No surprise there. Middleborough is the biggest red town in southeast MA.

That said, I'm in favor of the State of using the stick to get towns to comply. If they don't want to comply, they can request the MBTA close the station down then.

Again with the "harm the town's character".

Shitty towns want to stay shitty. news at 11

Pretty ironic coming from the people who claim to support “free market solutions”.

There are large swathes of boston newton cambridge etc that are single family only still.

wish we could abolish that shit.

>If they don't want to comply, they can request the MBTA close the station down then.

Sounds like they might be dumb enough to do that:

>The Select Board has been vocal in recent years about its disapproval of the MBTA’s South Coast rail project, which will add a new commuter rail station in the town, as well as other South Coast towns like New Bedford and Taunton. (Middleborough already has one operational commuter rail station.) The Planning Board voted in 2021 to send a letter to the MBTA expressing their discontent with the project, and even weighed public displays of activism to prevent the station from opening. (The station is under construction and set to open later this year).

Especially around the Eliot stop on the D.

But then more people drive which means more pollution, traffic, noise and drivers taking up valuable space in the city. Its better if the state just gives them less money than towns that do comply.

To spin off of that, Middleborough's town character would be a cop who faked an injury to get disability and spends his day beating his wife.

Again, it's Middleborough. I doubt most of them are driving from there into Boston.

Why so many thought South Coast rail is a boondoggle.

No, you're not understanding the situation, and Boston.com's description is wildly misleading.

Middleborough is entirely in the right to be furious with the state. The state built a MBTA station in 1997. Middleborough did exactly what the state wants them to do - built a significant cluster of higher density transit oriented development in walking distance from the station, built a big park + ride lot, and did solid ridership numbers.

Now the state, for their idiotic South Coast Rail Phase I plan (SCR could be useful, but not this plan), is closing the station and moving it to somewhere else that's not walking distance from any of that existing housing/where they'd been building.

Middleborough is not upset about having a train station, Middleborough is upset about doing the right thing and getting royally fucked by the state for it. Now they've got a pile of apartments with unhappy developers/owners that are vastly less attractive and the new station location will be far more challenging/disruptive to develop around.

All for a plan that's an idiotic waste of money and will not provide them any benefits.

[removed]

Cambridge’s situation is particularly egregious IMO. 6000sqft minimums on SFH in some parts of the city.

There are apparently towns that are requesting the the MBTA close stations so that they don't have to build housing. Which is absurd and shouldn't be entertained

Looks like you're right

https://www.mass.gov/service-details/south-coast-rail-project-corridor-maps

The map shows the current line ends in Middleborough. Google maps shows the town does indeed have a large commuter lot, and a fair bit of apartments/townhomes immediately adjacent to the current station.

Now, the state is proposing to move the station to a junction about a mile north so it ties into the line in Taunton.

Honestly I get the frustration on the towns part but in the grand scheme of things, the new line with provide services to tens of thousand of people as opposed to a few hundred that might live in those apartments.

their town character is the worst character since poochie. they make andy bernard look like dwight schrute. fuck their town character

To be honest, I expected more concerted pushback against this law than there has been. The fact only 4 towns failed to submit the required action plan is honestly fewer than I expected.

I'm sure we will see some towns not follow through with their action plans fully, but I was concerned we'd see a refusal to comply at all by a number of towns. The overall reaction has been better than I expected.

"Town character" is a non argument. "We cannot build something here because something like that has not been built here."

Your original town character was goddamn trees you go far back enough. Its just a nonstarter that can be dismissed out of hand.

Don’t forget Brookline.

There are giant SFH neighborhoods only a block or two from green line stops.

It’s utterly ridiculous.

Makes sense. The law unfairly targets towns that have already been increasing housing density.

Good for Middleborough for standing up to what is best for their city. Hope they can hold out. No one needs to be bullied into doing something that is not right for them.

The new line is the typical MA thing of spending 75% of the money of doing it right, to get 25% of the value of doing it right. And likely poisoning the well for ever doing it right.

It's going to be an incredibly long ride, service levels are shit, and the routing/scheduling requires a ton of wishful thinking to think it's not going to collapse the entire Old Colony lines into delays in reality - since, among other problems, they have single-track chokepoints and the proposed schedule basically requires everything to be perfectly on time to not have cascading delays. Good luck with that.

