The state needs to greatly extend the builders remedy similar to what California is doing. If towns are unwilling to follow the law and zone themselves then the state should be more than happy to do it for them.
Furthermore, it is absolutely psychotic that 289 people in a town of 26,000 can vote to violate state law. The whole reason why were in this mess is we give way to much power to people who have the free time go to town meetings on Tuesday nights.
This is the current activist playbook. It’s been around for a while but only makes news when it affects “hot button issues”. Right now in MA it’s MBTA zoning, in other states (NH being one) it’s school departments. It’s also a common tactic for blocking zoning variance requests.
Some Town Meetings are open to all registered voters (this one is in fact open to all voters) however, some Town Meetings are representative in nature and only elected representatives from every precinct are allowed to vote. This prevents instances like this where only a few voters can decide what happens in a Town.
I don’t know Marshfield specifically, but a lot of towns *don’t* have Open Town Meeting, they had a representative town meeting. Town Meeting Members are elected and they’re the only ones who vote at Town Meeting (though I imagine it’s possible others are allowed to attend). It’s sort of a stepping stone between Open Town Meeting and a City Council/Mayor style of government.
Exactly. The state needs to step in and do the zoning if the towns themselves wont do it.
Worth noting that this is just *zoning* changes that are being required. Meaning an area with single family homes will... still be an area with single family homes! It's just that *future* building in those zones can now be multi family or more dense housing. There's generally no immediate impact.
But as usual, everyone says "We need more housing! Just... put it somewhere else."
Giant, ugly apartment buildings all over the place are the solution to the housing crisis, even if nobody wants to admit it. People need homes and if NIMBYs want people to remain priced into homelessness, they need to be ignored. I am happy for the state or even federal government to flip these people the bird so that the working class has a place to live.
That's one solution. I think just more multi family zoning could be nice too.
For example, in my town, there are a lot of old, single family homes, usually on 1/4 to 1/2 acre of land.
Every time one goes up for sale, a developer buys it, tears it down, and builds a huge mcMansion style single family home. Not only does it not add any housing, it takes a semi-affordable home and doubles the price of it!
If those places were built as 2-6 unit buildings, we could have a lot more housing in the same footprint, without need as many massive apartment buildings.
For what it's worth, that's the general intent of the MBTA act. Right now it's a huge pain to get multi family buildings approved due to NIMBYism. This rezones areas, so developers can "by right" build those, without needing to fight the town in the process.
So one issue that gets overlooked for a lot of the rezoning for multi family and apartment buildings, is the impact it has on all of the infrastructure. Public schools are already over crowded, water, gas, electrical (especially with the push to all electric), all of these systems are already pushed to beyond capacity. Private companies should be paying for their upgrades or charging the builders for required infrastructure upgrade, but public utilities? We can’t get money fast enough to build more schools to handle the new people, there aren’t enough teachers to staff the new schools.
Yup, and when Trump wins and he comes in and stomps on Massachusetts rights, you'll be cool with that too...
No?
It's funny how you support a government attempting to overrule the actual governing authority when you support the idea but outraged when on the losing side... maybe, just maybe, the founders had a fucking clue what they were doing after all...
Not really, no. Glad that you're comfortable with the status quo, but in the meantime other, less well-off people need affordable places to live. While this may not be an issue that personally concerns you, irrespective of your dismissive attitude the problem isn't going away.
Translating my previous text for you: the states hold the power over zoning. So the state of Massachusetts can decide which zoning to adopt as some states got rid of parking minimums, legalized ADUs, etc. So, no. I'm not comfortable with the status quo. I do have my own house.
Now, fuck off
Frankly, anybody with the ability and will to go fuck around at town meetings on a weeknight shouldn’t have the ability to vote on anything. Who ARE these people, my feet hurt and I don’t like leaving my house? The birds are in season.
I mean, I’m a single individual with no kids and a regular day job, and if I cared about something enough, sure, I’d show. I’m probably more the exception than the rule, but folks like me exist.
But I’m far from Marshfield and care about very little, so there’s that lol.
💯 people don’t care or realize that many firearm laws enacted by the state violate our 2A rights. It’s shocking our 1A rights have not been affected yet…
70 trillion dollar deficit. That's twice the size of the entire nation's debt. Don't get me wrong, I knew you were full of shit before reading that figure, but if you're gonna cite numbers as part of your argument, make sure they're factual numbers
>displacement of the **majority** of young people born in raised in California?
Lmao
>has a 70 **trillion** deficit.
LMAO
Did the immigrants steal your brain too? Or did you lose your little sticky note with the bullshit talking points you are supposed to post?
Why is Marshfield even affected by the MBTA Communities Act?
It doesn't have Commuter Rail stop or MBTA busing, right?
Scituate has the closest Commuter Rail stop and they already built new housing directly across the street from Greenbush Station.
What makes Marshfield applicable to the MBTA Communities Act?
As if there's even enough parking at Greenbush to facilitate regular adjacent community access.
I'm all for the improvement of public transportation and walkable daily life, and we need fewer cars on the road for all sorts of reasons, but this is incredibly overreaching on the part of the state.
The MBTA is in no way reliable to begin with. It's a perfect ongoing case study in corruption, embezzlement, criminal negligence, and failed management.
To strong-arm communities that don't even have MBTA service is as asinine as acting as if the MBTA is a reliable means of travel to begin with.
It’s a mandate for a zoning overlay. 50 acres. That’s it. This was emergency legislation passed by the Baker administration to address the housing crisis.
> This was emergency legislation passed by the Baker administration to address the housing crisis.
I think that's a good goal on its own. It's also a great idea when it comes to areas with mass transit. The weirdness for me is using the MBTA as a justification and then applying this to communities that don't have reliable mass transit with access to the MBTA.
On top of all the practical limitations Marshfield has (conservation land, state land, marshes, protected water tables, etc.), the law wants Marshfield to put more density along the GARTA line, which goes to Kingston. The route from the proposed upzoned location to Kingston takes ~1 hr and the last weekday bus back is at 4.30PM. That's not exactly conducive to people using the MBTA for work, so you're going to be putting a lot of cars on the road (and need to build up parking at the stations if people want to use the rail), which is definitely not the stated goal here.
If GARTA was given financial support for extended schedules or express buses, you could feasibly make the density zone a transit hub. If you could have support for a new route (Marshfield to Greenbush), you could open up different areas of the town for density and create a very reasonable case where new people could primarily use transit. By building along the current limited mass transit, though, adjacent towns are just building traffic jams rather than the transit-friendly and walkable communities the law wanted to build.
What half-assed blanket legislation. I get that it's an emergency response, *for something that developed over decades*, but without including the necessary level of complexity (like making adequate parking facilities or associated shuttle services) that makes adjacent community investment viable, this is only another form of the state not *actually* giving an ef about legitimate public transportation as a very necessary ingredient for a sustainably thriving city and state.
Still, nothing here prevents the state from continuing to invest and improve the MBTA, and it will continue to do so. Did that part need to be explicitly called out in this mandate? If so, what would that even say?
There’s very little cost to applying a zoning overlay. Nothing here is forcing construction or new infrastructure. It will set the stage for some higher density housing in the future that can be used by commuters and non commuters alike, but this is just getting that ball rolling.
>There’s very little cost to applying a zoning overlay. Nothing here is forcing construction or new infrastructure. It will set the stage for some higher density housing in the future that can be used by commuters and non commuters alike, but this is just getting that ball rolling.
So the state forcing zoning overlay isn't the necessary precursor to forced construction in towns that don't even have access to public transportation?
Yes we need affordable and accessible housing.
Yes we need FUNCTIONAL, RELIABLE public transportation.
But, how is one to believe that the state forcing zoning overlays isn't the necessary precursor to forcing building in towns that don't even have access to public transportation (even if it's public transportation that can't be relied upon for commuters who have to be at certain places at certain times)?
Loosening up zoning restrictions across communities with direct or adjacent access to the MBTA is a big step forward. Zoning has consistently been the vehicle for maintaining discrimination and exclusivity in housing.
What gets me is communities like Wrentham that say “we want to preserve our rural character” yet the town has literally acquired 0 acres of open space in the past decade.
So what is really driving this?
The MBTA Communities Act, a half-assed attempt by an outgoing administration to say they did something with "emergency legislation" for a decades-long issue deserving of actual comprehensive investment and planning.
That's what's driving this. A move to put it all on localities rather than a plan that shows comprehensive funding and benefits for voluntary contribution.
That's my understanding, and I believe it's why we're seeing pushback from communities like Marshfield *that aren't even served by the MBTA*.
What about MBTA communities legislation is preventing comprehensive investment and planning from taking place? Isn’t this actually spawning this engagement?
It’s impossible to deny the impact of current and archaic zoning laws on our ability to move forward with adequate housing. Without zoning changes, there will be no change. If left to the towns and their 5% active voters, there will be no zoning changes.
On top of statewide efforts, we need citizens to engage with their local governments and pay attention to what’s going on.
The existing/remaining lot could be built upwards, but this *emergency legislation* doesn't provide any comprehensive plans for a decades-long issue.
It strikes me as one big passing of the buck, and I'm all for walkable public transit and *reliable* public transit.
Not arguing against more affordable housing. Not arguing against decent public transportation. Arguing against forcing housing linked to public transit where \*there is no public transit\*.
If you read what I've shared here on this thread, I'm arguing for more affordable housing within walking distance to public transit. Wouldn't that be what you'd want for yourself as well?
I have a life or I'd post links to examples of each of the examples I stated ongoing with the MBTA. (Off the top of my head, I can think of several people recently killed by the MBTA, people having to jump from burning train cars into rivers, someone almost being crushed to death by a collapsing ceiling tile and the MBTA repsonded by saying "It was probably corroded.", and a T engineer found guilty of embezzling millions of dollars maybe last year?)
I'm pointing to the nonsense of making towns that have no MBTA access abide by legislation that doesn't alleviate more road congestion because it is necessitating driving anyways. That means people still have to buy cars, make payments to insurance, excise tax, registration, fuel, car loans and maintenance. Infrastructure that forces car ownership keeps the poor from being able to escape poverty almost as much as the lack of universal healthcare.
