The finalized MBTA Communities guidelines reduce the number of units Lancaster must allow by-right from 750 to 139

 

DHCD released it's final regulations for the  "Multi-Family Zoning Requirement for MBTA Communities."   The difference for Lancaster is tremendous:  rather than a multi-family district of at least 50 acres, accommodating at least 750 units of mutifamily housing, Lancaster is now required only to establish a district that would fit 139 units at a minimum gross density of 15 units/acre.  There is no longer a minimum land area required.  (LINK)

This is a huge improvement for Lancaster and many other small towns.  The draft regulations included a minimum 750-unit multifamily unit capacity that would have radically altered the composition of many small communities, with tenuous actual access to the MBTA, whose proportiaonately small existing housing stock could be joined by hundreds of by-right multifamily homes in contiguous 30-50 acre districts.  These new requirements introduce a challenge, but it will be achievable, and it will certainly provide much needed housing for many people.  (A number of towns had discussed shirking the draft regulations entirely -- and that would have helped no one.)

The "Multi-Family Zoning Requirement for MBTA Communities" emerged on January 14th, 2021 from the "Housing Choice Legislation" that Massachusetts adopted.   It changed a number of things in the "Zoning Act" that will have an impact here in Lancaster.    Among other things, it added this very short section to chapter 40A section 3A.

(a) (1) An MBTA community shall have a zoning ordinance or by-law that provides for at least 1 district of reasonable size in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right; provided, however, that such multi-family housing shall be without age restrictions and shall be suitable for families with children. For the purposes of this section, a district of reasonable size shall: (i) have a minimum gross density of 15 units per acre, subject to any further limitations imposed by section 40 of chapter 131 and title 5 of the state environmental code established pursuant to section 13 of chapter 21A; and (ii) be located not more than 0.5 miles from a commuter rail station, subway station, ferry terminal or bus station, if applicable.

Not much to go on by itself.   It's followed by a penalty for non-compliance -- the town would lose access to some valuable development grants -- and a paragraph empowering the state Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) to determine how this new law should be interpreted and write up regulations.   They were left to determine what a "district of reasonable size" would be.

Town Counsel at the time was KP Law, and they notified us that the town seemed to be an "MBTA Community" subject to the bylaw.   We were in good company: the definition of "MBTA Community" involved a total of 175 municipalities:  in addition to towns with their own MBTA station, any town that shares a border with a town served by the MBTA is required to comply with this new legislation.   For the rest of 2021, the town waited for further information from DHCD.

In December, 2021, DHCD released the first draft of their regulations  and they were immediately met with great consternation in many small towns.    DHCD had interpreted "district of reasonable size" to mean a district of at least 50 acres in size.  Combined with the minimum gross density required by the law, this ensured that even the smallest communities would have to accommodate at least 750 housing units.

The draft regulations effectively required that Plympton, a small town that only had 1068 existing homes, would be required to establish a  50-acre district allowing 750 units of multifamily housing by-right.  Ashburnham is just west of the furthest terminus of the longest commuter rail line, and Paxton shares less than half a mile of border with Worcester, but both qualified as "MBTA adjacent communities with the same 750-unit requirement.  Lancaster and Stow (but not Bolton) would also be required to establish a 50-acre district allowing 750 units of housing by-right.  Each town needed to submit their finalized district for approval by the end of 2024 to avoid penalties.

DHCD collected comments on the draft bylaws through this past March.   Lancaster, the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission and other towns submitted comments critical of the one-size-fits-all approach applied to towns with less than 7,500.  We also submitted criticism about the murky nature of some required metrics -- it would have been difficult to adopt a district with complete confidence that it would be compliant after DHCD reviewed it.

On August 10th DHCD released the final regulations. (LINK) The new regulations are much improved.  A new tranche of communities was added -- "Adjacent Small Town" -- that includes Lancaster.   Towns in that tranche still much create districts, but there is no required minimum land area.   The number of multi-family units Lancaster is required to accommodate has been decreased from 750 to 139.   Ashburnham needs to accommodate 137; 84 for Paxton.

Plympton now needs only accommodate 53 units of multifamily housing.