‘It was too effing complicated:’ A pro-housing reckoning over MBTA Communities.

 

ADVERTISEMENT

New from CommonWealth Beacon MONEY TALKS: Health care interests continue to dominate spending on lobbying Massachusetts policymakers in the first half of 2025, according to newly released data. Chris Lisinski, now a senior reporter with CommonWealth Beacon, has more.  HOLD FIRE: Gun safety advocates are pushing for legislation that would give victims a path to litigate against the industry and require firearm manufacturers and dealers to operate under an established standard of conduct. Ella Adams of the State House news Service has the details.  OPINION: Slides in science scores nationwide, including in Massachusetts, indicate we need more innovative, hands-on, inquiry-based approaches to science instruction in K-12 schools, writes Christine Cunningham, senior vice president of STEM learning at Boston’s Museum of Science and member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for the Nation’s Report Card that showed the score decline.

‘It was too effing complicated:’ A pro-housing reckoning over MBTA Communities.   September 18, 2025 By Jennifer Smith

ADVERTISEMENT

The MBTA Communities law was, by most accounts, an earnest swing at using state power to spur more housing in cities and towns served by the MBTA system. But at the nation’s largest pro-housing conference, there was some decided ambivalence about whether the Massachusetts approach has worked out as hoped.

Organizations that spent the past four years boosting and working to implement the law told their peers in other states that the tailored town-by-town approach is complicated, inefficient, and ultimately not enough to address a severe housing crunch. While MBTA Communities tried to accommodate a tradition of local control and sense of community ownership, they said, it created too much room for foot dragging and resistance.

ADVERTISEMENT

Advocates said the shortcomings of the 2021 housing law argue for more muscular state zoning reform that leads to substantial new construction and limits cities’ and towns’ ability to flout state mandates.

Legislative appetite for strengthening the housing law, however, is minimal.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I think MBTA Communities was really optimistic, in that we thought local communities would want to control their own zoning, and they’d go through these processes in good faith,” said Will Rhatigan, MBTA Communities engagement manager for the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association, a non-profit housing advocacy organization, at a panel at the national YIMBYtown 2025 conference this week. “And many of them did, but it took so much effort, so much time, that I don't think we could realistically do it again for any other zoning reform. We've eaten up that political capital.”

READ MORE

More Context What the MBTA Communities law means for your town (January 2023)  An MBTA Communities reality check (January 2025)  MBTA Communities law is not an unfunded mandate, judge rules (June 2025)

More from CommonWealth Beacon GAPS IN COVERAGE: Despite “fragile progress,” the Commonwealth’s early child care system continues to suffer from a workforce problem, according to a new analysis published by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Hallie Claflin has more.

ADVERTISEMENT

What We're Reading EDUCATION: Facing declining enrollment and rising costs, Mount Greylock Regional School District and North Berkshire School Union voted to join a northern Berkshire exploratory group on sharing resources or possibly reorganizing — despite one member’s warning about a potential "super district." (Berkshire Eagle – paywall)  POLITICS: After a preliminary election upset that left incumbent Somerville mayor Katjana Ballantyne off the November ballot, first and second place winners, Jake Wilson and Willie Burnley Jr., both at-large city councilors, are shifting their focus to differentiating themselves from each other. (GBH News)  CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Fifteen people have now been released in the wake of a 2024 Supreme Judicial Court ruling that those under 21 who commit a crime cannot receive sentences of life without the possibility of parole. Some had served decades in prison. (WBUR)  ENVIRONMENT: Pointing to rising environmental risks for Massachusetts and other states, a cadre of Bay State lawmakers led by US Sen. Ed Markey is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency “to halt its attack” on a bedrock principle of fighting climate change. (MassLive)  LAW ENFORCEMENT: Salem police have added digital encryption to the department radio system for security reasons, but the change also prevents the public from listening to scanner transmissions in real-time. (Salem News – paywall)

Published by MassINC

CommonWealth Beacon, 11 Beacon Street, Suite 500, Boston, MA 02108, United States