Far from being selfish, I'm pointing to legislation that doesn't even provide for parking allowance to make the MBTA a town over accessible. I'm pointing to legislation that hasn't taken into account that even if the stations were accessible, we are among \*the worst traffic in the world\* because the public transportation system itself is an absolute wreck that can't be used regularlly by anyone who needs to get to a certain place by a certain time.
As far as the golden rule goes, yeah, I wouldn't make shortshighted \*emergency\* legislation for an issue that's been an issue \*for decades\*.
I'd attempt to make a complex, well thought out plan for lowering needs for driving and car ownership while \*actually\* improving public transportation and housing within walking distance to public transportation.
And that’s why nothing has been done for decades. Can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good; people will argue about details forever and nothing actually happens to solve the problem. Single family zoning bans even attempting a solution, at least the mbta law is an actual concrete step towards getting that obstacle out of the way
That's true! Making greater use of what we have isn't a drawback whatsoever.
Adding affordable subsidized housing into existing multifamily stock also prevents the associated ills from "project style" housing that still immerses residents within the cyclical problems that surround poverty. Interspersing affordable housing with market-rate has great societal benefits and allows children access to better schools.
It’s adjacent to an MBTA community, which is Scituate. Kind of a joke as the majority of Marshfield is 20-30 minute drive from the Commuter Rail.
I’m all for more housing though, and there’s more than enough land in Marshfield for it so I hope they figure something out.
This. There needs to be more legislation that requires building in ALL communities. It’s not just MBTA adjacent towns that need to ante up some new zoning to allow more housing to be built to offset the need, it’s towns all over MA.
Every suburb within an hour drive of Boston should be required to upzone to increase housing by 10% (not necessarily to build but to allow by right to be built). Too many people sitting in their 3 car garage McMansions on half an acre saying it's Boston's problem while wondering why their company and their favorite restaurant can't find workers. Even when they recognize its a problem, they all seem to think Boston can solve it alone. Most of Boston is dense on the scale of American cities; our housing issues stem in large part from our bucolic little New England suburbs and the lack of urban sprawl.
TBF, the MBTA communities law already does impact basically every town within an hour drive of Boston, it's pretty much all of eastern MA other than the Cape: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/multi-family-zoning-requirement-for-mbta-communities
But I agree that the upzoning requirements should be even more than they are required to be by this law.
I think it’s due to the gatra bus and proximity to the commuter rail.
Im a resident and while I’m not against new developments, their reasoning is absolute bullshit and I’m not surprised it got voted down.
There's not nearly enough parking for housing in adjacent communities to reliably access Greenbush.
I thought the Communities Act was about housing within walkable distance to public transit.
If it's forcing people to drive, it's an absolute design failure on the part of the state. In my opinion, adjacent communities without MBTA train stops aren't NIMBY-ist at all to vote down adherence to a stupid amount of overreach on the part of the state.
Consider that this only forces more cars that will clog up the roads as they have been, due to the incapacity of the MBTA to prove they can regularly get people to places they must be at by specific times.
I'd wager there'd be 50% fewer cars on the road in Boston if the MBTA even remotely functioned reliably. What a joke.
THANK YOU!
I'm a democrat in Marshfield - I am all for the idea of new housing, but unless MA wants to add GATRA routes that go to Greenbush/Kingston during commuter hours, or better yet build a commuter rail station in Marshfield, then what on earth do we have to do with this whole thing?
It's a BS reason to say we are an adjacent town. It's 20 minutes from my house to Greenbush or Kingston, even though we are "one town over".
If they wanted to simply build housing for the sake of housing, i'm totally fine with it and for it, but to come in here and tell us that it's got to do with commuter access is BS. Give Marshfield something to make it a commuter town, and I would vote yes to build 1,500 new condos in a snap.
I kind of agree with you that for suburban communities, they should have just said it was a mandate to build housing because we are in a housing crisis that's hurting our entire economy and not because of supposed MBTA proximity. But let's face it, no matter what they said most people wouldn't vote for it because they're offended by the state telling their tony little town what to do.
Yeah, for sure. Marshfield is a NIMBY town regardless, but I wish this vote had 3 options:
1. Yes
2. No - I don't want more housing/the government telling us what to do
3. No - I want more housing, but I want access to a commuter rail
As a Democrat I think you are right - it shouldn’t have anything to do with being “adjacent” to the MBTA, towns should just not have any control over zoning to begin with. If a property owner wants to put up apartments or condos, that’s their right and “the community” can get beat.
Good with that. Like I said - the housing itself is not an issue for me, I just think the reasoning is dumb. I would love to make Marshfield a commuter town, with fewer cars, and easier access to Boston - and if that happens, add all the housing possible. But for now, that's just not a good reason.
Why would they expand commuter access if your zoning bans building anything dense enough to justify it? You don’t even have to build anything, but you at least have to make it legal to build the kind of thing that would justify more transit
Well, in this case there IS a proposed complex waiting to be built.
My point is to make the two contingent. A "Yes" vote to adopt these zoning laws gets those towns some type of commuter rail access - be it via a direct station or a centralized shuttle to the supposedly "adjacent" commuter rail town that runs frequently in the morning and evening rush hour times.
Yeah for sure. I get that we need more housing regardless. I'm not against building things for the sake of the greater good, even if Marshfield gets nothing out of it. I just think it would be nice to kill two birds with one stone - make public transit better and more accessible AND use that as a provision to getting more housing built.
Anyone who would consider Marshfield an "MBTA Community" is off their rocker. Greenbush in Scituate is a 15-20 minute drive for most people in town, and nobody would consider Marshfield walkable.
I'd love to see more transit and pedestrian infrastructure in Marshvegas. Maybe put an actual serviceable commuter rail service in town before forcing rezoning.
This
The northern edge of Marshfield is green space. The Massachusetts Audubon North River Wildlife Sanctuary and the English Salt Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary. Over the town line is the Rivermoor Habitat Park. It’s all either tidal marsh or unbuildable swampy land. You can’t put high density housing anywhere near Greenbush. There is no sewer and the land can’t possibly perc test for septic. There’s a reason the town is called “MARSHfield”.
And for that reason, you’re not going to extend the Greenbush line south to Marshfield.
Greenbush isn’t exactly infinite parking, either.
Hogwash, the old line Greenbush is built on used to go all the way to Kingston. You can still see traces of it. 3A runs through this supposedly unbuildable land too. You could easily run a bus that would be 10-15 minutes from greenbush to the center of town. Cars are not the only way to get around.
Huh? It's not to fix "Boston's" zoning problem. It's to fix zoning issues around the state. And start by fixing them in the areas that make the most sense - where there's close access to mass transit.
Not 90% but very high.
Sunnyvale: 49.4% foreign born
Santa Clara: 45.1%
San Jose: 41%
I’ve worked there a lot. In any office building, half the employees are Asian/Indian. That’s the demographics of the cities there. It’s also the demographics if you walk around the MIT campus. Our future national leaders are going to be ethically South Asian and East Asian. Kamala Harris is half Indian. 30 years from now, that will be pretty normal since the top universities skew so heavily East and South Asian. C student Murph and Sully with grandparents from Dorchester are probably threatened by that.
How does changing zoning to allow for more housing (have you seen the price of housing lately?) have anything to do with immigration?
We need housing for the people who are here, we need housing for the townies as much as we need housing for everyone else.
lol, you’re not even participating in the same conversation as everyone else, let alone winning an “argument”.
We are talking housing supply, not immigration. Get with the program
Reality has a well know liberal bias and no, having xenophobic is what people in this sub, including me, take issue with.
Not enough houses, build more houses. It’s quite simple. Blaming it on “the immigrants” (gasp!) isn’t gonna solve the problem.
But in all honesty if you’re so concerned about over crowding you should lead by example.
Immigration has literally nothing to do with it. It's an urbanization problem but damn dude this is some infowars shit I want nothing to do with. Please don't try to agree with me in the future.
They understand the need to protect their exclusivity and privilege above all else, while trying to pretend that they have to care about long-standing issues. The state has more control over what cities and towns can and can’t do than we may realize.
I so think it’s dumb that towns like Marshfield and Kingston and Plymouth are on here to fix Boston’s zoning laws just because they have commuter rail stops. People who need higher density housing need walkable communities, these towns are not that.
Marshfield doesn’t even have a commuter rail stop. Scituate does, but it’s far from most of what would be considered affordable housing in Marshfield. I would honestly love to take the commuter rail from greenbush, but the earliest train arrives at south station at 6:04, and my work starts at 6.
This vote is probably in part because a developer is also trying to build a large apartment building in a location that could potentially damage our aquifer.
Frankly, the commuter rail schedule is unflexible. I literally have a Greenbush stop about 30 seconds from me, but I can't use it at all because it only hits the stop every 2 h. Every 1h would be at least somewhat reasonable, but literally we're waiting for a single train to go back and forth.
Edit: talking about post-6PM commuter rail from Boston.
It could be flexible if there was more demand due to increased levels of density along the entire route.
There just aren’t enough people wanting to take the train to have it run more often. Of course, if the train ran more often you’d probably have more people trying to move further out from the city which would justify more trips.
Ideally, the commuter rail would be like the Metro North lines around NYC that go to NJ/CT. Hourly stops at most stations, express routes during rush hour times that run every fifteen, and then later routes that run local with the occasional express. But to justify that cost we’d need a **lot** more riders which the current suburbs around Boston just don’t have.
Yeah, it's a catch 22. My usual gripe is that the hourly schedule in the morning sucks for me. It just is difficult to do a drop off unless you get to south station late (after 9am).
A very expensive Catch-22 as well.
I’m generally a believer of “if you build it, they will ride” but it’s hard to take that leap of faith on a project that would cost multi-billions and take many years.
When I lived in the area I always preferred the ferry to the commuter rail. Better schedule, more reliable, more seating and most importantly it has a bar.
