[Massplanners] Latest Upzone Update
Amy Dain
dainresearch at gmail.com
Wed Jun 4 14:40:57 EDT 2025
Just in case you missed it, I'm writing to share the latest edition of the
Upzone Update, at this link
<https://www.bostonindicators.org/upzone_update/special-permits-permitting-reform>,
and below.
If you haven't subscribed yet, there's a link for that below.
I always welcome your feedback, ideas, and insights! (Next issue due out
June 18.)
Amy Dain
Senior Fellow
Boston Indicators
The Boston Foundation
amy.dain at tbf.org
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Boston Indicators <newsletter at bostonindicators.org>
Date: Thu, May 29, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Subject: Upzone Update: Special Permits as a Counterintuitive Route for
Permitting Reform
To: <dainresearch at gmail.com>
Email not displaying correctly?View it in your browser.
<https://www2.tbf.org/webmail/547972/2343552337/680da08318ae766738f68c4e548481d7e7b1f2527c3dc957beeff824dd566fb3>
[image:
BI logo]
Special Permits as a Counterintuitive Route for Permitting Reform
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/cial-permits-permitting-reform/41yzp88/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
AMY DAIN
May 29, 2025
[image: Image]
------------------------------
Upzone Update *is back. Throughout 2024 we tracked and analyzed MBTA
Communities implementation efforts. Now, with most local plans in place,
we’re relaunching *Upzone Update* as a monthly newsletter to analyze the
wider mix of zoning, building regulations, and related policies that shape
housing supply across Massachusetts. We’re also welcoming housing policy
expert Amy Dain as a Senior Fellow at Boston Indicators. She’ll author the
newsletter and contribute to a range of other Boston Indicators research
projects. *
*The MBTA Communities effort still matters, but it isn’t enough on its own
to alleviate the region’s housing crisis. *Upzone Update* will analyze big
reform ideas but also pragmatic, tactical fixes. And we’ll aim to clarify
the policy trade-offs and the tensions between values that often get lost
in the technical details. Our goal is simple: Keep you current on what’s
being tried, what’s working, and where the state needs to push next to
reach housing abundance and affordability.*
------------------------------
Little by little, the bird builds its nest. To open the zoning gates to
needed home construction, the state has been taking an incremental
approach. The gates are not yet open wide enough. Advocates are offering
ideas big and small to open them further.
The head-on solution to the housing shortage that restrictive municipal
zoning generates would be for the state to undertake zoning directly—to
designate and plan for (many) growth districts, and allow dense development
in them, as-of-right. Until that becomes politically and managerially
feasible, let’s consider an idea for another tiny step toward the goal of
housing abundance, a compromise between state leadership and local control.
Housing advocates may find the idea counterintuitive because it embraces
special permits, which are commonly considered barriers to housing
development.
The idea: The state could upzone existing walkable, amenity-rich,
multimodal-mobile neighborhoods for up-to-six-story multifamily housing—*by
special permit*, to be granted by municipal council or planning board. The
state chooses the locations and creates opportunities; the municipality
chooses the projects and maintains leverage over them.
As it stands today, municipal governments decide, via zoning, where
multifamily housing is A) allowed as of right (non-discretionary approval),
B) allowed by special permit (discretionary permitting), or C) prohibited.
Multifamily housing is outright prohibited (i.e., not allowed by right or
by special permit) in most of the places that the market would favor. It is
also often prohibited at the densities the market would favor. So, property
owners frequently apply to municipal legislatures—city council or town
meeting—to have their property rezoned to allow a given development. A
significant
(albeit uncounted) portion
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/ulti-Family-Housing-Report-pdf/41yzp5r/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
of multifamily developments statewide have had to win a rezoning to be
eligible for permits.
Image: Table of Use Regulations from the Town of Holbrook Zoning Bylaw. The
chart shows in which districts different residential uses are allowed by
right (y), by special permit (PB, for planning board), or prohibited (N). A
separate zoning map shows the locations of the districts.
Municipal-level rezoning is a hair-pulling odyssey, especially in towns
where the legislative body might meet only once a year. The process often
takes years. Having the state legislature instead identify priority growth
areas where multifamily housing would be allowed by local special permit
would save the migraines and money of municipal rezoning. And it would
still give the municipality discretion, in those places, to review
projects, negotiate design and scale, extract public benefits, and grant
approval or reject applications. Local special permit granting authorities
(SPGA), which could be either the municipal planning board or city council,
would represent the municipality in the review of proposed developments.
Subscribe to Upzone Update
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/l-547972-2025-05-27-41yxy1r/41yzp5v/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
Photo: (From 2018) Residences and retail in Lexington. Lexington Town
Meeting deliberated on the proposal for this building at two annual
meetings before approving the necessary zoning for it.
The state reform could include criteria for the SPGA to consider during
project review. First, SPGA members could be instructed to consider the
statewide need for housing production. Further, SPGAs might consider the
adequacy of infrastructure like sewers and sidewalks; potential
environmental impacts related to stormwater runoff, wetlands, and
groundwater; access options for pedestrians, bikes, and vehicles;
transportation systems; historic preservation; and other issues. SPGAs
could require inclusion of first-floor retail as a condition of the special
permit.
