Somerville YIMBY

Ask your State Rep to support the House zoning and housing initiative!

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We emailed you about the MA Smart Growth Alliance’s Great Neighborhoods campaign before, and many of you took action then to support it.

We’ve come to another moment where this initiative needs your support!

Today, May 9, State Reps Steve Kulik and Sarah Peake outlined a package of important zoning and housing production reforms that House members can coalesce around. Please call and email your State Rep today and ask him/her to join the Kulik-Peake zoning reform/housing letter!

Use the MA Smart Growth Alliance’s online tool for contacting your State Rep

With less than 3 months before the legislative term ends, now is the time for the House to put a zoning reform/housing bill on the floor for a vote. At the Great Neighborhoods State House event today, Reps Kulik and Peake identified a package of reforms that can make a difference in building more housing in sensible locations, providing municipalities with tools to plan for the future, and help preserve the environment. These reforms include:

• Simple majority approval for zoning improvements and special permits that help to produce and preserve housing.

• Local option inter-municipal agreements to share costs and revenue from development. 

• A training program for residents who serve on local planning and zoning boards. Funding has been included in a supplemental budget and will be distributed through the Department of Housing and Community Development.

• Expediting certain kinds of appeals by limiting court review to whether or not the local permit decision was made appropriately.

• A mediation process at the local level to resolve permitting disputes.

• When a zoning change is considered, requiring the planning board to provide an advisory report on whether the proposed change is consistent with the master plan.

• Providing notice to the board of health when a development project application is submitted to a municipality.

• Authorizing “site plan review,” a tool that helps communities to improve project design while ensuring prompt approval for developers.

• Making it easier for developers to “cluster” homes in a subdivision to conserve land and reduce construction costs.

• Enabling more single family homeowners to create a modest “accessory apartment” within the home for relatives, caretakers, or rental.

• Extending the time for municipalities to exercise a right of first refusal to purchase agricultural land or recreational land.

• Reform of unregulated “Approval Not Required” development, if a community is willing to adopt a Minor Subdivision Ordinance or By-Law.

• Encouraging more multifamily housing in sensible locations.

• Clarifying that discriminatory actions in zoning and permitting are not allowed under Massachusetts law.

• Establishing sensible parameters for property owners to vest their property rights, which will encourage municipalities to update their zoning.

Here’s the simple message: Let’s get behind a zoning reform and housing bill now! Join the Kulik-Peake letter! (And, if your State Rep has already signed, thank you for your leadership!)

Use MA Smart Growth Alliance’s online tool for contacting your State Rep.