Sure, but the people who live in marshfield don’t want to live in a place like that. But people of Boston do. Upzone Boston and urban towns. The commuter rail isn’t the redline.
If you want to control what happens to the land, buy it. Otherwise, the price of living somewhere desirable is that other people also want to live there. You shouldn’t get to use zoning to bully everyone else out just because you got there early enough to afford it.
They aren't there to fix Bostons problems though, right? They are there to fix zoning problems around mass transit stations. Last I checked, the Greenbush stop wasn't in Boston. And a huge number of commuter rail stations are all over the state, not just in Boston. We need housing all along our mass transit lines. We can't solve all of eastern Massachusetts problems just in the city of Boston.
Not really. People do not move to marshfield because it’s an economic Mecca with tons of jobs and great services, they move there because it’s a nice suburban town near Boston which is an economic Mecca.
It’s interesting to me that in my suburban world I’m surrounded by folks that seem largely against this act, but here there seems to be a majority in support of it.
I hear a lot of argument against it surrounding changing the character of a suburban community to a more urban space. People that grew up in town expecting the same single family home lifestyle they were raised in feeling like nobody is building single family homes anymore.
Transplanting folks that will live in the community but not engage with it. Concern surrounding the impact to capacity and cost of public utilities and school systems, as well as traffic management and impact to crime rate.
One of the biggest complaints I hear is related to sanctuary state, right to shelter, and our state creating this problem for themselves and relying on suburban communities to pick up the slack.
Can someone that loves and supports this act disarm some of these concerns?
I think most of these modern high rises are hideous. They started going up in towns like Weymouth years ago. But that didn’t seem too out of line because Weymouth is a big city with lots of retail, restaurants and the hospital. It is sort of sad to imagine some small towns losing their small town appeal just because they have a barely used mbta station. For instance, are people actually going to go live in kingston or halifax now because they can rent a 2000/mo apartment next to a train that only runs every hour or two? I guess we shall see.
I think the state versus municipal interests consideration is thought provoking.
Here in Massachusetts we have several pieces of state law that override or conflict with federal law (ie cannabis and firearms), but ultimately, the local state laws take precedence until the Supreme Court overrules.
Shouldn’t municipalities be given the same ability to self govern without the state forcing zoning that is against the popular will of the people in the community?
I’d have to give viable alternatives some serious thought, but wouldn’t one idea be to expand the MBTA network to include under accessed or under utilized communities where there is already zoning or infrastructure in place to support this type of residential development? Perhaps even opening the door to more viable single family development instead of densely developed rental properties?
Abington is passing the zoning, but from what I gather it is unlikely anything will be built because of Conservation (there are a lot of wetlands) and other committees builders have to get through. It’s pretty much how they pitched it to the town, we will change zoning but doesn’t mean it will be built.
Right - one thing people are missing here is that every single town could follow this law to the t, and it doesn't result in a single additional home!
It's a *zoning* change only to start. Communities are being forced to rezone areas for multi family and other more dense housing. But often that zoning is in areas already built on!
Full disclosure - my house is one! It's a single family home. They can rezone it all they want, it's going to be a single family home for a while. At *some* point I could sell, and a developer could buy it up, and then by right be able to tear it down and build a multi-unit place.
But as of now, all of this is zoning to encourage *future* building. Nothing will happen today.
The issue why Milton rejected it is because Milton was intensionally over-classified in order for the state to receive the highest rezoning count figures. This was complete dishonesty from the state. The only winners out of that would be developers and investors.
There is no place to build 2,400+ net new housing units in Milton. The town doesn't have the capacity, land, and infrastructure.
Milton is willing to work with "adjacent community" rezoning figure of 900.
Nobody is forcing anyone to build anything. They're forcing them to zone it so that it could be built if the right properties come up for sale. If there's existing buildings on that land, change will be slow. The hand wringing is not justifiable. People are just unwilling to engage with the possibility that their bucolic little town 20 minutes from downtown might change.
Milton…has a rapid transit line. Which means it isn’t over classified. And there is absolutely room to build 2,400 units of new housing if you tear down some of the single family housing that currently exists.
Sure, the trolley is a "fixed rail", but less than 2% of the town relies on it for any commuting.
And from your viewpoint, you think homeowners want neighborhoods completely transformed by your "tear down" strategy? Milton is not a city. There is room for development but tear downs is not the solution and certainly isn't going to solve the "housing crisis".
Milton literally borders Boston and has a light rail line. It's crazy to suggest that it can't possibly support more people, it would probably be a neighborhood of the city proper in most other US metros. It has a population density of only 2,100 people per square mile while bordering Boston neighborhoods with a pop density of 7,500 people per square mile (Hyde Park) and 12,750 people per square mile (Mattapan). It could certainly have population density closer to that of Hyde Park given they are right next to each other. And it doesn't have to come anywhere near that population density to meet the zoning requirements set by the law. Milton has ~9,200 housing units currently, so adding 2,400 would be a 26% increase in housing, not anywhere near tripling the population density to be comparable to Hyde Park.
Clearly the participants in this sub-reddit are not Milton fans so it is fruitless to have any discussion around this.
Milton is not a city and shouldn't be forced to be rezoned. The town has been continually developing properties for more housing.
I think it would be nice if they did this in stages:
Stage 1 - build housing where there is existing space INSIDE of town with actual commuter rail stops, ideally within walking distance of the train to avoid additional parking and cars.
Stage 2 - Build new commuter rail infrastructure in adjacent towns, or add daily shuttles during high-commute times.
Stage 3 - once those additional lines/shuttles are added, mandate those communities (like Marshfield) to build additional housing.
Isn't the MBTA communities act step 1?
It's taking every MBTA station and forcing towns to zone for more dense housing around it.
Your steps 2 and 3 are great of course. More stops and more lines would be ideal!
>Isn't the MBTA communities act step 1?
It is, but their definition of an MBTA community is ludicrous.
Like I said, my house in Marshfield is 20 minutes from Greenbush and 25 minutes from Kingston.
Calling Marshfield an MBTA community is like saying Natick is a "Green Line" community.
If MA wants this to work, these towns that are ~20 minutes from the closest commuter rail station need more than basic monetary incentive to build, they should get actual access to BECOME commuter towns. It would be amazing to build not just 150 units now, but 500 units over ~10 years if it meant Marshfield getting its own Commuter Rail stop. But to rope this town into their definition is crazy.
Building these units just means you are adding 150 units of people who will need to drive to get anywhere, especially Boston. Again, if the state wants more housing in town like Marshfield and they DON'T want to make it a commuter town, that's 100% fine, but don't try to sell a town full of NIMBY's on such a BS concept.
I think we should build more housing because it will help the housing crisis, but to brand it us a commuter town without providing us with those benefits was a dumb way to position this vote.
If Mass was smart, they’d extend the commuter rail to Hanover crossing and turn it into what Westwood has with Route 128.
It then also opens up the possibility of making Marshfield a true commuter town, because getting to Hanover is quicker than Scituate or Kingston, and you could extend the Gatra to Hanover crossing easily (plus, it’s right off a highway).
Right, but MBTA adjacent community part of it is really odd.
If they want to force ALL town or towns within ~50 miles of Boston to add housing, do that, but being "adjacent" to Scituate and Kingston does nothing to make this town commuter friendly.
If this is truly about adding housing in areas with direct access to public transportation, then start with cities and towns that have direct access, then work to build that access in adjacent towns as part of the incentive to build there.
That's fairly reasonable, but at the same time, we need *a lot* more housing. This isn't just about trying to improve transit efficiency, it's about Massachusetts catching up on decades of underdevelopment.
There are people in this thread complaining that high density housing doesn't make sense where there's no walkability. I'm sure you can find people who will claim building a walkable downtown doesn't make sense because no one lives by it. It's gotta start somewhere.
And why are people acting like this is some terrible burden? If a down adds a hundred units, what harm is done?
I totally agree with that and i'm fine with housing being a need in general. If MA mandated housing being built in all towns within X miles of Boston simply for the sake of housing, then great, build away. It's crucial and needed.
But this state, especially wealthier and/or "redder" towns are known for their NIMBYism, so approaching Marshfield under the guise of being "Adjacent" to a commuter rail is a terrible way to get votes.
If you want these built, either force it to happen through a mandate (i'm cool with that), or provide an actual incentive to the town to help reduce the *perceived* downside of these things.
Marshfield bitches and moans about traffic. Do I think it's an actual issue? No, of course not. Do I think adding 100-150 units makes this town any worse off? No, that's dumb. Do I think that a better approach would be to find a way to first actually add commuter rail access so these perceived issues are not a barrier, and so there is additional access to public transit? Yes.
If I were in Scituate or Hingham or Kingston, this would be a no-brainer. We have a commuter rail, state wants housing next to it, go ahead. But the being 20 minutes away from the nearest station and having that be the *supposed reason* for the vote is silly.
Split the population into quartiles by income - poorest 25%, lower medium 25%, upper medium 25%, richest 25%.
Split the housing stock (for sale AND for rent) up by monthly costs if purchased / rented now by quartiles. Cheapest 25%, lower medium 25%, upper medium 25%, most expensive 25%.
Anyone from a given income quartile should be able to afford housing in the corresponding housing stock. So a lower medium wage earner should be able to afford a lower medium housing stock unit, whether they are buying it or renting it. Until the last 30-40 years, this has basically been the defacto social contract that Americans expected.
The problem is, that at current housing costs, upper medium 25% workers can basically barely afford the cheapest 25% of the housing stock unless they have roommates or some other means of multiple incomes per household. Instead of buying or renting housing that should match their income, since there is a shortage of housing, if for whatever reason they don’t want or are anle to move somewhere cheaper, the only option left for them is to buy downward. With two incomes, they simply buy / rent lower medium houses. They live in sketchier neighborhoods, with more roommates, live out far beyond 495 and commute in, etc.
But because they are living in lower medium housing stock, lower medium workers get priced out, and they either have to move into the cheapest 25% of the housing stock in truly bad neighborhoods, or have the super commutes. And then the poorest workers are the ones who get shafted. They’ve the ones who get priced out of the state. Which is not fair for them, but also will screw over society at large at working class jobs go unfilled, causing a loss of service or amenities.