And for the limited service they're going to run - they really ought to have picked just one endpoint for now rather than splitting frequencies by branching. One big city with tolerable service > 2 with shit service.

The "full-build"/Phase II (PDF warning) - which would go to Stoughton and inbound from there, is a fine enough concept and could be a useful service. This half-assed one is not. And when the ridership is utter shit, it's going to kill the chances of actually finishing the project properly.

What should be happening is building SCR to Stoughton from day 1 and extending the Middleborough line to Buzzards Bay - with a couple a day over the bridge like the Cape Flyer does seasonally. That would actually be useful and effective. This is not.

Anyway, back on topic.

Middleborough can't even plan for developing at the new station either, because if the full-build/"Phase II" gets built, they'll likely switch back to the old (current) station site instead and the new station will be abandoned. If they actually follow the rules and rezone around the new station....they're risking creating this whole situation again in 10 years for a different set of lied-to people.

Cambridge is not bad at all, just a popular target.

Look at Malden where 80% of the town is on 6000 sqft min lot size, that they want to make 7,500.

Malden: https://www.cityofmalden.org/DocumentCenter/View/5562/Zoning-Map-FY2022

All of that light yellow is 6,000 sqft.

Cambridge: https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/Maps/Zoning/cddmap_zoning_base_11x17_202102.pdf

The light yellow "A-1" between Harvard and the cemetary is the only 6000 sqft remaining.

Nowhere in the same UNIVERSE much less "egregious".

Brookline is a lost cause.

Middleborough: "OK, let's John Galt this shit. Shut down the Commuter Rail station here and rename it as the 'Bridgewater/Lakeville' line."

I read through the towns surrounding mine (Waltham) and they seemed to be concerned about losing commercial tax base to lower tax base residential (someone tell them about mixed use zoning please) but generally they appeared to be at the acceptance stage of grief.

Waltham's response was at the bargaining stage though with a lot of excuses as to why we shouldn't have to comply and some nimby nonsense about luxury housing.

Cambridge's dimensional requirements make virtually every multifamily structure in the city violate the city's zoning code and have to go in front of the BZA, by design, even if multifamily housing is technically "allowed". And it is 100% intentional. So yes, it is egregious.

That's a funny way to write 'allow more market based housing via relaxed zoning rules in your community'

In fairness to Cambridge, they have the second highest density in the state behind Somerville (and 26th highest in the entire country!). Room for improvement, but I think they are doing their fair share compared to just about every other city.

But don’t you see?

In the mind of a NIMBY, once they purchase property, only then does the town magically become frozen in time, and should never have to ever change.

Imagine if the “neighborhood character” of forests and corn fields had been preserved. Most NIMBY suburbs wouldn’t exist.

Yes, but grading the greater Boston area on a curve like that is a poor idea.

​

There is so much low hanging fruit in Cambridge for completely inoffensive upzoning (3-5 stories by right) that would maintain the city's character and provide thousands upon thousands more homes.

Middleborough's character is literal dog shit though already anyways so what do they care

Thing is, it only takes one town getting away with it before others decide not to follow as well. Once all the towns realize they can get away with this then why would they comply with anything the state says in the future

Sure, I agree in principal and fortunately there has been a lot of talk in the city about upzoning.

I just don't think that many of the cities north of the Charles are "particularly egregious"; to me that title should be pointed toward the cities and neighborhoods to the west and south that have always resisted upzoning.

Also, those 6000 sq. ft minimum lots make up .7% of the Cambridge's dwelling units.

I’m not defending Middleborough, but most towns are NOT going along with the new multi family housing law. You can require all the action plan you want, if the housing isn’t being built then towns are not going along with it

So you're saying Andrew Brinker of The Boston Globe wrote a hit piece. Imagine going through life as a political puppet...yeesh.

Completely different argument and again not out of line with any other area.

Is it better to have a place that’s in line with its zoned 6,000 sqft lots, or a place that is historically so dense that it already exceeds its zoning?

You are arguing that Cambridge is actually more dense than its zoning indicates … which not only moots your initial point about Cambridge being not dense due to zoning (zoning having nothing to do with it, now), but also means Cambridge is underrated generally as the maps don’t reflect the real density.

