The Town of Needham is a picture-perfect Boston suburb on the Charles River, replete with a classic downtown main street with a coffee shop, a commuter rail line to the city and old New England knitting mill buildings. But, since last fall’s Town Meeting — whose 240 elected members control the budget and zoning — Needham has become an unlikely ground zero in a battle over how, or if, to allow higher-density housing construction to help address the Massachusetts combination of housing shortage and high prices. It’s come to exemplify, in the process, what can happen when an overly-prescriptive state government tries to override a history of local control — and creates more backlash than the new homes the state needs, Or, as Kevin Keane, chair of the Needham Board of Selectman puts it, “when you talk density in the suburbs, people get hesitant.”
That understates what happened here, when a plan to permit construction of 3296 new apartments in a town of 32,000 sparked a referendum that rolled it back, and called into question the practicality of a state law aimed at forcing “upzoning” in 177 towns. The phrase “forced housing” comes to mind. It’s a case study in how not to do YIMBY.
The background is a consensus that Massachusetts needs more new housing, if it is to attract and retain newcomers to provide the talent for its biotech and financial services industries, and research universities. A February report released by Democratic Governor Maura Healy found that “the state needs to increase its year-round housing supply by at least 222,000 units from 2025 to 2035.” Said Healy, “High housing costs are holding too many of our residents and our businesses back.”
One can imagine lots of ways to address that problem, including allowing newcomers to keep more of their earnings by lowering the state’s 8.5 percent capital gains tax rate or permitting new pipelines to bring in more natural gas that powers the state’s electricity grid. But the Commonwealth had a very specific approach in mind: through its “MBTA Communities Act”, a law requiring every town in or near the Boston transit system to “have one district of reasonable size in which multifamily housing is permitted”, “that must have a minimum density of 15 dwelling units per acre” and “must be located within .5 miles of a rail station”. In other words, green, “transit-oriented”, mid-rise development or bust. What’s more, new housing would also subtly force Needham and other towns to permit more subsidized “affordable” housing somewhere — thanks to a state law requiring every community to have at least 10 percent of its residences in that category. Not just green development, in other words, but “inclusionary” development, based on the social engineering premise that all communities should include an income mix.
It would all mean no small change for a town such as Needham, with a population of just 32,000 and almost exclusively single-family zoning. When its Town Meeting last October went even further — backing a plan permitting more than 3200 new apartments — the backlash began.
It was led by Town Meeting member Gary Ajamian, who says that the “extremely controversial plan” led to “anger and distrust”. Ajamian, however, did more than speak out; he helped start and lead “Needham Residents for Thoughtful Zoning”. In the dead of New England winter, the group had 20 days to gather enough signatures to force a referendum on the 3200-unit plan, the first such vote to overturn a Town Meeting decision in decades. They did it, and the vote in January was decisive: 6,904 residents opposed the zoning changes, 4,914 in favor—passing the required bar not only for a majority vote but a majority of registered voters. “If I were a betting man, “says Selectman Kevin Keane, “I wouldn’t have bet that they’d get the signatures, or bet they’d get enough turnout. As it turned out, there were more voters than in the presidential primary” (7635). The perceived threat to the New England tradition of local control mattered.
In Massachusetts, this is an issue that goes well beyond one town. Another near-in Boston suburb, Milton, has also voted against a Communities Act rezoning plan — a vote which led to litigation at the state’s Supreme Judicial Court testing the law’s. constitutionality. Although the Court upheld the law in January, it deemed its regulations as written to be “legally ineffective and must be repromulgated in accordance with state law,” throwing the situation into limbo. The backlash has, perhaps most surprisingly, has split the progressive Democrats who run the state. State Attorney General Andrea Campbell has backed the law, including before the state’s highest court, while state auditor Diana DiZiglio has deemed it an “unfunded mandate” in response to a protest by yet another town, Wrentham, over the costs involved with redoing its zoning laws. Her office is conducting a broader review of costs the law will impose on municipalities; in Needham those costs were seen as including a potential need for new water and sewer lines or school classrooms.
The town manager’s office in the Town points out that, even if a plan is ultimately adopted — it will be on the agenda at the upcoming May Town Meeting — land costs in the Town are so high, that it’s far from inevitable the rezoning will actually mean new building. Or that the current owners of the land will choose to sell. Market forces, in other words, can’t be repealed, even in Massachusetts.
The Bay State and the whole Northeast needs new home construction. But there are many ways imaginable to spark it, including such historic expedients as permitting two and three-family homes in single-family districts. Or accessory dwelling units in large, empty yards, as even California is encouraging. Rolling back local control for a bureaucrat’s idea of what historic towns should look like today seems destined to lead to resistance, not construction. Exclusionary zoning has, without doubt, stood in the way of home construction and pushed prices artificially high. But overcoming it must be handled with political care.
Howard Husock is a senior fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on municipal government, urban housing policy, civil society, and philanthropy. Before joining AEI, Mr. Husock was vice president for research and publications at the Manhattan Institute.
Former Needham Center Station Building, repurposed as a cafe, Wikimedia, under CC 3.0 License.
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