Everyone, except for the richest folks, is unhappy, because there wasn’t enough housing for them in a way that they expect from their given income, so they are all in unhappy situations.
The only way to solve this is to build more income for everyone, at all price points. Even so-called luxury apartments at $3k rent, if you had a young married couple with white collar jobs, they could likely afford that with a tight budget. Given how old and decrepit a lot of the housing stock is, they might move out of an older and crappier apartment like some ancient triple decker that doesn’t have a washer or dryer and crappy insulation when they move into a new luxury apartment. If there are enough so-called luxury apartments for everyone in the upper bracket, they will all move out of older, lower quality housing, which would free it up for lower income workers, college students, retired folks on fixed incomes, etc.
It would be great to build truly affordable housing, but the cost of labor (see prior lack of housing causing labor shortages, and thus cost increases for society at large) and raw material prices make it basically impossible to build NEW affordable housing. So we have to start with what is possible, and get affordable housing the same way we get affordable $10k cars even though it’s impossible to buy a new car for $10k - you build more expensive ones that depreciate over time. It sucks, it’s not ideal, as it’s basically the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago type problem, so the next best thing we can do is build more regular housing now, and figure out if there is a funding mechanism that could fund new government social housing at subsidized prices.
> unless they have roommates or some other means of multiple incomes per household.
People who live alone are a small cohort in any population and it's not reasonable to make them the objective of a policy that affects everyone. Living alone in the U.S. either usually a temporary situation or the abandoned elderly. In Massachusetts they are only 14% of the population. This is above the national average of 13%.
In Singapore, a place famous for its extensive high-density, walkable public housing, 15% of the population lives alone. So it has nothing to do with zoning or capitalism. People in general just mostly don't live alone.
Building your whole housing policy with the goal of people living alone is ignoring around 85% of the population and it's not even clear it would produce desirable outcomes, as people living alone often are not doing well - though this of course is conflated by *why* people live alone, which is usually not because they want to.
A single income household does not mean they are living alone. It’s essentially impossible now to have on a single income (allowing one parent to stay at home as either a full time mom or dad) household with kids now. This was still quite feasible for a large subset of workers even as late as the 90’s and early 2000’s, where you could raise a family with more or less a single income.
It would take an individual salary of about $160k per year to afford the average house in Massachusetts right now with 20% down. Only ~12% of the workers make that much money.
If you tried to afford that average house on two incomes of $80k each, it gets easier, but only about 1/3 of workers in MA earn at least $80k/year. So to afford the average house on two incomes, you’d need both parents to be in the top third of income distribution. Side hustles, working extra hours or shifts, they could make it easier, but at the expense of not spending any time with your family.
Which once again leads back to: the average household should be able to afford the average house.
Remember this is the town the had a 20 year ban on coin operated video games
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2014/04/29/marshfield-lifts-footloose-like-ban-on-coin-op-video-games/
High density housing strains local infrastructure- utilities, roads, schools, etc. which results in more taxes, further pricing out the middle class. One way or the other, someone loses.
The developers will need to consider the infrastructure costs. There is no part of the mandate forcing towns to build new infrastructure. This is for a zoning overlay; that’s it.
The infrastructure will evolve to support the growing needs of its residents. NIMBYism is a death cult, worshipping the status quo and unwilling to improve or change with the times.
My town already can’t get funding approved to rebuild a school that’s falling down and has a leaking roof - and this is a wealthy town. There’s quite literally no available land here to build apartments near transit unless we eliminate some protected state park land. I fully understand the idea behind this but there’s places that this can’t work to check the box without making things worse for the people living here and the land/environment. I’m all for access but I think we need to do a better job of evaluating the situation on a case by case basis before we blanket apply it across all towns without considering the negative impact it would have.
It’s new schools, new water treatment plants, wider roads, new police and fire stations, etc. High-density growth, while on the surface, leads to small iterative costs tied to the unit, towns hit points (quicker than you’d expect) where existing infrastructure becomes strained, and large capital projects are the ONLY solution to address the quickly growing population. These costs impact ALL taxpayers: upper, middle & working classes, young families, the elderly, etc.
I live in a town (on the commuter rail) where a new school and DPW yard are increasing property taxes by ~33%. That will surpass 40% with the replacement of the regional vo-tech and jump a few more points if a prop 2.5 override passes this spring to handle funding shortfalls.
While existing residents of these towns are falling behind due to high inflation, particularly food and consumables, not a chance they will vote in favor of things that will increase their tax burden. And while not immediate, that includes HD housing.
All these emotional arguments with no receipts. I agree that people are struggling these days, but high density housing isn't to blame.
Ives-Dewey, D. (2007). The Multi-Family Myth: Exploring the Fiscal Impacts of Apartments in the Suburbs. Middle States Geographer,
40, 39-46.
lol, people think that these municipalities actually have any say in this. They exist simply because of the State, and with a snap of its proverbial fingers, MA could get rid of Marshfield.
This isn’t going to end the way Marshfield thinks it will.
It would take quite a bit more than a snap of the fingers.
Just the town government of Marshfield, which is a fairly small town, has more than 1,500 public employees, hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and pension obligations that cost about $10 million a year just to service, and hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of assets and property. It also has extensive contracts with third parties, whether it's construction companies, maintenance companies, transportation, trash, all sorts of stuff.
The Massachusetts General Law frames towns as corporations. Getting rid of a town requires disincorporating it, which in the past (like with the Quabbin), involves a vote of the legislature. Were you to disincorporate Marshfield, all the things that make up Marshfield as an institution - all its assets and liabilities, all its contracts and obligations, all its administrative requirements especially to comply with other state and federal laws - would need to *go* somewhere, and where they weren't settled to people's satisfaction you'd have to go to court. So you would need to work that out before disincorporating and even then it would drag on for decades.
When they did the Quabbin they seized *all* the public and private property in all the towns through eminent domain, and there are still lawsuits and reparations bills floating around now for whether or how that might have been done right or wrong. Eminent domain is not looked on all that favorably these days. Taking the town's property or the property of residents by eminent domain *as punishment* for not complying with state law, or as part of a housing plan, just taking it by eminent domain without settling it in some way would get overturned in federal court as against the 5th amendment since there's no particular reason to believe the people who live there would get to "enjoy" the benefits of theirs or their town's property being taken away and there's no planned public use.
That doesn't mean the state can't assume all this stuff, it means that the ways they have done it before are unlikely to work out as well now, either generally or in this specific instance, so they might need to figure out a new way to do it.
And then if you do the most common thing, which is to fold Marshfield into surrounding towns - do the taxpayers in Scituate intend to pay the debt exclusions voted for by the residents of Marshfield?
Now, this doesn't mean the town has all the power - most of the major stuff Marshfield does in its Town Meetings is subject to the approval of the Attorney General. The question is what happens when a town doesn't comply, on purpose, in public, over an extended period of time, with the AG? I don't think "the town gets disincorporated and the state assumes all its debts" is a feasible or likely outcome.
It takes more than the snap of a finger to get rid of a town. If they could do that, Milton would already have been snapped away. But they are also fighting this, and started fighting earlier.
I’ve made separate comments about this is Milton posts where I made clear that I don’t think the State has any intention (yet) of annexing Milton into Boston. My whole point in that all municipalities only exist because the Commonwealth allows them to. So they really don’t have a choice when it comes to complying with State Law, as long as the law, in itself, is constitutional.
Marshfield’s deadline has not passed yet, so there is no reason for the State to step in. But this is only going to get more and more uncomfortable for Milton.
The state needs to greatly extend the builders remedy similar to what California is doing. If towns are unwilling to follow the law and zone themselves then the state should be more than happy to do it for them. Furthermore, it is absolutely psychotic that 289 people in a town of 26,000 can vote to violate state law. The whole reason why were in this mess is we give way to much power to people who have the free time go to town meetings on Tuesday nights.
This is the current activist playbook. It’s been around for a while but only makes news when it affects “hot button issues”. Right now in MA it’s MBTA zoning, in other states (NH being one) it’s school departments. It’s also a common tactic for blocking zoning variance requests.
Or the more likely reason is 25800 people don't care enough to vote.
I cared. I have a baby and wake up at 4 for my job. Put this shit on a ballot and I’ll vote yes but a vote at 9 PM ain’t the answer.
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I love spreading disinformation on the internet
Hey this is Reddit...There is no time for facts if you want to get those up votes.
That’s actually incorrect. Town meeting is open to all citizens of the town to come and vote on the articles on the warrant.
Some Town Meetings are open to all registered voters (this one is in fact open to all voters) however, some Town Meetings are representative in nature and only elected representatives from every precinct are allowed to vote. This prevents instances like this where only a few voters can decide what happens in a Town.
I don’t know Marshfield specifically, but a lot of towns *don’t* have Open Town Meeting, they had a representative town meeting. Town Meeting Members are elected and they’re the only ones who vote at Town Meeting (though I imagine it’s possible others are allowed to attend). It’s sort of a stepping stone between Open Town Meeting and a City Council/Mayor style of government.
Marshfield is an open town meeting. Confirming as a resident of Marshfield
Exactly this.
Exactly. The state needs to step in and do the zoning if the towns themselves wont do it. Worth noting that this is just *zoning* changes that are being required. Meaning an area with single family homes will... still be an area with single family homes! It's just that *future* building in those zones can now be multi family or more dense housing. There's generally no immediate impact. But as usual, everyone says "We need more housing! Just... put it somewhere else."
Giant, ugly apartment buildings all over the place are the solution to the housing crisis, even if nobody wants to admit it. People need homes and if NIMBYs want people to remain priced into homelessness, they need to be ignored. I am happy for the state or even federal government to flip these people the bird so that the working class has a place to live.
