Rehoboth, Mass., is a small South Coast farm town that some locals joke hasn’t changed much since the colonial era. The town itself is one of the oldest in the state – established in 1643.
Bill Cute, Rehoboth’s town moderator and a lifelong resident, explained that it has a “long standing tradition of being proud of its own ability to make its own decisions.” So he wasn’t surprised when in November, the town voted 241 to 186 against a zoning proposal meant to encourage multi-family housing. Even though the vote left the town at-risk of not receiving millions in state funding.
The proposed zoning bylaw would have created a 20-acre district near Spring Street to comply with the MBTA Communities Act, a 2021 state law that requires cities and towns with or near MBTA stations to zone at least one area for multi-family housing. Rehoboth is classified as an “adjacent small town” under the law.
Towns that refuse to comply risk being “rendered ineligible for certain forms of state funding,” according to Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell. That could include funding from the state for infrastructure and housing projects. Towns could also face legal consequences.
The law was enacted in response to a severe housing crisis in Massachusetts, where home prices and rents are among the highest in the country.
“Greater Boston and eastern Massachusetts have had a housing shortage for decades that’s been caused largely by tight zoning rules that don’t allow for enough housing to be built to meet demand for housing,” said Amy Dain, a senior fellow and land policy researcher at Boston Indicators at the Boston Foundation. “The state came up with those (zoning) regulations and said that 177 cities and towns in Greater Boston served by the MBTA, need to come into compliance with this. And they set various deadlines for different types of communities.”
Rehoboth’s deadline to comply is Dec. 31, which Cute says it is unlikely to meet after voters’ rejected the proposed district. The town’s Board of Selectmen – the members of which declined requests for an interview – said in a written statement that “Rehoboth is continuing to work towards compliance and has every intention on being compliant with Sections 3A of the Zoning Act,” another name for the MBTA Communities Act.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (HLC) is the state agency in charge of implementing and handling MBTA Act compliance and consequences. Ed Augustus, HLC secretary, said in an emailed statement that about 90% of the communities covered under the MBTA Communities Act have passed new zoning. Officials say that has helped speed some 6,000 new housing units into the pipeline.
“HLC continues to work with noncompliant MBTA Communities toward eventual compliance, including meeting, reviewing pre-adoption plans and providing other support where appropriate,” Augustus wrote.
Augustus’s statement did not respond to questions about possible consequences for Rehoboth.
The town’s board of selectmen asked attorney Jason Talerman to explain the law to Rehoboth voters in the months leading up to the town’s special meeting on the matter. He declined multiple requests for an interview. The roughly dozen residents who provided public comment during the Special Town Meeting where the vote was decided also refused interview requests.
Rebecca Smith, president of the Rehoboth Antiquarian Society, said she went into the meeting intending to vote “no,” but when she weighed the consequences she reluctantly changed her mind.
“I ended up voting in favor of the proposal, holding my nose, because there are so many sticks associated, and very few carrots,” Smith said.
Smith was adamant that her views were her own and not representative of those of the Antiquarian Society. She said that the MBTA Act goes against a longstanding tradition of New England towns’ right to “home rule.”
“I think that it’s a characteristic of New England towns, from their inception, that they make their own rules about things. In the colonial period if you wanted to move in you had to be accepted as a townsman,” Smith said. “The legislature in Boston often seems to lack understanding of areas of Massachusetts outside Boston.”
Smith explained that despite her Yes vote, she still is no fan of the MBTA Act. She’s concerned it poses several environmental and resource-management risks. She says a sudden increase in Rehoboth’s population could overwhelm the education system, police and fire service and cause competition over water.
“It’s all tapping into the same aquifers and groundwater. Even in New England, water is not an infinite resource,” Smith said. “When people are crowded together, water has to come from somewhere, and then the waste has to go somewhere.”
Smith said that although she isn’t unhappy the proposal was defeated, she’s still uneasy about whatever comes next for Rehoboth.
“I don’t really know whether it would have been better if the vote had gone the other way or not,” Smith said. “I don’t know how things will go.”
Rehoboth is still waiting to learn what exactly its consequences will be. Town Moderator Bill Cute says he doesn’t know “what the future portends in that area.” And he isn’t sure how much or what kind of state funding could be on the chopping block.
“It could be very uncomfortable that we haven’t heard anything from the state yet,” Cute said in early December. “Obviously, it’s just been a couple of weeks since the town meeting. But we’re going to have to be prepared to hear some news down the line that maybe we don’t want to hear.”
