Vote NO on MBTA Housing Act

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To be voted on during Spring 2025 Town Meeting. More info below.

What is the MBTA Housing Act?

  • It’s a MANDATE from our Legislators that affects 177 communities, Hanover included.
  • This Act/Law applies to any community having rail or bus service, or abuts any town that does.
    • Hanover abuts Hanson which has rail service, making Hanover an “MBTA Adjacent Community”
  • This new law requires that an MBTA community shall have at least one zoning district of reasonable size in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right and meets other criteria set forth in the statute.

How does it affect Hanover?

The Act MANDATES Hanover to:

  • Identify a parcel of land that is a minimum of 50 acres in size
  • On which a minimum of 750 units of housing could be built free from zoning regulations
  • With a density of 15 units per acre which translates to vertical build.
  • The only option identified to satisfy above requirements would be a vertical build above Hanover Crossing.

Communities are not allowed to limit:

  • The size of units
  • The number of bedrooms per unit
  • The number of people living in each unit
  • The age of residents

How other communities are handling the mandate:

Of the 177 affected communities (data as of week of of 8/12/2024):

  • 67 Have voted “Yes”
  • 84 Have not yet voted or voted to postpone (like Hanover has done so far)
  • 15 Have voted “No”
  • Information on the unaccounted communities is forthcoming.

Why should Hanover vote “NO”?

As it pertains to Hanover’s resources:

  • Are our Schools equipped to educate the number of additonal students one could expect from a complex this size?
  • Are our Police and Fire Departments equipped to respond to the additional number of safety and health calls that 750 units will produce?
  • Can our infrastructure handle the number of additional cars?
  • A Wastewater Treatment Plant will need to be built - where and who pays for it? These facilities can cost upward of 50 million dollars.
  • The capacity of our water supply is already at its limit.
    • Will Hanover have enough water to service this many apartments?
  • What’s more costly to our town: fighting this mandate (and foregoing grant money) or building & maintaining the infrastructure necessary to support the items described above?

Consequences for Communities Voting “NO”:

  • A direct quote from the Act:

    “An MBTA community that fails to comply with this section shall not be eligible for funds from:
    (i) the Housing Choice Initiative
    (ii) the Local Capital Projects Fund; or
    (iii) the MassWorks Infrastructure Program”.

  • The mandate does not state or even mention that Towns voting “NO” would be sued.
  • Milton was the first community to vote “NO”.
    • It was denied funding for an approved project.
  • The Milton case was aired in the newspapers, on talk shows, on internet news outlets, and on social media.
    • For too many residents of affected communities, this was their first introduction to the MBTA Housing Act.
  • Communities began questioning and voicing opposition to the “One Size Fits All” aspects of the Act.
  • To deter other communities from following Milton’s lead, our Attorney General added the threat of a lawsuit.
    • The Attorney General sued Milton and Milton filed a counter suit.
    • This case has not yet been heard.
    • Rockport and surrounding towns have also filed a class-action lawsuit against the MBTA Communities Housing Act

Ask Yourself:

If this Act is truely a great benefit to communities, why are they being threatened to comply?

When We Vote:

  • The vote on the MBTA 3A topic has been postponed till 2025 Spring Town Meeting.
  • This topic is no longer on the warrant for December 2024’s Town Meeting.
  • The Act/Law mandates that “adjacent communities” vote to accept or reject by 12/31/2024, however Hanover is joining a growing number of communities that will postpone while they await the decision of the Town of Milton’s related court case.

Further information:

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