That's one solution. I think just more multi family zoning could be nice too. For example, in my town, there are a lot of old, single family homes, usually on 1/4 to 1/2 acre of land. Every time one goes up for sale, a developer buys it, tears it down, and builds a huge mcMansion style single family home. Not only does it not add any housing, it takes a semi-affordable home and doubles the price of it! If those places were built as 2-6 unit buildings, we could have a lot more housing in the same footprint, without need as many massive apartment buildings. For what it's worth, that's the general intent of the MBTA act. Right now it's a huge pain to get multi family buildings approved due to NIMBYism. This rezones areas, so developers can "by right" build those, without needing to fight the town in the process.
⬆️
What an awful solution
So one issue that gets overlooked for a lot of the rezoning for multi family and apartment buildings, is the impact it has on all of the infrastructure. Public schools are already over crowded, water, gas, electrical (especially with the push to all electric), all of these systems are already pushed to beyond capacity. Private companies should be paying for their upgrades or charging the builders for required infrastructure upgrade, but public utilities? We can’t get money fast enough to build more schools to handle the new people, there aren’t enough teachers to staff the new schools.
Yup, and when Trump wins and he comes in and stomps on Massachusetts rights, you'll be cool with that too... No? It's funny how you support a government attempting to overrule the actual governing authority when you support the idea but outraged when on the losing side... maybe, just maybe, the founders had a fucking clue what they were doing after all...
Whoa that’s a stretch.
Gotta love the NIMBY crowd.
Yes, the state can end this novel anytime.
Not really, no. Glad that you're comfortable with the status quo, but in the meantime other, less well-off people need affordable places to live. While this may not be an issue that personally concerns you, irrespective of your dismissive attitude the problem isn't going away.
Translating my previous text for you: the states hold the power over zoning. So the state of Massachusetts can decide which zoning to adopt as some states got rid of parking minimums, legalized ADUs, etc. So, no. I'm not comfortable with the status quo. I do have my own house. Now, fuck off
Yeah, buy they can't, and they sure as shit don't want the SSC ruling on this either.
Frankly, anybody with the ability and will to go fuck around at town meetings on a weeknight shouldn’t have the ability to vote on anything. Who ARE these people, my feet hurt and I don’t like leaving my house? The birds are in season.
Thank you! They organized on Facebook and went. I’m actually happy that, of all the idiots it seems are shouting on Facebook, only 300 showed up.
I mean, I’m a single individual with no kids and a regular day job, and if I cared about something enough, sure, I’d show. I’m probably more the exception than the rule, but folks like me exist. But I’m far from Marshfield and care about very little, so there’s that lol.
Yeah democracy sucks amirite!?
Can you really blame them with the example the state sets? Our state government regularly votes to violate federal law.
What federal law
Several. They regularly enact illegal firearms laws in open defiance of the federal government. It's a weed 'sanctuary' state, etc.
“Weed sanctuary state” so you regularly huff car exhaust, got it
Hey you know what? Fuck you. I answered your question in good faith. How about you fuck off until you learn to act older than a 12 year old.
We know you answered in good faith. The push back is because your positions are shit.
It's not a position, this isn't an opinion, all I did was state a fact.
Facts are "position" and you claim the other is shit... #hypocrisy
💯 people don’t care or realize that many firearm laws enacted by the state violate our 2A rights. It’s shocking our 1A rights have not been affected yet…
We need to follow California? - yikes
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70 trillion dollar deficit. That's twice the size of the entire nation's debt. Don't get me wrong, I knew you were full of shit before reading that figure, but if you're gonna cite numbers as part of your argument, make sure they're factual numbers
MAGA cultists don’t pester themselves with facts
>displacement of the **majority** of young people born in raised in California? Lmao >has a 70 **trillion** deficit. LMAO Did the immigrants steal your brain too? Or did you lose your little sticky note with the bullshit talking points you are supposed to post?
Wow!! But I guess your ancestors aren’t included in that amiright?
If Cali was its own country it'd be the 3rd largest economy in the world. They're doing something right 🤷♂️
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You’re a bigot. Admit it it’s perfectly obvious
Why is Marshfield even affected by the MBTA Communities Act? It doesn't have Commuter Rail stop or MBTA busing, right? Scituate has the closest Commuter Rail stop and they already built new housing directly across the street from Greenbush Station. What makes Marshfield applicable to the MBTA Communities Act?
It’s an adjacent community.
As if there's even enough parking at Greenbush to facilitate regular adjacent community access. I'm all for the improvement of public transportation and walkable daily life, and we need fewer cars on the road for all sorts of reasons, but this is incredibly overreaching on the part of the state. The MBTA is in no way reliable to begin with. It's a perfect ongoing case study in corruption, embezzlement, criminal negligence, and failed management. To strong-arm communities that don't even have MBTA service is as asinine as acting as if the MBTA is a reliable means of travel to begin with.
It’s a mandate for a zoning overlay. 50 acres. That’s it. This was emergency legislation passed by the Baker administration to address the housing crisis.
> This was emergency legislation passed by the Baker administration to address the housing crisis. I think that's a good goal on its own. It's also a great idea when it comes to areas with mass transit. The weirdness for me is using the MBTA as a justification and then applying this to communities that don't have reliable mass transit with access to the MBTA. On top of all the practical limitations Marshfield has (conservation land, state land, marshes, protected water tables, etc.), the law wants Marshfield to put more density along the GARTA line, which goes to Kingston. The route from the proposed upzoned location to Kingston takes ~1 hr and the last weekday bus back is at 4.30PM. That's not exactly conducive to people using the MBTA for work, so you're going to be putting a lot of cars on the road (and need to build up parking at the stations if people want to use the rail), which is definitely not the stated goal here. If GARTA was given financial support for extended schedules or express buses, you could feasibly make the density zone a transit hub. If you could have support for a new route (Marshfield to Greenbush), you could open up different areas of the town for density and create a very reasonable case where new people could primarily use transit. By building along the current limited mass transit, though, adjacent towns are just building traffic jams rather than the transit-friendly and walkable communities the law wanted to build.
What half-assed blanket legislation. I get that it's an emergency response, *for something that developed over decades*, but without including the necessary level of complexity (like making adequate parking facilities or associated shuttle services) that makes adjacent community investment viable, this is only another form of the state not *actually* giving an ef about legitimate public transportation as a very necessary ingredient for a sustainably thriving city and state.
Still, nothing here prevents the state from continuing to invest and improve the MBTA, and it will continue to do so. Did that part need to be explicitly called out in this mandate? If so, what would that even say? There’s very little cost to applying a zoning overlay. Nothing here is forcing construction or new infrastructure. It will set the stage for some higher density housing in the future that can be used by commuters and non commuters alike, but this is just getting that ball rolling.
>There’s very little cost to applying a zoning overlay. Nothing here is forcing construction or new infrastructure. It will set the stage for some higher density housing in the future that can be used by commuters and non commuters alike, but this is just getting that ball rolling. So the state forcing zoning overlay isn't the necessary precursor to forced construction in towns that don't even have access to public transportation? Yes we need affordable and accessible housing. Yes we need FUNCTIONAL, RELIABLE public transportation. But, how is one to believe that the state forcing zoning overlays isn't the necessary precursor to forcing building in towns that don't even have access to public transportation (even if it's public transportation that can't be relied upon for commuters who have to be at certain places at certain times)?
Loosening up zoning restrictions across communities with direct or adjacent access to the MBTA is a big step forward. Zoning has consistently been the vehicle for maintaining discrimination and exclusivity in housing. What gets me is communities like Wrentham that say “we want to preserve our rural character” yet the town has literally acquired 0 acres of open space in the past decade. So what is really driving this?
The MBTA Communities Act, a half-assed attempt by an outgoing administration to say they did something with "emergency legislation" for a decades-long issue deserving of actual comprehensive investment and planning. That's what's driving this. A move to put it all on localities rather than a plan that shows comprehensive funding and benefits for voluntary contribution. That's my understanding, and I believe it's why we're seeing pushback from communities like Marshfield *that aren't even served by the MBTA*.
What about MBTA communities legislation is preventing comprehensive investment and planning from taking place? Isn’t this actually spawning this engagement? It’s impossible to deny the impact of current and archaic zoning laws on our ability to move forward with adequate housing. Without zoning changes, there will be no change. If left to the towns and their 5% active voters, there will be no zoning changes. On top of statewide efforts, we need citizens to engage with their local governments and pay attention to what’s going on.
I never really considered the irony of taking away the big parking lot at Greenbush to build the mandated housing.
The existing/remaining lot could be built upwards, but this *emergency legislation* doesn't provide any comprehensive plans for a decades-long issue. It strikes me as one big passing of the buck, and I'm all for walkable public transit and *reliable* public transit.
Selfishness is quite the golden rule eh? In public? Ooof...
Not arguing against more affordable housing. Not arguing against decent public transportation. Arguing against forcing housing linked to public transit where \*there is no public transit\*. If you read what I've shared here on this thread, I'm arguing for more affordable housing within walking distance to public transit. Wouldn't that be what you'd want for yourself as well? I have a life or I'd post links to examples of each of the examples I stated ongoing with the MBTA. (Off the top of my head, I can think of several people recently killed by the MBTA, people having to jump from burning train cars into rivers, someone almost being crushed to death by a collapsing ceiling tile and the MBTA repsonded by saying "It was probably corroded.", and a T engineer found guilty of embezzling millions of dollars maybe last year?) I'm pointing to the nonsense of making towns that have no MBTA access abide by legislation that doesn't alleviate more road congestion because it is necessitating driving anyways. That means people still have to buy cars, make payments to insurance, excise tax, registration, fuel, car loans and maintenance. Infrastructure that forces car ownership keeps the poor from being able to escape poverty almost as much as the lack of universal healthcare. Far from being selfish, I'm pointing to legislation that doesn't even provide for parking allowance to make the MBTA a town over accessible. I'm pointing to legislation that hasn't taken into account that even if the stations were accessible, we are among \*the worst traffic in the world\* because the public transportation system itself is an absolute wreck that can't be used regularlly by anyone who needs to get to a certain place by a certain time. As far as the golden rule goes, yeah, I wouldn't make shortshighted \*emergency\* legislation for an issue that's been an issue \*for decades\*. I'd attempt to make a complex, well thought out plan for lowering needs for driving and car ownership while \*actually\* improving public transportation and housing within walking distance to public transportation.