Anyway, since we moved on from your large lots point and into multi families, the real issue is where density exists and where it can be built. You admit that Cambridge is already so dense that it exceeds its zoning, which is also denser than other towns on the T e.g. Malden. So I assume you aren’t saying Cambridge is egregiously not dense (would be ridiculous to say that right), but rather that nothing is being built compared to the Brooklines, Maldens, Reveres of the world.

Any trip to Kendall, Lechmere/North Point, Alewife would show you huge apartment complexes that weren’t there 5 years ago, with more to come … really only the Seaport compares to Kendall in terms of development and densification.

Basically everywhere is worse than Cambridge in terms of these issues, name a town and it will be the same stuff just worse.

To say that "Cambridge is denser than its zoning allows" makes no sense to me, because Cambridge's zoning has nothing to do with whether the city is too dense or not. The zoning laws were explicitly implemented to drive certain demographics of people out of the city. The city can and should become marginally denser than it currently is, and in some areas (west cambridge) much denser.

Of the development areas you list, those developments had to go in front of BZA or get special zoning petitions from the city council in order to get built. I promise you it was not easy.

​

Yes, other towns are worse than Cambridge is. But Cambridge is already dense with a culture of apartment buildings, however the zoning code (not just household/lot caps) make building new apartments impossible without variances.

​

Pretty much every "beloved" triple decker in the city violates the zoning code.

They make up .7% of the dwelling units because there are so few of them, because of the zoning laws. Cambridge is only ~6.4 square miles. That area is not trivial in the slightest.

We should take a page out of the SB50 book and have a builder’s remedy for towns that refuse to do anything

There is no requirement to build, so yeah all but 4 are "going along with it"

If you want a requirement to build, please contact your state rep to push for that.

The South Coast Rail plan is super dumb. No arguments there. But the town just has to change zoning near the station to comply this the law. It's up to private developers/builders to decide whether they actually want to build or not.

Where does the "Asking us to add another 1,500 units, essentially double what we’ve built recently, is absurd,” come from?

CA implemented "builders remedy" in cases like this (and NY is proposing it). Essentially, if a town doesn't submit a compliant housing plan, their zoning gets suspended and developers are allowed to bypass the zoning code with certain types of buildings (like buildings with a certain amount of affordable units). I'd like to see MA move that way. We have a housing crisis - emphasis on crisis. People are leaving our state and there's a real possibility that MA will be losing a House seat in the next census. People are being pushed into poverty and into homelessness. I have zero sympathy with these towns talking about "neighborhood character" next to concerns like this.

Ok, they still only make up 3% of the city's land mass. Compare to Newton where a Globe article noted that 80% of residential lots (almost 10,000 of them) within a half mile of the MBTA Express Bus service are zoned for single-family use.

Again, I think we agree, I just feel like the biggest impact can come from the communities that have not done their part to date.

You guys should read the article, what they’re saying is that they’re pissed off they’ve been steadily building more and more housing around the existing T station and now the state comes in and jacks up the requirement to beyond where the town thinks is sustainable. I don’t see how that is an unreasonable complaint.

Cause Waltham hasn't been gentrified enough already.

Not providing enough housing supply for the top of the market is how you get gentrification as all others have to compete against them and lose.

Most just react to headlines. The Globe knows this, thus, hit piece.

What I really think is people on here from closer to the city kind of see these people as lesser, and therefore are just jumping at the chance to shit on them. You can and should disagree with them if you feel like they’re wrong, but they’re not worse people because they want to take a different approach.

Until 2024 all towns in commuter rail towns all they have to do to remain compliant is to submit an action plan, they don’t have to actually implement anything.

My town did it it’s a worksheet they fill out. By 2024 they actually have to redone and that’s when you’ll see way more towns out of compliance.

Literally north Brookline across from the B line are multiple Brookline neighborhoods of single family mansions like 100 feet from transit. Brookline doesn’t get enough hate for their discriminatory housing.

It's called fascism. What you're encountering now is called fascism. It's like a cult only its...well, no, it's pretty much a cult.

> Your original town character

The original town character was probably a wetu before it had a two level house.

> they can request the MBTA close the station down

Careful what you wish for b/c that appeals to home owners who live along the rails.

