The MBTA Communities law was, by most accounts, an earnest swing at using state power to spur more housing in cities and towns served by the MBTA system. But at the nation’s largest pro-housing conference, there was some decided ambivalence about whether the Massachusetts approach has worked out as hoped. 

Organizations that spent the past four years boosting and working to implement the law told their peers in other states that the tailored town-by-town approach is complicated, inefficient, and ultimately not enough to address a severe housing crunch. While MBTA Communities tried to accommodate a tradition of local control and sense of community ownership, they said, it created too much room for foot dragging and resistance.  

Advocates said the shortcomings of the 2021 housing law argue for more muscular state zoning reform that leads to substantial new construction and limits cities’ and towns’ ability to flout state mandates.  

Legislative appetite for strengthening the housing law, however, is minimal.   

“I think MBTA Communities was really optimistic, in that we thought local communities would want to control their own zoning, and they’d go through these processes in good faith,” said Will Rhatigan, MBTA Communities engagement manager for the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, a non-profit housing advocacy organization, at a panel at the national YIMBYtown 2025 conference this week. “And many of them did, but it took so much effort, so much time, that I don’t think we could realistically do it again for any other zoning reform. We’ve eaten up that political capital.”

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Published by MassINC