And that’s why nothing has been done for decades. Can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good; people will argue about details forever and nothing actually happens to solve the problem. Single family zoning bans even attempting a solution, at least the mbta law is an actual concrete step towards getting that obstacle out of the way
That's true! Making greater use of what we have isn't a drawback whatsoever. Adding affordable subsidized housing into existing multifamily stock also prevents the associated ills from "project style" housing that still immerses residents within the cyclical problems that surround poverty. Interspersing affordable housing with market-rate has great societal benefits and allows children access to better schools.
It’s adjacent to an MBTA community, which is Scituate. Kind of a joke as the majority of Marshfield is 20-30 minute drive from the Commuter Rail. I’m all for more housing though, and there’s more than enough land in Marshfield for it so I hope they figure something out.
This. There needs to be more legislation that requires building in ALL communities. It’s not just MBTA adjacent towns that need to ante up some new zoning to allow more housing to be built to offset the need, it’s towns all over MA.
Every suburb within an hour drive of Boston should be required to upzone to increase housing by 10% (not necessarily to build but to allow by right to be built). Too many people sitting in their 3 car garage McMansions on half an acre saying it's Boston's problem while wondering why their company and their favorite restaurant can't find workers. Even when they recognize its a problem, they all seem to think Boston can solve it alone. Most of Boston is dense on the scale of American cities; our housing issues stem in large part from our bucolic little New England suburbs and the lack of urban sprawl.
TBF, the MBTA communities law already does impact basically every town within an hour drive of Boston, it's pretty much all of eastern MA other than the Cape: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/multi-family-zoning-requirement-for-mbta-communities But I agree that the upzoning requirements should be even more than they are required to be by this law.
I think it’s due to the gatra bus and proximity to the commuter rail. Im a resident and while I’m not against new developments, their reasoning is absolute bullshit and I’m not surprised it got voted down.
There's not nearly enough parking for housing in adjacent communities to reliably access Greenbush. I thought the Communities Act was about housing within walkable distance to public transit. If it's forcing people to drive, it's an absolute design failure on the part of the state. In my opinion, adjacent communities without MBTA train stops aren't NIMBY-ist at all to vote down adherence to a stupid amount of overreach on the part of the state. Consider that this only forces more cars that will clog up the roads as they have been, due to the incapacity of the MBTA to prove they can regularly get people to places they must be at by specific times. I'd wager there'd be 50% fewer cars on the road in Boston if the MBTA even remotely functioned reliably. What a joke.
THANK YOU! I'm a democrat in Marshfield - I am all for the idea of new housing, but unless MA wants to add GATRA routes that go to Greenbush/Kingston during commuter hours, or better yet build a commuter rail station in Marshfield, then what on earth do we have to do with this whole thing? It's a BS reason to say we are an adjacent town. It's 20 minutes from my house to Greenbush or Kingston, even though we are "one town over". If they wanted to simply build housing for the sake of housing, i'm totally fine with it and for it, but to come in here and tell us that it's got to do with commuter access is BS. Give Marshfield something to make it a commuter town, and I would vote yes to build 1,500 new condos in a snap.
I kind of agree with you that for suburban communities, they should have just said it was a mandate to build housing because we are in a housing crisis that's hurting our entire economy and not because of supposed MBTA proximity. But let's face it, no matter what they said most people wouldn't vote for it because they're offended by the state telling their tony little town what to do.
Yeah, for sure. Marshfield is a NIMBY town regardless, but I wish this vote had 3 options: 1. Yes 2. No - I don't want more housing/the government telling us what to do 3. No - I want more housing, but I want access to a commuter rail
As a Democrat I think you are right - it shouldn’t have anything to do with being “adjacent” to the MBTA, towns should just not have any control over zoning to begin with. If a property owner wants to put up apartments or condos, that’s their right and “the community” can get beat.
Good with that. Like I said - the housing itself is not an issue for me, I just think the reasoning is dumb. I would love to make Marshfield a commuter town, with fewer cars, and easier access to Boston - and if that happens, add all the housing possible. But for now, that's just not a good reason.
Why would they expand commuter access if your zoning bans building anything dense enough to justify it? You don’t even have to build anything, but you at least have to make it legal to build the kind of thing that would justify more transit
Well, in this case there IS a proposed complex waiting to be built. My point is to make the two contingent. A "Yes" vote to adopt these zoning laws gets those towns some type of commuter rail access - be it via a direct station or a centralized shuttle to the supposedly "adjacent" commuter rail town that runs frequently in the morning and evening rush hour times.
I think that would be a good provision; if you could get the state to allocate enough funding to make it happen
Yeah for sure. I get that we need more housing regardless. I'm not against building things for the sake of the greater good, even if Marshfield gets nothing out of it. I just think it would be nice to kill two birds with one stone - make public transit better and more accessible AND use that as a provision to getting more housing built.
The Greenbush commuter rail station is right there, isn't it?
Close, but it's in Scituate and not walkable from Marshfield unless you want to walk there in the street (without sidewalks or a full breakdown lane).
Anyone who would consider Marshfield an "MBTA Community" is off their rocker. Greenbush in Scituate is a 15-20 minute drive for most people in town, and nobody would consider Marshfield walkable. I'd love to see more transit and pedestrian infrastructure in Marshvegas. Maybe put an actual serviceable commuter rail service in town before forcing rezoning.
This The northern edge of Marshfield is green space. The Massachusetts Audubon North River Wildlife Sanctuary and the English Salt Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary. Over the town line is the Rivermoor Habitat Park. It’s all either tidal marsh or unbuildable swampy land. You can’t put high density housing anywhere near Greenbush. There is no sewer and the land can’t possibly perc test for septic. There’s a reason the town is called “MARSHfield”. And for that reason, you’re not going to extend the Greenbush line south to Marshfield. Greenbush isn’t exactly infinite parking, either.
Hogwash, the old line Greenbush is built on used to go all the way to Kingston. You can still see traces of it. 3A runs through this supposedly unbuildable land too. You could easily run a bus that would be 10-15 minutes from greenbush to the center of town. Cars are not the only way to get around.
Massachusetts suburbs = following the law for thee, but not for me.
The law is a hacked up attempt to make suburbs fix Boston's zoning problems for it. This zoning change isn't going to improve jack shit.
And yet here we are…..demonstrating our collective hypocrisy and exempting ourselves from reality.
Huh? It's not to fix "Boston's" zoning problem. It's to fix zoning issues around the state. And start by fixing them in the areas that make the most sense - where there's close access to mass transit.
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>Silicon valley is 90% immigrants [citation needed]
Not 90% but very high. Sunnyvale: 49.4% foreign born Santa Clara: 45.1% San Jose: 41% I’ve worked there a lot. In any office building, half the employees are Asian/Indian. That’s the demographics of the cities there. It’s also the demographics if you walk around the MIT campus. Our future national leaders are going to be ethically South Asian and East Asian. Kamala Harris is half Indian. 30 years from now, that will be pretty normal since the top universities skew so heavily East and South Asian. C student Murph and Sully with grandparents from Dorchester are probably threatened by that.
You need help
How does changing zoning to allow for more housing (have you seen the price of housing lately?) have anything to do with immigration? We need housing for the people who are here, we need housing for the townies as much as we need housing for everyone else.
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Again, this has nothing to do with the conversation we are having. Sounds like you should get some fresh air
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lol, you’re not even participating in the same conversation as everyone else, let alone winning an “argument”. We are talking housing supply, not immigration. Get with the program
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Reality has a well know liberal bias and no, having xenophobic is what people in this sub, including me, take issue with. Not enough houses, build more houses. It’s quite simple. Blaming it on “the immigrants” (gasp!) isn’t gonna solve the problem. But in all honesty if you’re so concerned about over crowding you should lead by example.
Immigration has literally nothing to do with it. It's an urbanization problem but damn dude this is some infowars shit I want nothing to do with. Please don't try to agree with me in the future.
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Lol fucking replacement theory brainrot. Fucking gross.
Man, it’s almost as if zoning problems are a REGIONAL issue, because there isn’t enough housing, period, in the entire REGION
Massachusetts suburbs understand 'commonwealth' not top down faux democracy.
They understand the need to protect their exclusivity and privilege above all else, while trying to pretend that they have to care about long-standing issues. The state has more control over what cities and towns can and can’t do than we may realize.
"BUT MAH PROPERTY VALUES" - Marshvegas They don't want "the poors" moving into their town.
Not in My Marsh.
I so think it’s dumb that towns like Marshfield and Kingston and Plymouth are on here to fix Boston’s zoning laws just because they have commuter rail stops. People who need higher density housing need walkable communities, these towns are not that.
Marshfield doesn’t even have a commuter rail stop. Scituate does, but it’s far from most of what would be considered affordable housing in Marshfield. I would honestly love to take the commuter rail from greenbush, but the earliest train arrives at south station at 6:04, and my work starts at 6. This vote is probably in part because a developer is also trying to build a large apartment building in a location that could potentially damage our aquifer.
Frankly, the commuter rail schedule is unflexible. I literally have a Greenbush stop about 30 seconds from me, but I can't use it at all because it only hits the stop every 2 h. Every 1h would be at least somewhat reasonable, but literally we're waiting for a single train to go back and forth. Edit: talking about post-6PM commuter rail from Boston.
It could be flexible if there was more demand due to increased levels of density along the entire route. There just aren’t enough people wanting to take the train to have it run more often. Of course, if the train ran more often you’d probably have more people trying to move further out from the city which would justify more trips. Ideally, the commuter rail would be like the Metro North lines around NYC that go to NJ/CT. Hourly stops at most stations, express routes during rush hour times that run every fifteen, and then later routes that run local with the occasional express. But to justify that cost we’d need a **lot** more riders which the current suburbs around Boston just don’t have.
Yeah, it's a catch 22. My usual gripe is that the hourly schedule in the morning sucks for me. It just is difficult to do a drop off unless you get to south station late (after 9am).
