(Illustration by Dsndrn-Videolar via Pixabay)

ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land not far away, a well-meaning town leader found a magic lamp while strolling through her community’s very chaming downtown.

After picking it up and giving it a few good rubs, a genie appeared, offering three wishes. She thought carefully about her town’s needs and values.

“Our strategic housing plan says we need apartments, modest homes, and downsizing options,” the town leader began. “Our adult children can’t afford to stay. Young families and workers can’t move here. Seniors have nowhere to go.

“We value education, but our local community college has serious capital needs,” she continued. “It offers nationally recognized cybersecurity and health sciences programs, but lacks adequate facilities or even a gym for the basketball team.

“We also treasure our open space, our walking trails and our natural beauty.

“So my three wishes would be: Build the types of homes we need, invest in our college, and preserve our green space.”

The genie thought long and hard, and then thumbed through his copy of Massachusetts General Laws.

“Your wish is my command,” he said. “There’s a surplus 5-acre parking lot nearby. It’s ideal for 180 apartments, creating the modest homes and downsizing options you need. We’ll sell it for housing and direct 100 percent of the proceeds to your community college. Housing for your community, funding for the college. Win-win.”

“But what about our green space?” the town leader demanded.

“Have no fear,” said the genie. “Right next to the college, and that parking lot, are 40 acres of forest. We’ll put a conservation restriction on that so it can never be developed.”

The local leader hesitated.

Neighbors gathered around and furrowed their brows, just as they do pretty much every time anyone proposes building anything other than single-family homes.

After careful consideration, she responded: “Maybe we’ll sue you instead.”

I wish I could tell you this is a fairy tale. It’s not. It’s what’s unfolding in Wellesley, and it’s not that different from other situations when communities and leaders with the best of intentions lose their resolve.

In this case, the genie is the Healey administration, which, in trying to address the state’s crippling housing crisis, is exercising its authority under the State Land for Homes program, created through the 2024 Massachusetts Affordable Homes Act, which allows for bypassing local zoning on state property.

Among the identified sites is 45 acres of state land on MassBay Community College’s Wellesley campus, just off Route 9 and not all that far from one of the town’s three commuter rail stations.

The plan calls for up to 180 homes on what has been a lightly used 5-acre parking lot. Proceeds from the land sale would be earmarked for campus improvements. And the state has generously offered to permanently protect the remaining 40 acres as forest under a long-term conservation restriction.

It is difficult to imagine a proposal more closely aligned with town priorities.

Just last year, the town completed a Strategic Housing Plan that (after three well-attended community input meetings, surveys, focus groups, and a deep data dive) found that Wellesley faces an urgent need to provide precisely the type of middle-market, multi-family homes that could be built on the MassBay parking lot.

There were lots of pats on the back at those visioning meetings. Attendees congratulated themselves for putting aside differences, agreeing that creating opportunities for their adult children, young families, and downsizing seniors was a shared value – as was preserving open space.

Yet a happily-ever-after ending has been elusive because, as is all too often the case, the data, lofty goals, and consensus that emerge from comprehensive plans and visioning sessions apparently mean bupkis once a specific solution presents itself.

Sure enough, opposition to the MassBay proposal galvanized quickly. Talk about addressing the needs of future generations faded.

After pushing a false narrative that the state planned to bulldoze the woods in the Brookside area of Wellesley, opponents say they’ve collected 3,300 signatures demanding that the land be remove from the state’s surplus property inventory. Friends of Brookside boasts having more than 700 “Save MassBay Forest” signs on Wellesley lawns.

“There are places where it is appropriate to build housing, and I don’t believe this is one of them,” one opposition leader told the Globe — echoing a sentiment heard in nearly every housing fight, everywhere, every time.

Our chamber and other business groups consistently rank housing as the No. 1 threat to the state’s economic vitality and competitiveness. Employers tell us the lack of modestly priced homes in Greater Boston’s suburbs makes recruiting and retaining talent a grind. Brokers say affordability limits their ability to lure new companies here. The result? We’re losing workers and businesses to North Carolina, Texas, Florida, and New Hampshire, while the same fight playing out in Wellesley repeats itself across the Commonwealth.

Instead of having an earnest discussion with the state about traffic demand management or other valid concerns, Wellesley’s Select Board has lawyered up and appears prepared to choose courtrooms over bedrooms, without articulating which legal argument it will make.

Municipalities that didn’t like the MBTA Communities Act, which requires multifamily zoning in communities with or near MBTA service, have already tested the limits of challenging the state’s authority over housing. That didn’t end well for them. It’s hard to imagine how Wellesley might prevail here either.

But communities and opposition groups know that litigation can stall projects for years. Delay means fewer homes, a tighter housing market, seniors stuck in large homes they struggle to maintain, and another generation priced out. It also risks losing campus improvements and gambles with the forest’s future.

We don’t need to rub magic lamps to solve our problems. We need the courage to act on the values we say we hold.

Greg Reibman is president and CEO of the Charles River Regional Chamber, which serves Wellesley, Newton, Needham and Watertown.