2026-01-28
Researchers find MBTA housing law benefits ‘modest' so far
Five years after its passage, the MBTA Communities Act is beginning to produce “real but modest benefits,” according to a new analysis that puts the law’s impacts into the context of the region’s deep housing shortage.The Boston Indicators report found that nearly 7,000 housing units are now in the permitting, construction or occupancy pipeline across more than 100 projects in 34 eastern Massachusetts communities as a direct result of zoning changes adopted under the 2021 law. The analysis, authored by Boston Indicators Senior Fellow Amy Dain, focuses on projects linked to local compliance with the requirement that cities and towns served by the MBTA allow multifamily housing by right.“Construction is happening as a direct result of the MBTA Communities law, but the law’s hallmark flexibility leaves a lot of leeway for communities to embrace or sidestep the law’s housing goals,” Dain said. “As a result, while MBTA Communities has been the most effective state policy in recent years to encourage multi-family housing by right, its impacts in some areas, especially near transit stations, have been relatively modest compared to the overwhelming need.”The 7,000 units tied to MBTA Communities zoning represent a small slice of the housing push underway statewide. In her state of the commonwealth address, Gov. Maura Healey said the number of homes “built, permitted or under construction” across Massachusetts has surpassed 100,000 over the past three years.“Experts said that we had to build about 220,000 homes by 2035. I’m telling you right now, we’re not just going to meet that, we’re going to beat it,” Healey said. “We’ve already in three years got 100,000 new homes built, permitted or under construction, and more are on the way.”While the MBTA Communities Act was designed in part to steer housing growth toward transit, the report shows that only about 30% of the units in the current pipeline are located within a half-mile of train stations. Dain notes that state guidelines allow communities without developable land near stations to site their multifamily districts elsewhere, and many projects still have access to town centers, bus service, or bike infrastructure that supports multimodal travel.The data also underscore how heavily production is concentrated in a small number of large developments. Just 19 projects with more than 100 units each account for roughly three-quarters of all MBTA Communities housing in the pipeline. According to the report, 34 municipalities have projects in the pipeline, ranging in size from two to more than 500 units. Dain writes that for small-scale projects to add up to the tens of thousands of homes the region needs, communities would have to allow more building within MBTA Communities districts or expand zoning beyond the law’s minimum requirements.”Luc Schuster, executive director of Boston Indicators, said the law’s design has shaped those outcomes.“MBTA Communities was never going to be the single solution to our region’s housing needs, but its progress could set the stage for continued development and the crafting of new, more ambitious efforts to provide housing for families in and around transit moving forward,” Schuster said.Even as projects move forward, enforcement of the zoning law remains a live issue on Beacon Hill. As of early January, 165 of the 177 cities and towns covered by the statute had adopted compliant zoning or received interim or conditional approval from the state. Twelve communities — Carver, Dracut, East Bridgewater, Freetown, Halifax, Holden, Marblehead, Middleton, Rehoboth, Tewksbury, Wilmington and Winthrop — remain out of compliance after deadlines that fell in mid-2025 or at the end of last year.A response from Attorney General Andrea Campbell could come in the next few days.“We are on top of this right now,” Campbell said this month on GBH Radio. “We gave folks to the end of January, based on our guidance last year, to come into compliance. And those that do not, we will take action as appropriate by the end of the month.”That July advisory to noncompliant communities said “in January 2026, the Attorney General is prepared to bring an enforcement suit against any MBTA Community that has failed to both adopt the required zoning and apply for a determination of district compliance from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.”Campbell’s office has emphasized that rezoning is only an initial step toward construction, but one the state views as essential. With the law marking its five-year anniversary this month, the report suggests that while MBTA Communities has begun to change the zoning landscape, translating that shift into housing at the scale Massachusetts needs remains a work in progress.