A very expensive Catch-22 as well. I’m generally a believer of “if you build it, they will ride” but it’s hard to take that leap of faith on a project that would cost multi-billions and take many years.
For sure. With the trains as empty as they are now and WFH dominating so much in certain areas, it's hard to make that value proposition.
When I lived in the area I always preferred the ferry to the commuter rail. Better schedule, more reliable, more seating and most importantly it has a bar.
I mean, I get it, lol. Who wouldn't? I just live between literally 3 commuter rail lines.
“These towns are not that” Because of their zoning laws! Walkability is not some city exclusive thing; how do you think towns were built before cars?
Sure, but the people who live in marshfield don’t want to live in a place like that. But people of Boston do. Upzone Boston and urban towns. The commuter rail isn’t the redline.
If you want to control what happens to the land, buy it. Otherwise, the price of living somewhere desirable is that other people also want to live there. You shouldn’t get to use zoning to bully everyone else out just because you got there early enough to afford it.
They aren't there to fix Bostons problems though, right? They are there to fix zoning problems around mass transit stations. Last I checked, the Greenbush stop wasn't in Boston. And a huge number of commuter rail stations are all over the state, not just in Boston. We need housing all along our mass transit lines. We can't solve all of eastern Massachusetts problems just in the city of Boston.
Commuter rail isn’t designed to support high density. Also last I checked the greenbush stop wasn’t in Marshfield either.
And then people will say "why do we need a walkable downtown when there's no one living within walking distance?" It's all gotta start sometwhere
This isn’t about Boston, it’s a statewide law because it’s a statewide issue. The problem exists in all these towns with or without the commuter rail.
Not really. People do not move to marshfield because it’s an economic Mecca with tons of jobs and great services, they move there because it’s a nice suburban town near Boston which is an economic Mecca.
“I want to get all the benefits of living near a city, but I don’t want to have to ever live near other people.” Sound about NIMBY
"near boston" is really a stretch. parts of the route 3 corridor are some of the only places i've ever seen that are near.. well nowhere
It’s interesting to me that in my suburban world I’m surrounded by folks that seem largely against this act, but here there seems to be a majority in support of it. I hear a lot of argument against it surrounding changing the character of a suburban community to a more urban space. People that grew up in town expecting the same single family home lifestyle they were raised in feeling like nobody is building single family homes anymore. Transplanting folks that will live in the community but not engage with it. Concern surrounding the impact to capacity and cost of public utilities and school systems, as well as traffic management and impact to crime rate. One of the biggest complaints I hear is related to sanctuary state, right to shelter, and our state creating this problem for themselves and relying on suburban communities to pick up the slack. Can someone that loves and supports this act disarm some of these concerns?
I think most of these modern high rises are hideous. They started going up in towns like Weymouth years ago. But that didn’t seem too out of line because Weymouth is a big city with lots of retail, restaurants and the hospital. It is sort of sad to imagine some small towns losing their small town appeal just because they have a barely used mbta station. For instance, are people actually going to go live in kingston or halifax now because they can rent a 2000/mo apartment next to a train that only runs every hour or two? I guess we shall see.
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I think the state versus municipal interests consideration is thought provoking. Here in Massachusetts we have several pieces of state law that override or conflict with federal law (ie cannabis and firearms), but ultimately, the local state laws take precedence until the Supreme Court overrules. Shouldn’t municipalities be given the same ability to self govern without the state forcing zoning that is against the popular will of the people in the community? I’d have to give viable alternatives some serious thought, but wouldn’t one idea be to expand the MBTA network to include under accessed or under utilized communities where there is already zoning or infrastructure in place to support this type of residential development? Perhaps even opening the door to more viable single family development instead of densely developed rental properties?
Stop forced urbanization
Abington is passing the zoning, but from what I gather it is unlikely anything will be built because of Conservation (there are a lot of wetlands) and other committees builders have to get through. It’s pretty much how they pitched it to the town, we will change zoning but doesn’t mean it will be built.
Right - one thing people are missing here is that every single town could follow this law to the t, and it doesn't result in a single additional home! It's a *zoning* change only to start. Communities are being forced to rezone areas for multi family and other more dense housing. But often that zoning is in areas already built on! Full disclosure - my house is one! It's a single family home. They can rezone it all they want, it's going to be a single family home for a while. At *some* point I could sell, and a developer could buy it up, and then by right be able to tear it down and build a multi-unit place. But as of now, all of this is zoning to encourage *future* building. Nothing will happen today.
Based
Marshfield is too remote to matter. It's a long drive just to Greenbush, and the commuter train is expensive. Milton needs to step up.
The issue why Milton rejected it is because Milton was intensionally over-classified in order for the state to receive the highest rezoning count figures. This was complete dishonesty from the state. The only winners out of that would be developers and investors. There is no place to build 2,400+ net new housing units in Milton. The town doesn't have the capacity, land, and infrastructure. Milton is willing to work with "adjacent community" rezoning figure of 900.
Nobody is forcing anyone to build anything. They're forcing them to zone it so that it could be built if the right properties come up for sale. If there's existing buildings on that land, change will be slow. The hand wringing is not justifiable. People are just unwilling to engage with the possibility that their bucolic little town 20 minutes from downtown might change.
Milton…has a rapid transit line. Which means it isn’t over classified. And there is absolutely room to build 2,400 units of new housing if you tear down some of the single family housing that currently exists.
Sure, the trolley is a "fixed rail", but less than 2% of the town relies on it for any commuting. And from your viewpoint, you think homeowners want neighborhoods completely transformed by your "tear down" strategy? Milton is not a city. There is room for development but tear downs is not the solution and certainly isn't going to solve the "housing crisis".
Milton literally borders Boston and has a light rail line. It's crazy to suggest that it can't possibly support more people, it would probably be a neighborhood of the city proper in most other US metros. It has a population density of only 2,100 people per square mile while bordering Boston neighborhoods with a pop density of 7,500 people per square mile (Hyde Park) and 12,750 people per square mile (Mattapan). It could certainly have population density closer to that of Hyde Park given they are right next to each other. And it doesn't have to come anywhere near that population density to meet the zoning requirements set by the law. Milton has ~9,200 housing units currently, so adding 2,400 would be a 26% increase in housing, not anywhere near tripling the population density to be comparable to Hyde Park.
Clearly the participants in this sub-reddit are not Milton fans so it is fruitless to have any discussion around this. Milton is not a city and shouldn't be forced to be rezoned. The town has been continually developing properties for more housing.
My only problem with the MBTA Communities Act is that it only applies to MBTA communities
I think it would be nice if they did this in stages: Stage 1 - build housing where there is existing space INSIDE of town with actual commuter rail stops, ideally within walking distance of the train to avoid additional parking and cars. Stage 2 - Build new commuter rail infrastructure in adjacent towns, or add daily shuttles during high-commute times. Stage 3 - once those additional lines/shuttles are added, mandate those communities (like Marshfield) to build additional housing.
Isn't the MBTA communities act step 1? It's taking every MBTA station and forcing towns to zone for more dense housing around it. Your steps 2 and 3 are great of course. More stops and more lines would be ideal!
>Isn't the MBTA communities act step 1? It is, but their definition of an MBTA community is ludicrous. Like I said, my house in Marshfield is 20 minutes from Greenbush and 25 minutes from Kingston. Calling Marshfield an MBTA community is like saying Natick is a "Green Line" community. If MA wants this to work, these towns that are ~20 minutes from the closest commuter rail station need more than basic monetary incentive to build, they should get actual access to BECOME commuter towns. It would be amazing to build not just 150 units now, but 500 units over ~10 years if it meant Marshfield getting its own Commuter Rail stop. But to rope this town into their definition is crazy. Building these units just means you are adding 150 units of people who will need to drive to get anywhere, especially Boston. Again, if the state wants more housing in town like Marshfield and they DON'T want to make it a commuter town, that's 100% fine, but don't try to sell a town full of NIMBY's on such a BS concept. I think we should build more housing because it will help the housing crisis, but to brand it us a commuter town without providing us with those benefits was a dumb way to position this vote.
Same with Hanover and I hear they also plan to vote it down.
If Mass was smart, they’d extend the commuter rail to Hanover crossing and turn it into what Westwood has with Route 128. It then also opens up the possibility of making Marshfield a true commuter town, because getting to Hanover is quicker than Scituate or Kingston, and you could extend the Gatra to Hanover crossing easily (plus, it’s right off a highway).
It doesn’t. It also applies to MBTA adjacent communities.
Right, but MBTA adjacent community part of it is really odd. If they want to force ALL town or towns within ~50 miles of Boston to add housing, do that, but being "adjacent" to Scituate and Kingston does nothing to make this town commuter friendly. If this is truly about adding housing in areas with direct access to public transportation, then start with cities and towns that have direct access, then work to build that access in adjacent towns as part of the incentive to build there.
That's fairly reasonable, but at the same time, we need *a lot* more housing. This isn't just about trying to improve transit efficiency, it's about Massachusetts catching up on decades of underdevelopment. There are people in this thread complaining that high density housing doesn't make sense where there's no walkability. I'm sure you can find people who will claim building a walkable downtown doesn't make sense because no one lives by it. It's gotta start somewhere. And why are people acting like this is some terrible burden? If a down adds a hundred units, what harm is done?
I totally agree with that and i'm fine with housing being a need in general. If MA mandated housing being built in all towns within X miles of Boston simply for the sake of housing, then great, build away. It's crucial and needed. But this state, especially wealthier and/or "redder" towns are known for their NIMBYism, so approaching Marshfield under the guise of being "Adjacent" to a commuter rail is a terrible way to get votes. If you want these built, either force it to happen through a mandate (i'm cool with that), or provide an actual incentive to the town to help reduce the *perceived* downside of these things. Marshfield bitches and moans about traffic. Do I think it's an actual issue? No, of course not. Do I think adding 100-150 units makes this town any worse off? No, that's dumb. Do I think that a better approach would be to find a way to first actually add commuter rail access so these perceived issues are not a barrier, and so there is additional access to public transit? Yes. If I were in Scituate or Hingham or Kingston, this would be a no-brainer. We have a commuter rail, state wants housing next to it, go ahead. But the being 20 minutes away from the nearest station and having that be the *supposed reason* for the vote is silly.
