The freak-out is proportional to the perceived "loss" of "local control". To be honest, the amount of local control (to exclude) is one of the cardinal sins of the original colonist's forms of government.
Multi-Family Zoning Requirements for MBTA Communities
- Thread starter tysmith95
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This law gives more control to municipalities than 40b did.
TheRatmeister
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It objectively doesn't though. Mandating anything at a higher level of government is a loss of control for municipalities. However it does give more control for residents and developers, which is probably a good thing right now.
What you need to understand is that that statement is factually wrong. Demand for housing, including multifamily housing, is extremely high and is outstripping supply everywhere in the Boston metro.
You have to rembember that a lot of the "demand" for MUDs is wannabe landlords... who if they choose the wrong spot, will lose their shirt. They did in 2008 in the burbs, and it will happen again.
sean99090900
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I don't see why we should care if the demand is from people or people who think they can rent those units. If they want to put their own money on the line and lose their shirt, who are we to stop them? With that logic, the United States would have strangled our tech sector in the dot com boom. God forbid if the minimum income to live in Newton drops below 200k per year. If government protected the assets of incumbents in all markets as strongly as it does for housing here, I think we'd be in a very bad place.
40B mandated housing as well. Difference is that towns didn't get to choose the location.
I'm surprised that some of the more NIMBY communities haven't tried to do some "paper compliance" like re-zoning parcels that have just gotten redeveloped. I haven't been following each town/city super closely, but it seems like an easy-ish way to keep the all the grant money flowing while minimizing new construction.
40B gives a good amount of control to localities/devolves power.
MBTA Communities removes some key local controls - zone size, lowest unit density standard, age restrictions.
I suspect a lot of the early movers are actually doing this. Making small changes that allow compliance. But I also suspect they were already trying to deal with affordability through zoning already.
I don’t think anyone has done that whole cloth but it’s certainly being included as part of it. I’ve referenced here a few times how Quincy included the large parcel that was just breaking ground on the MBTA’s new bus garage for example.
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The stateâs new housing law aimed to help fix the affordability crisis. Experts now say it wonât deliver. - The Boston Globe
As towns file their MBTA Communities plans with the state, many are drawing zones that will likely produce far less new housing than the law anticipates. And it’s entirely by the book.
www.bostonglobe.com
TheRatmeister
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"Experts now say" what they said before the law passed too.The stateâs new housing law aimed to help fix the affordability crisis. Experts now say it wonât deliver. - The Boston Globe
As towns file their MBTA Communities plans with the state, many are drawing zones that will likely produce far less new housing than the law anticipates. And it’s entirely by the book.