Housing advocates might shake their heads at this proposal. As a tool of
local control, special permits have long been
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/02c5f94450bfa77ff10737758a-pdf/41yzp5y/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
understood to undermine needed development. It is absolutely true that
special permits add significant time, cost, and risk to the permitting
process and construction, compared to as-of-right zoning. But not compared
to the process of amending municipal zoning to allow a given multifamily
project.
The state has set a goal
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/husetts-statewide-housing-plan/41yzp62/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
of gaining 220,000 homes in the next 10 years. (Some experts think the need
is much higher
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/stly-underestimates-our-needs-/41yzp65/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>.)
It makes sense to channel growth to neighborhoods where residents can walk
to a train or bus, cafe, pharmacy, library, school, or park, for example,
and have short commutes to work. Local zoning, as it stands now, will not
see these goals realized, even after MBTA Communities re-zoning.
State-interventions to open the zoning gates generally can be grouped into
a few paradigms:
1. *Nudges*. For more than half a century, state leaders have
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/4998-89fb-82964dd3d52d-content/41yzp68/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
called
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/rowth-policy-report---1977-pdf/41yzp6c/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
on municipalities to allow apartments. In the last 25 years, the state has
spent millions helping municipalities create housing production plans
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/ion-plan-eohlc-approved-plans-/41yzp6g/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
and community development plans
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/ddressing-the-housing-shortage/41yzp6k/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>.
Recommendations in plans have often remained vague, e.g., “Consider
allowing multifamily housing by right on Main Street,” and unacted upon.
Nudges have led to gradual, but way insufficient, progress.
2. *Carrots*. The state has offered financial incentives
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/orgs-housing-choice-initiative/41yzp6n/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
for municipalities to upzone, for example with Chapter 40R
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/info-details-chapter-40r/41yzp6r/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>,
which has led to a tiny
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/2025-05-TheUseofCh40R-2018-pdf/41yzp6v/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
uptick
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/ulti-Family-Housing-Report-pdf/41yzp5r/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
in permitting. Under 40R, a city or town voluntarily adopts zoning
districts where multifamily housing is allowed by right. Communities
receive one-time incentive payments when a district is approved, and bonus
payments once building permits are issued. So far, incentives have
motivated small movements.
3. *Performance management*. Under this approach, the state sets
required standards for municipal zoning, but municipalities retain
responsibility to enact the specific zoning rules. Despite rhetoric from
opponents that MBTA Communities was “one size fits all” *state control*,
the approach retained local control over the zoning. The MBTA Communities
local rezoning process has taken several years, cost millions in planning
assistance to municipalities, involved thousands of hearings and meetings,
and resulted in a minor opening of zoning for homes. The result represents
important incremental progress, but nobody is cheering to do it again.
Municipal leaders have other business to attend to.
4. *State permission*. Under this approach, the state either directly
“zones” to allow certain uses and densities of development in certain
locations, or exempts certain structures/uses from municipal zoning
altogether. As an example, the state’s Affordable Homes Act (2024) exempted
some accessory dwelling units
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/tails-accessory-dwelling-units/41yzp6y/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
(ADUs) from local zoning—in effect, directly allowing ADUs by right
statewide.
The main drawback of the first three paradigms is that municipal rezoning
for dense housing is incredibly hard to accomplish. The politics
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/city-council-deborah-crossley-/41yzp72/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
are typically
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/olitics-Americas-dp-1108477275/41yzp75/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
brutal
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/onarybydesign-report-nov-8-pdf/41yzp78/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>,
the process slow, and the outcomes marginal or incremental
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/ulti-Family-Housing-Report-pdf/41yzp5r/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>.
Massachusetts has 351 separate cities and towns. The juice-to-squeeze ratio
is low.
Needless to say, the politics of the state bypassing local zoning, to
bestow regulatory permissions for homebuilding, are also grueling. But,
once done, the issue does not have to be revisited at hundreds of town
meetings and city councils. And a state override of local zoning to allow
housing by special permit should be easier to accomplish than an override
for as-of-right permitting. This reform would support local planning,
discretion, and control; it only shifts the democratic legislative
decision-making to the State House.
This idea would not end the housing shortage. It would not make permitting
of dense housing predictable and easy. It would lead to a small increase in
the number of projects making it to construction. It would add to the
recent incremental accomplishments of MBTA Communities, legalization of
ADUs statewide, and the reform of the zoning vote threshold from
supermajority to majority (for certain zoning changes). Little by little...
***
*California Case Study:* To learn about efforts in California to pass a
state law to directly upzone areas near transit for multifamily housing
*as-of-right*, check out this blog post
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/-medium-ios-triedRedirect-true/41yzp7c/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
by Jeremy Levine: “If passed, SB 79 would automatically change zoning rules
to allow denser housing near train stations and high frequency bus lines,
6-7 stories within a quarter mile of transit and 4-5 stories within a half
mile. Essentially, it sweeps away local barriers to housing in the areas
its supporters believe make the most sense to build.”
