The town of Holden, population a shade under 20,000, nestled “in the beautiful rolling hills of central Massachusetts,” as its website boasts, encompasses just 36 square miles, “a good portion of which is protected open space, watershed, and recreational areas.”
Town officials are prepared to go to the mat to preserve the status quo in their town, where the median household income is $124,638. If that means defying a state law requiring the permitting of more multifamily housing, well, they are ready to do that too.
Holden is one of only two communities deemed out of compliance with the state’s MBTA Communities law (Berkley is the other, but just last week it filed a much-delayed initial action plan with the state). The law requires the 177 cities and towns with access to any part of the MBTA public transportation system to adopt zoning codes aimed at permitting more multifamily housing.
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That law was decades overdue. For the better part of a century, Massachusetts towns have used their zoning authority to stifle the creation of multifamily housing, either banning it outright or making it unreasonably difficult to build — with the predictable consequence that over time, poorer people who are more likely to rent have been excluded from those communities and not enough housing has been built in general.
Now Holden is being sued by a Worcester area housing advocacy group, one Holden resident, and one would-be resident in a case being handled in part by Lawyers for Civil Rights, which contends that the new law “replaces the every-town-for-itself approach to multi-family zoning.”
Holden maintains that under that law it could simply give up the right to some state grant money that comes with compliance and opt out of the program. Not so, say the challengers, who contend that “shall” means “shall” and that noncompliance isn’t an option.
The lawsuit is entirely candid that while Holden may be an outlier, this isn’t simply about one community in Central Massachusetts.
“With so many MBTA Communities already reluctant to embrace multi-family zoning, Holden’s interpretation cannot be viewed in a vacuum,” the suit filed with the Supreme Judicial Court notes.
“If the controversy goes unresolved, it will only embolden other MBTA Communities to reconsider their options and delay compliance due to a lack of clarity. The longer Holden is allowed to maintain its position that compliance is optional, the more likely a domino effect of non-compliance becomes.”
The law, when fully implemented, is intended to create some 100,000 new units of housing in the eastern part of the state.
But for Lydiana Morales, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, that need isn’t theoretical, it’s very real.
Morales and her child have been living in an emergency family shelter in Westborough since February. Disabled and unable to work, she could no longer afford the apartment she had been renting in Worcester prior to moving into the shelter. She has been searching for something affordable ever since without success, according to the suit, and faces a December deadline for leaving the shelter.
No, homelessness isn’t theoretical and it’s not an emergency only for migrant families who have just arrived on these shores. It’s also something the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance, the main plaintiff in the suit, deals with daily, in its own emergency shelter program and in efforts to keep people in their homes.
The point of the MBTA Communities law was to make that a shared responsibility — something Holden is now firmly on record disputing.
“The Town looks forward to vigorously defending itself and, if necessary, we will also lead the way in defense of other municipalities who are still considering whether to participate in the overreaching MBTA Community Housing Program,” town officials said in a statement.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell, in an advisory issued in March, attempted to make it crystal clear that there is nothing optional about the law.
“All MBTA Communities must comply with the Law. Communities that do not currently have a compliant multi-family zoning district must take steps outlined in the … guidelines to demonstrate interim compliance,” the AG wrote, or communities would risk a civil enforcement action.
But she also warned that communities that fail to comply “risk liability under federal and state fair housing laws.”
The lawsuit makes much the same point, noting, “If Holden’s interpretation is allowed to persist, MBTA Communities will be free to preserve the anti-density status quo that has driven the housing crisis, undermining the Law’s effectiveness and subjecting residents of the Commonwealth to a perpetually overpriced and segregated housing landscape.”
Holden has made itself the poster child for exclusion, for the kind of “not in my backyard” mindset that has helped make housing the scarce — and expensive — commodity it is in Massachusetts today. But Holden has had plenty of company along the way.
This see-you-in-court moment shouldn’t be necessary, but in fact it couldn’t come at a better time.