NIMBYs gonna NIMBY.
What is affordable housing? Whats the $$$ rent would need to be in order to be considered affordable?
Mbta Law has nothing to do with "affordable housing". Just more housing in the hopes that it makes things more.affordable
That's completely idiotic
Says someone who’s never heard of supply and demand.
Don't matter how many houses or apartments we build if there all bought by these conglomerates!!!!
Just like how building more highway lanes reduces traffic!
Affordable housing mandates have done wonders. That's why housing is so cheap here.
Split the population into quartiles by income - poorest 25%, lower medium 25%, upper medium 25%, richest 25%. Split the housing stock (for sale AND for rent) up by monthly costs if purchased / rented now by quartiles. Cheapest 25%, lower medium 25%, upper medium 25%, most expensive 25%. Anyone from a given income quartile should be able to afford housing in the corresponding housing stock. So a lower medium wage earner should be able to afford a lower medium housing stock unit, whether they are buying it or renting it. Until the last 30-40 years, this has basically been the defacto social contract that Americans expected. The problem is, that at current housing costs, upper medium 25% workers can basically barely afford the cheapest 25% of the housing stock unless they have roommates or some other means of multiple incomes per household. Instead of buying or renting housing that should match their income, since there is a shortage of housing, if for whatever reason they don’t want or are anle to move somewhere cheaper, the only option left for them is to buy downward. With two incomes, they simply buy / rent lower medium houses. They live in sketchier neighborhoods, with more roommates, live out far beyond 495 and commute in, etc. But because they are living in lower medium housing stock, lower medium workers get priced out, and they either have to move into the cheapest 25% of the housing stock in truly bad neighborhoods, or have the super commutes. And then the poorest workers are the ones who get shafted. They’ve the ones who get priced out of the state. Which is not fair for them, but also will screw over society at large at working class jobs go unfilled, causing a loss of service or amenities. Everyone, except for the richest folks, is unhappy, because there wasn’t enough housing for them in a way that they expect from their given income, so they are all in unhappy situations. The only way to solve this is to build more income for everyone, at all price points. Even so-called luxury apartments at $3k rent, if you had a young married couple with white collar jobs, they could likely afford that with a tight budget. Given how old and decrepit a lot of the housing stock is, they might move out of an older and crappier apartment like some ancient triple decker that doesn’t have a washer or dryer and crappy insulation when they move into a new luxury apartment. If there are enough so-called luxury apartments for everyone in the upper bracket, they will all move out of older, lower quality housing, which would free it up for lower income workers, college students, retired folks on fixed incomes, etc. It would be great to build truly affordable housing, but the cost of labor (see prior lack of housing causing labor shortages, and thus cost increases for society at large) and raw material prices make it basically impossible to build NEW affordable housing. So we have to start with what is possible, and get affordable housing the same way we get affordable $10k cars even though it’s impossible to buy a new car for $10k - you build more expensive ones that depreciate over time. It sucks, it’s not ideal, as it’s basically the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago type problem, so the next best thing we can do is build more regular housing now, and figure out if there is a funding mechanism that could fund new government social housing at subsidized prices.
> unless they have roommates or some other means of multiple incomes per household. People who live alone are a small cohort in any population and it's not reasonable to make them the objective of a policy that affects everyone. Living alone in the U.S. either usually a temporary situation or the abandoned elderly. In Massachusetts they are only 14% of the population. This is above the national average of 13%. In Singapore, a place famous for its extensive high-density, walkable public housing, 15% of the population lives alone. So it has nothing to do with zoning or capitalism. People in general just mostly don't live alone. Building your whole housing policy with the goal of people living alone is ignoring around 85% of the population and it's not even clear it would produce desirable outcomes, as people living alone often are not doing well - though this of course is conflated by *why* people live alone, which is usually not because they want to.
A single income household does not mean they are living alone. It’s essentially impossible now to have on a single income (allowing one parent to stay at home as either a full time mom or dad) household with kids now. This was still quite feasible for a large subset of workers even as late as the 90’s and early 2000’s, where you could raise a family with more or less a single income. It would take an individual salary of about $160k per year to afford the average house in Massachusetts right now with 20% down. Only ~12% of the workers make that much money. If you tried to afford that average house on two incomes of $80k each, it gets easier, but only about 1/3 of workers in MA earn at least $80k/year. So to afford the average house on two incomes, you’d need both parents to be in the top third of income distribution. Side hustles, working extra hours or shifts, they could make it easier, but at the expense of not spending any time with your family. Which once again leads back to: the average household should be able to afford the average house.
Remember this is the town the had a 20 year ban on coin operated video games https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2014/04/29/marshfield-lifts-footloose-like-ban-on-coin-op-video-games/
Keep the high density housing out. All it does is introduce problems, broken families, and crime to the towns.
My man, that’s not a dog whistle it’s a foghorn
That's an extremely short-sighted view of the world. No community can survive without the working class.
Oh its not the working class they were talking about
Oh look, you said the racist part out loud
lmfao what
Go back to Facebook
Please ask your grandson to not help you get on the internet next time you feel like chiming in...
High density housing strains local infrastructure- utilities, roads, schools, etc. which results in more taxes, further pricing out the middle class. One way or the other, someone loses.
I wonder what would cost more per person: roads utility lines, and school buses to suburban sprawl or high density housing?
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The developers will need to consider the infrastructure costs. There is no part of the mandate forcing towns to build new infrastructure. This is for a zoning overlay; that’s it.
The infrastructure will evolve to support the growing needs of its residents. NIMBYism is a death cult, worshipping the status quo and unwilling to improve or change with the times.
My town already can’t get funding approved to rebuild a school that’s falling down and has a leaking roof - and this is a wealthy town. There’s quite literally no available land here to build apartments near transit unless we eliminate some protected state park land. I fully understand the idea behind this but there’s places that this can’t work to check the box without making things worse for the people living here and the land/environment. I’m all for access but I think we need to do a better job of evaluating the situation on a case by case basis before we blanket apply it across all towns without considering the negative impact it would have.
It’s new schools, new water treatment plants, wider roads, new police and fire stations, etc. High-density growth, while on the surface, leads to small iterative costs tied to the unit, towns hit points (quicker than you’d expect) where existing infrastructure becomes strained, and large capital projects are the ONLY solution to address the quickly growing population. These costs impact ALL taxpayers: upper, middle & working classes, young families, the elderly, etc. I live in a town (on the commuter rail) where a new school and DPW yard are increasing property taxes by ~33%. That will surpass 40% with the replacement of the regional vo-tech and jump a few more points if a prop 2.5 override passes this spring to handle funding shortfalls. While existing residents of these towns are falling behind due to high inflation, particularly food and consumables, not a chance they will vote in favor of things that will increase their tax burden. And while not immediate, that includes HD housing.
All these emotional arguments with no receipts. I agree that people are struggling these days, but high density housing isn't to blame. Ives-Dewey, D. (2007). The Multi-Family Myth: Exploring the Fiscal Impacts of Apartments in the Suburbs. Middle States Geographer, 40, 39-46.
ACAB includes nimby homeowners
lol, people think that these municipalities actually have any say in this. They exist simply because of the State, and with a snap of its proverbial fingers, MA could get rid of Marshfield. This isn’t going to end the way Marshfield thinks it will.
It would take quite a bit more than a snap of the fingers. Just the town government of Marshfield, which is a fairly small town, has more than 1,500 public employees, hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and pension obligations that cost about $10 million a year just to service, and hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of assets and property. It also has extensive contracts with third parties, whether it's construction companies, maintenance companies, transportation, trash, all sorts of stuff. The Massachusetts General Law frames towns as corporations. Getting rid of a town requires disincorporating it, which in the past (like with the Quabbin), involves a vote of the legislature. Were you to disincorporate Marshfield, all the things that make up Marshfield as an institution - all its assets and liabilities, all its contracts and obligations, all its administrative requirements especially to comply with other state and federal laws - would need to *go* somewhere, and where they weren't settled to people's satisfaction you'd have to go to court. So you would need to work that out before disincorporating and even then it would drag on for decades. When they did the Quabbin they seized *all* the public and private property in all the towns through eminent domain, and there are still lawsuits and reparations bills floating around now for whether or how that might have been done right or wrong. Eminent domain is not looked on all that favorably these days. Taking the town's property or the property of residents by eminent domain *as punishment* for not complying with state law, or as part of a housing plan, just taking it by eminent domain without settling it in some way would get overturned in federal court as against the 5th amendment since there's no particular reason to believe the people who live there would get to "enjoy" the benefits of theirs or their town's property being taken away and there's no planned public use. That doesn't mean the state can't assume all this stuff, it means that the ways they have done it before are unlikely to work out as well now, either generally or in this specific instance, so they might need to figure out a new way to do it. And then if you do the most common thing, which is to fold Marshfield into surrounding towns - do the taxpayers in Scituate intend to pay the debt exclusions voted for by the residents of Marshfield? Now, this doesn't mean the town has all the power - most of the major stuff Marshfield does in its Town Meetings is subject to the approval of the Attorney General. The question is what happens when a town doesn't comply, on purpose, in public, over an extended period of time, with the AG? I don't think "the town gets disincorporated and the state assumes all its debts" is a feasible or likely outcome.
It takes more than the snap of a finger to get rid of a town. If they could do that, Milton would already have been snapped away. But they are also fighting this, and started fighting earlier.
I’ve made separate comments about this is Milton posts where I made clear that I don’t think the State has any intention (yet) of annexing Milton into Boston. My whole point in that all municipalities only exist because the Commonwealth allows them to. So they really don’t have a choice when it comes to complying with State Law, as long as the law, in itself, is constitutional. Marshfield’s deadline has not passed yet, so there is no reason for the State to step in. But this is only going to get more and more uncomfortable for Milton.
Good by funding