In October 2023, the Boston Globe published a front-page story on how a proposal to build 500 apartments at the South Shore Plaza ran into a buzzsaw of neighborhood opposition. Public officials were berated. Lawn signs decried “monster projects.” After eight months of public outcry and dwindling municipal support, the national developer gave up and went home.

The story’s point was to show how fiercely suburban communities resist new multifamily housing. It also didn’t increase confidence that Braintree would comply with the state’s new MBTA Communities zoning law, especially given neighboring Milton’s ultimate decision to defy it. Yet in late December, the town council voted 6-2 to pass new zoning that would allow for up to 3,800 new units around the town’s four public transit stops.

Braintree is an example of what’s been happening since 2021, when then Governor Charlie Baker signed the new law, which requires 177 municipalities in eastern Massachusetts to have at least one zoning district where multifamily zoning is permitted by right. Contrary to press coverage that’s been focused on a relative handful of opponents, almost all MBTA cities and towns are steadily taking steps to comply.

To date, three communities have had their new districts approved by the state, 52 are awaiting approval, and 74 have adopted zoning intended to comply with the law.

One reason for this progress is unprecedented support from the state, MHP and other partners. The state has distributed nearly $7 million in grants to MBTA communities while MHP has provided more than $3 million on the creation of universal resources and direct technical assistance, using funds from the Barr Foundation, DOT, and EOHLC.

Most communities pursuing compliance

In coordination with the state, MHP is working with 125 of the 177 MBTA communities. All told, MHP estimates that 162 communities (92 percent) have received technical assistance. “We have not seen this level of state leadership, resource deployment, and coordination in quite a long time,” said Clark Ziegler, MHP’s Executive Director.

How this plays out at the local level is town planners, often with grants to hire a consultant, use existing housing patterns, prior plans and/or community input to develop zoning alternatives. Then, using a testing model developed by the state, communities analyze which options will help them achieve compliance. During this stage, many communities begin to explain the law to residents and get feedback on the town’s proposal.

Braintree followed this playbook. While the debate over housing at the mall was raging, municipal leaders were using a grant from MHP to work with consultants on analysis and mapping of compliant MBTA zoning districts around the community’s Red Line rapid transit stop and one commuter rail station.

Led by longtime Planning Director Melissa SantucciRozzi, one result of this work was a community presentation that clearly explained the law and mapped illustrations of how the new zoning could benefit the neighborhoods around the two transit stations.

“My approach is to be short, sweet and direct because when communities try to understand complicated things like zoning and density, things get very negative,” said SantucciRozzi. “The law was new and at first I wondered how we were going to pull this off but the consultants were huge in helping us do the initial mapping and making sure the densities made sense and would get us where we needed to be in terms of compliance.”

Master class in communication

While SantucciRozzi’s teams was working out the technicalities , political leaders like then town council president Meredith Boericke were talking to voters. In August 2023, she released a seven-minute video that explained how the new law could help Braintree transform blighted properties near its Red Line transit station. The video also countered the idea that the law would usher in skyscrapers by showing various examples of small existing multifamily housing that were denser than the law’s requirement of 15 units per acre.

In the video, Boericke promised to keep voters informed in the months leading up to town’s effort to comply. And that she did on her Facebook page, in her monthly newsletter and at public appearances like flag football games and the farmers’ market.

Boericke’s fix blight & no skyscrapers campaign was based on resident feedback. The Red Line station is in her district so she knocked on doors, talked to residents who lived near the tracks, and invited them to public meetings.

“I learned from the South Shore Plaza controversy that I needed to make sure that the new MBTA zoning districts reflected the concerns of my constituents,” she said. “Most of them wanted to know how can we improve the horrible vacant commercial properties in their neighborhood. Once I understood this, I could explain how the law could benefit Braintree, as these were the areas that were targeted for rezoning.”

Boericke said she used two MHP data tools to make her case. She used Residensity to find examples of multifamily properties that were more than 15 units per acre. She used DataTown to show voters that contrary to their view of a building boom, Braintree’s housing production has dipped considerably through the years. “These data tools were huge in helping me put together myth busting materials,” she said.

The combination of clear technical explanations by the municipal staff and steady constituent communication by Boericke is just one of many examples of how communities have been working to comply with the law and use it to set the stage for more housing opportunity.

At MHP’s 17th Annual Housing Institute, we recognized the Meredith Boericke as a Housing Hero in honor of her outspoken support for Section 3A of the Zoning Act and her work to highlight the positive impact the zoning update could have on helping increase the economic vitality of Braintree.

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