Home Care In Holden, MA

A Central Massachusetts town is being sued for refusing to comply with a zoning law meant to increase the housing supply in communities served by the MBTA.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday against the town of Holden, the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance, along with a low-income family and a local homeowner, said that the town’s non-compliance with the MBTA Communities Zoning Law hurts residents of Holden as well as people across the state during an ongoing housing crisis.

“We must maximize every available tool to keep Central Massachusetts families housed in their communities of choice,” said CMHA CEO Leah Bradley in a press release. “With the unprecedented surge in rent prices and homelessness in recent years, more Massachusetts families are becoming homeless and they are staying homeless longer. Communities across Central Massachusetts are working with us to find solutions to the housing crisis. We are asking the same of Holden.”

The law was adopted in 2021 and requires cities and towns served by the transit agency have at least one zoning district “of reasonable size” where multi-family housing is allowed within a half-mile of a commuter rail, subway or bus station or ferry terminal, if applicable. Noncompliant towns will be ineligible for certain state funding opportunities. While Holden does not contain any transit stations, it borders Worcester, which does, so it is still subject to the law.

The 177 communities that fell under the law were required to submit an action plan to the state in January, but Holden failed to do so. Since then, town officials have said they will not comply with the law, and instead will pass up the grant opportunities.

“In the view of those officials, MBTA Communities can simply forego the relevant state funding grants and exempt themselves from the law’s zoning provisions. Those officials are wrong,” wrote Lawyers for Civil Rights, who are representing CMHA and the other plaintiffs, in the complaint. “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.”

The suit names the town, its Board of Selectmen, and Town Manager Peter Lukes as defendants.

Attorneys wrote that Holden’s non-complaince hurt CMHA by straining its resources and impairing its mission.

In addition, attorneys wrote that Holden’s actions negatively impacted Lydiana Morales, a disabled and low-income mother currently living in a shelter in Westborough, by contributing to her inability to find stable housing. Morales and her child left their Worcester apartment in October because she could not afford the rent, according to the complaint, and have been unable to find affordable rental housing. They will be forced to leave the shelter in December.

“The ordeal has caused Plaintiff Morales to experience food insecurity and delayed medical treatment, as she has often had to skip meals and postpone medical appointments to save money for rent payments,” they wrote. “She has also suffered from a lack of sleep, heightened anxiety and more frequent flare ups of her mental health symptoms.”

Jennifer Lish, a Holden homeowner, also signed on to the lawsuit, saying that she and other residents will lose out on the benefits of the law, “including state funding grant eligibility, increased housing infrastructure, a larger and more diverse population and a greater tax base.”

LCR attorneys wrote in the complaint that by not obeying the law, Holden could encourage other communities to follow suit, further delaying compliance across the state.

“This lawsuit aims to support municipalities that are working to comply with the Law, by ensuring that recalcitrant towns like Holden do not shirk their obligations,” said LCR staff attorney Jacob Love. “Every municipality covered by this Law, especially predominantly white, affluent towns like Holden, must relinquish exclusionary zoning and contribute to the cause.”

MassLive has reached out to Town Manager Lukes and Board of Selectmen Chair Stephanie Mulroy for comment.

One other town, Berkley, has not yet complied with the MBTA Communities Zoning Law. LCR said they had also sent a request to Berkley on Thursday seeking public records regarding compliance with the law.

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.

A Worcester County mill building that was previously abandoned for more than 30 years is now being transformed into apartments in an area desperate for new housing.

The first phase of redevelopment at Jefferson Mills, the former Jefferson Manufacturing Company textile mill complex in Holden, has brought 34 new apartments at 1665 Main St. An additional 29 apartments will be added in another building during the second phase of the project.

“Personally, I’m very happy to be part of taking a piece of history, not only Jefferson Village history, but also Massachusetts history, and see that we’ve done something it,” Daniel Stroe, principal of Bluestone Residential, the project’s developer, said during a ribbon cutting event last week.

The 2.67-acre mill complex originally consisted of nine interconnected buildings constructed between 1850 and 1950.

Holden Town Manager Peter Lukes said the building’s previous owners had been reluctant to sell the property. But because it had been neglected for many years, it had fallen into disrepair by the time Bluestone came along and bought it in 2020.

Lukes said he was happy when the company showed interest in the redevelopment project, because it specialized in historic rehabilitation, and had completed other similar projects in the area, including the Torrey Factory Lofts, North Village Lofts and Norwich Lofts in Worcester.

“It is so important to preserve what we can of our town’s history,” Jennifer Stanovich, the executive director of the Wachusett Area Chamber of Commerce, said. “This abandoned building could have been torn down to make way for new development, but Bluestone Residential saw the potential in redeveloping the site. They have maintained the historic character of the buildings while establishing their reuse in a modern way.”

The completed apartments include one-, two-, and three-bedroom units complete with high ceilings, brand-new kitchen appliances, central air conditioning, an integrated security system, internet and cable televisions. Rents range from $1,900 per month for a one-bedroom unit to $3,200 for a three-bedroom, according to Tim Adler, another principal at Bluestone.

Adler said about one-third of the existing 34 apartments are leased so far. Residents will begin moving in this month.

The second phase of the project, in the oldest portion of the complex facing Main Street, is expected to be completed in the next two years, bringing new housing to Central Massachusetts.

Dan Rivera, president and CEO of MassDevelopment, which partnered with Fidelity Bank to provide $6.1 million in loan financing for the project, said those new apartments will help address the local housing crisis, but also can spark economic development in the area.

“Kids and families do drive by here every day and they think, ‘Man, this thing has been there for the longest time and hasn’t really become anything. What does that say about me and my opportunities in life?’” Rivera said. “When people start seeing dirt moving, it starts to inspire people.”

US battery developer Delorean Power and the Holden Municipal Light Department (HMLD), a utility in the US state of Massachusetts, have unveiled a new battery storage project in the town of Holden.

The facility will have an output of 5MW and a storage capacity of 22MWh, and the developers expect to finish construction at the project next year, and commission the facility in October 2024. Delorean received approval for the project from the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC), a public utility that manages the state’s energy grid, and the facility will be the first developed by the company under the oversight of the MMWEC.

“With this project, HMLD is leading the way in environmental stewardship in a fiscally responsible manner,” said HMLD general manage Barry Tupper. “Delorean Power, MMWEC and HMLD staff have spent countless hours working on this agreement and we at HMLD are looking forward to October 2024 when the battery storage will be operational.”

While the developers did not announce technical specifications of the new project, both are optimistic about its potential to help realise their long-term decarbonisation goals. HMLD plans to add the new storage system to what it calls its “newly rebuilt” Chaffins substation in the town of Holden, and the company’s portfolio of power generation facilities, of which 60% are what it calls “non-carbon emitting”, could stand to benefit from a greater storage capacity to overcome the variance inherent to many forms of renewable power generation.

The news is a positive development for Delorean in particular, which received US$20 million in funding from financier Greenbacker Capital Management last year, and the Massachusetts storage sector more broadly. In 2018, the state government obligated power projects with a capacity of more than 500kW to be paired with energy storage, and legislation such as this has encouraged the sustained growth of the state’s sector, which had the fourth most storage capacity in the US in October 2022.

Energy storage is growing in the state partially thanks to the Clean Peak Standard, which remunerates technologies which can provide power during peak demand periods. Developer Bluewave, mainly known for community solar, is one of those launching large-scale projects in the state, which it discussed with Energy-Storage.news in an interview earlier this year, said the Standard is an important part of the business case for storage in Massachusetts.

Holden, Massachusetts, Nov. 14, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

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