I get your skepticism.

Look, I hate development. It bothers me to my core. But you know what? I don't get a choice in the matter! People need places to live. Property owners can do things like build more houses by right. My town has doubled in population in the past 20 or so years. It does not matter if I want the way things were - they are going to change.

My job in town government is to help facilitate that change being a positive one for my community. So in the end I am not anti-development. What I want is development that will improve my town in the process, or at least make it no worse.

A town's character is important. There is a problem that talking about character is often a dog whistle for all sorts of crap. That is not what I mean - I want my town to develop in a way that we can attract a more economically and racially diverse population than we currently have. A town's character is closely tied to things like its collective identity. Towns that lose their collective sense of who they are also lose things like democratic involvement. Also, many people feel it is nice to live somewhere a little unique and special.

I get into more details in other comments I made in this section, but there are strategies municipalities can employ to foster development that is more dense, preserves rural atmosphere, and actually increases the feeling of belonging within the community. It can even be done in ways that are more appealing to developers, rather than less. What the state requires in this legislation does none of that aside from attracting developers.

Changes to things like our water and sewer providers are not easy, politically difficult at best, and possibly an even greater legal challenge. I am not sure it matters, because there are other ways of fostering development than doing what more populous suburbs do.

My town is growing, but the key is that the rate of growth that could be created by this legislation is too much too quickly for my town to absorb. We plan on fairly rapid growth. We cannot effectively plan to add 10% or more to our town population overnight. It is not as simple as needing to raise taxes, because MA places severe limits on how much local taxes can increase. The key here is going to be thoughtful residential development policies balanced with improving commercial and industrial growth.

The way I am frustrated by all of this is that surrounding small towns are being required to take the hit for Boston and nearby cities not developing enough housing to accommodate their business growth. They get the tax boon and leave us with increased demands and costs. They want us to develop the arable land we use to grow the food they eat. To me that is robbing Peter to pay Paul. We need to do our part to meet housing needs, but it feels more than a bit unfair that we are also being asked to pick up the slack for those that have profited from business growth without matching residential growth. If that feeling makes me a NIMBY, then I am no worse than the ones who put us all in this predicament. I know this paragraph is a bit of a diatribe, but unfunded mandates bring that out in many municipal officials.

But yeah, growth is unavoidable. We need to make sure it happens in ways that support communities rather than break them. From what I have seen, this legislation does the latter in many places.