Share This Article
The State passed legislation commonly referred to as “MBTA Communities” back in 2021. The specifics of that legislation are not exactly common knowledge, and that’s likely because zoning legislation is insufferably boring quite technical and requires a good deal of context to understand exactly what the impact will be in the real-world. Here’s the best we can do to summarize what’s happening:
- The State passed a law referred to as MBTA Communities to address what it perceives as a housing crisis in Massachusetts.
- Here’s how the State describes it: “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…”
- The requirements vary by municipality, but Sudbury is very much subject to this law.
- While there has been some controversy about this law, compliance is mandatory and there are significant penalties, like losing eligibility for certain State grants for non-compliance. To put it bluntly: the Attorney General’s office is not messing around about this.
You can read more about it the law in a comprehensive fact sheet that was included in the Select Board packet here. Fair warning: “Finnegan’s Wake” is an easier read, but at least the fact sheet has pictures. The meeting itself may be a bit easier to consume: 0:10:50.
Anyway, what’s the point of all this in Sudbury?
- Sudbury is on the clock to get into compliance with the legislation. That will involve some zoning updates that will need to get through Town Meeting in May 2024.
- However, Sudbury is a bit behind schedule due to vacancies in the Planning Department. The Planning Board has done some preliminary work, but the Town is playing catch-up overall. Fortunately, the Town was able to fill the Director of Planning and Community Development position recently, and the new director, Adam Burney, has many years of experience in municipal planning work.
On Monday, the Planning Board and Sudbury’s new Director of Planning and Community Development joined the Select Board to discuss their strategy for getting the Town into compliance as soon as possible. The approach is pretty straightforward:
- The Planning Department is engaging a consultant with expertise in this area. They’re going to work quickly to evaluate the status quo in Sudbury, and make some recommendations.
- Next, the Planning Department and Planning Board will likely develop some options for articles they could put before Town Meeting. It was also mentioned that the Zoning Board of Appeals might be brought into the process as well.
- They’ll move into communication and “socialization” mode somewhere around March, according to the Monday discussion. Basically, they need to get residents all of the information about why the Town has to comply, why it wants to comply, and why the Town approach is the best approach for Sudbury. You can expect an informational gathering, digital content, website pages, etc.
- From there it likely goes to a vote at Town Meeting in May 2024.
The members of both boards repeatedly emphasized how important the communication component would be for the general public and voters at Town Meeting. The challenge, of course, is that they have to communicate very complex subject matter on a very tight timeline. It might actually be easier to give a lecture on theoretical physics to classroom full of fifth grade students the day before winter break… at least the students don’t have the option to leave the room and you can take away their phones.
To continue following the process from here, you’ll want to turn your attention to the upcoming meetings of the Planning Board. There was some anticipation that they would be having a fairly robust discussion at their December 20 meeting.