[removed]

Yeah, I realized after I posted my comment that's exactly something they would demand.

Still in favor of using the stick. Next time Middleborough needs any state aid, too bad.

“Poochie was from another planet???”

The only surrounding town that would reasonably apply to is Lincoln. If they lost the commercial space next to the train they'd have none left. I don't know that the legislation can force the cities/towns to build mixed use but that's been their plan for years. Everything got put on hold until the details shake out.

The solution to homelessness is giving developers subsidies is what you're saying.

Mixed-use zoning still reduces the commercial tax base because is typically used for low value commercial like nail salons, coffee shops, and dentist chains. High-value commercial like manufacturing, pharmaceutical, chemical, R&D lab, nuclear medicine isotope production would still be isolated in an industrial ghetto. They should be colocated with residential so that the people that work in these companies can live within walking distance.

I don't think Lincoln has much of the latter anyway, does it?

Understood and agreed! The title is just misleading

I mean, if you want the homeless to build their own homes you can look to India and see how that’s panned out. Massive, poorly built and unregulated shanty towns aren’t exactly the answer most people want to the question of “how do we solve homelessness”

Swamp Yankee central mixed with nimby new homeowners

I have mixed feelings about Lincoln. It is an agricultural community that used extremely exclusionary practices to preserve open space. Which to me means that it should be treated as a nature/agricultural preserve and the state should have the right of first refusal on any property sale. The goal would be to eventually eliminating all buildings except historically/architecturally important ones and rewilding land.

Given Lincoln's proximity to Boston, it would be transit accessible nature space which is more important than most people can possibly imagine. One way to think of it us as a potential addition to Middlesex Fells and Blue Hills.

"town character" needs to be ridiculed until it's widely enough recognized to be a racist/classist dog whistle that it's scorned and retired. Wish SNL would do a skit or something...

My town is forever adding new houses, which I'm against - solely because the water system cannot reliably support what we have now for watershed needs.

Solve the water problems first for fuck's sake.

ACAB

Last summer I was driving thought Charlestown and watched a guy consoling his girlfriend who was screaming and crying watching a triple decker being demolished. She screamed "THIS IS SO FUCKED UP I GREW UP HERE!!! THAT BUILDING WAS ALWAYS THERE! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

There is a new triple decker there now that looks almost exactly the same lmao

That is so pathetic

That’s not even what they said. Do you know what a subsidy is? A change in zoning restrictions is not a subsidy.

I hear everyone's angry there.

I absolutely plan to vote No on the zoning changes at the town meeting if my town doesn’t reject it before even trying (and absolutely failing miserably) to have the zoning changed at town meeting.

There will be. Towns are being stupid filing plans, but considering zoning changes in most towns have to be approved by super majority at town meeting, this shit ain’t going to get any traction just about anywhere

You must live near me

This could be anywhere.

This could be everywhere.

It’s not MWRA region, that’s for sure.

Anyone that uses town character for more housing as an argument is just a racist that doesn’t want people of color in their town prove me wrong

And trees before that.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I don't think most towns have been given a chance to prove they are going along with the new law yet.

The only deadline for compliance so far has been filling out a form.

Yes, which you said in the prior post.

[removed]

I don't like it when people put words in my mouth. How you even extrapolated that I'll never know, it seems like your primary focus was to assign/find a victim as quickly as possible. Weird.

Let me help you. No the suburban residents aren't the victims. The victims are those bigots in Boston who believe that their actions and words, based off of bad information, is correct simply because they all think it. They're all equally ignorant, they're all equally trapped.

But hey, jumping to conclusions works too. Oh wait, we're right back where we started.

I am on board with having dense housing within 1/2 mile of each MBTA station. What we don't need is MBTA communities including towns which don't have a train. That means more cars. No reason to build an apartment building in Sherborn and adding 100 cars to backroads.

It's pretty nice that instead of having Boston and the surrounding areas build affordable homes, restrict corporations from buying up single family homes en masse and converting them to rental properties, or dealing with the influx of short term rental properties converted from long term ones they just force a town of 25,000 people to increase housing by 1,500.

Because those will definitely be affordable for the people who work in Boston anyways right?

Have you been to Middleborough, fall river, New Bedford and Plymouth?

They look completely different