAN Milton
Milton opted to reject an unworkable plan, not to defy the law
Contrary to what columnist Adrian Walker, state Senator Lydia Edwards, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, and Governor Maura Healey think, Milton does not oppose multifamily housing. A majority of voters did, however, oppose the multifamily housing plan that had passed Town Meeting because it primarily affected two parts of the town: East Milton and the areas near the MBTA trolley line. We didn’t reject the state law; rather, we rejected the plan that was developed to comply with that law.
Zoning issues are not new in Milton. We have two major state roads running through the town, Routes 28 and 138, both of which are zoned for multifamily housing and commercial use throughout other cities and towns they run through but not Milton. When Milton is presented with a multifamily housing plan that fairly spreads the impact across the entire town, including along those two state highways, there will be a much better chance for the plan to be accepted.
KIP BROWN Milton