*MBTA Communities Update:* The MBTA Communities law
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/quirement-for-mbta-communities/41yzp7g/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
applies to 177 cities and towns. So far, *133 municipalities* have adopted
zoning to comply with the law (or already had compliant zoning). Four
municipalities are now considered non-compliant, having missed a deadline
to comply. The remaining municipalities have not yet reached their
deadlines for compliance; votes are still to come.
There are numerous ways to assess the outcomes of MBTA Communities over
time, but a key metric will be the basic count of homes permitted and built
under MBTA Communities zoning. The Executive Office of Housing and Livable
Communities (EOHLC) is keeping track of projects in the pipeline. EOHLC is
using some judgment about which projects to include, so, for example, not
counting projects that were only allowed by special permit within the
district.
According to EOHLC, so far *18 municipalities* have projects in the
pipeline (or already built) under MBTA Communities zoning. More than 4,000
units are in the pipeline.
*Lexington *has by far the most, with a total of 1,097 units, in 10
projects. Note that this spring, Lexington voted to downzone its MBTA
Communities zoning, reducing the district size and the allowed densities.
Lexington was one of the first municipalities to adopt MBTA Communities
zoning back in 2023, so there has been more time for projects to come
forward than in Ipswich, for example, that just voted to approve new zoning
this spring, 2025. But also, the originally approved districts in Lexington
went beyond the minimum required by state law and covered many properties
that were strong contenders for redevelopment (like large underutilized
commercial properties).
Other communities with significant numbers of units in the pipeline
include *Westford
*(830 units), *Everett *(680 units), *Amesbury* (375 units), *Taunton *(275
units), *Lowell* (252 units), and *Grafton *(233 units). Many of these
units are coming through large projects, as opposed to numerous small
projects.
*Somerville *may be the community with the most projects coming through
under the zoning, having permitted 23 triplex (three-unit) buildings.
Other municipalities on the list include: *Arlington, Bedford, Danvers,
Framingham, Melrose, Newbury, Newton, Norfolk, Quincy,* and *Revere*.
Check out future editions of *Upzone Update* for more details about
individual projects, and for updated numbers.
*ARTICLES AND REPORTS*
A study
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/10511482-2024-2320131-abstract/41yzp7k/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
finds that Chapter *40B is good for social mobility*: “Focusing on
Massachusetts Chapter 40B, we find clear evidence that such policies build
affordable housing in neighborhoods with strikingly greater opportunities
for social mobility than are otherwise available to low- and
moderate-income households. [...] An examination of underlying policy
mechanisms suggests that 40B’s ability to bypass exclusionary zoning plays
a central role in explaining differences in neighborhood characteristics
between 40B and other programs.”
HUD reported
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/files-pdf-2024-AHAR-Part-1-pdf/41yzp7n/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
in December that the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single
night was the highest ever recorded. Boston Indicators released research
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/elessness-point-in-time-update/41yzp7r/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
in January on homelessness in Greater Boston.
*Shira Schoenberg* interviewed *Yoni Appelbaum*, in the Boston Globe
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/onomic-mobility--event-event12/41yzp7v/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>.
He compared *Japan’s approach* to land use regulation with US zoning: “In
Japan, the central government continues to exercise a much stronger role.
It’s created a dozen labels, and communities can apply those labels to
different tracts of land. They can’t invent their own. They can’t layer on
Byzantine rules. Every community in Japan plays with the same tool kit and
applies it as it wants. That’s a much fairer process. It’s also one that
allows builders to operate in different jurisdictions because the rules are
familiar to everyone.”
It is worth taking another look at the report
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/production-commission-download/41yzp7y/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>
of the *Unlocking Housing Production Commission*, released in February. It
makes recommendations for zoning reform, as well as many other reforms. On
zoning: “The Commonwealth should eliminate parking minimums statewide for
any residential use.” And: “The Commonwealth should allow two-family homes
on all residential lots and four-family homes on all residential lots where
there is existing water and sewer infrastructure.” (Note these
recommendations fall in the category of “state permission,” direct
exemption of certain things from zoning. These recommendations are not
nudges, carrots, or performance management, per the above categories.)
*Andrew Mikula* and *Salim Furth* offer many ideas to streamline permitting
of housing, in this Pioneer Institute report
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/608-Permit-Reform-02192025-pdf/41yzp82/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>.
For example, “Allow school impact fees in growing municipalities.”
*Congressman Jake Auchnincloss* talked about housing on the Ezra Klein Show
<https://www2.tbf.org/e/547972/-podcast-jake-auchincloss-html/41yzp85/2343552337/h/u4LckvNMwuOzTJ8Gvk_A88WDEIv8hgIbLIxht1k54FM>:
“Massachusetts has two bases that have been demilitarized, Fort Devens and
Union Point—a tremendous amount of land there that is interstitial to local
zoning regulations. Why don’t we have the big idea of the governor in the
statehouse, either in Massachusetts or in California or another blue state,
starting a new city and saying: We’re actually going to build 200,000 units
of housing here. We’re going to ban cars and develop it so it’s more
organic and walkable. That’s a big idea that I think could arrest some of
the demographic backsliding we’re seeing in these blue states that are
losing population and can’t provide housing affordability to their
populations.”
------------------------------
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