Yeah, I do not know if the large scale septic systems can support the required 15 units/acre. If they can that is one problem solved at the potential cost of creating others.

I have no problems with developers struggling to make a buck on their developments. I do not begrudge them anything, but it falls squarely in the realm of "not my problem" unless the state says otherwise. I do worry that the state might actually say it is our problem, but this is all something for lawyers to figure out. Law is complex, and they are the ones who can find the most likely answers.

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.

This is interesting. Thank you for sharing! I skimmed the WBUR article but have not had the time to drive into the study it cites. I plan to do that. If the study matched the conditions in my town, and if our own budget can verify this is true with some drilling, then it changes some aspects of the equation for development in general.

Thanks again!

I apologize, but I really do not want to get into the exact town I live in. I do not mean to be rude or stifle discussion, but I am a volunteer elected official in my town. Many people in this post seem to have a lot of vitriol on this topic. I am not comfortable doxxing myself at that level. I have shared more than I normally might in this circumstance because I feel that the discussion is important for all of us to be having.

I can get into the rezoning in a general sense, though. A major part of this legislation that gets glossed over is that the town cannot simply create a zone that is not feasible to be developed as intended. What does this mean? This is a good question, and my limited understanding is the lawyers from several municipalities are trying to figure that out.

In terms of water and sewer alone, my town cannot support this level of development. We literally cannot just choose to spend money and increase our capacity. The public water and sewer services in my town are separate entities from the town government. This is more common than people might realize in Massachusetts, though it is not the way the majority of municipalities are structured. Even if our sewer commission was willing to increase services, which they might be willing to do, they lease capacity from one or more adjacent municipalities since we do not have the density and demand to support a treatment plant. These municipalities are not looking to lease us more of their limited supply. Could this legislation force us to build a sewer processing plant for several million dollars that can only be used by a comparatively small number of people? It may. Again, the full repercussions are not yet known because the legislation is not as clear as it might seem.

In addition, the increased housing as specified by this legislation could cause a double-digit percentage increase to our town's population. Our school, fire, and police services are at capacity. Our budget is tight enough that our debt needs are planned out and maxed for many years in future. We cannot add capacity without new infrastructure.

Again, I am sorry that I cannot just come out and get into the exact name and previous details of my town. My desire to have my town email account flooded or my wife and kids harassed is pretty huge. I am not a politician and public figure in the way we think of them. I am a guy who was elected into his town government because he is one of the few willing to do the volunteer work to keep his town running. I have boundaries. I would share more if I could.

One of the tricky parts of this legislation is that the areas zoned for dense residential development must actually be developable as such. That makes sense from a legislative view, because otherwise every town would pick 50 acres of wetland and call it a day. Does this mean the town must have infrastructure that can support the development? My understanding is that this is not clear cut, and towns may well need to improve infrastructure to support the potential development. I think there are lawyers from several municipalities looking at this to gain a more clear understanding. My town does not control its own water and sewer districts, so this is not as simple as people might think. We are not unique in this.

In my town, we could be looking at a double-digit percentage increase in our population. Beyond the water and sewer we do not control, our school, fire and police departments are at capacity. Right budgets mean that our long term debt management is planned out carefully for many years based on upcoming needs, and there is not room for additional projects like new school buildings.

I really wish it was as simple as it at first appears. If it was, I would personally have no problem with the legislation.

Why not ask instead of being accusatory? My wife works for a company in Boston, though she is not expected to be in the office every day. Her commute is so far that when her company effectively put in a "maximum commute distance" she had to get grandfathered in. Her co-workers do not understand how she commutes the distance she does, and they marvel at how different our lives are compared to theirs in Boston, the cities surrounding, or Metro West.

Do some others from our community make the same commute? Yes. Is it what most people - the gross majority - consider reasonable? No. We know the lifestyle we value for our family and the career my wife loves, and we chose to make specific sacrifices to have that.

You might be interested to know that is generally not the case. I mean they do bring in more revenue, but working-age residents generally cost a municipality more than those residents bring in with taxes. Increasing residential population without growth in commercial and/or industrial sectors ruins a town's budget and ability to meet the needs of its residents.

Instead of being aggressive, why don't we just talk so I can answer your questions? My comment was already long. How many details do you want me to write for a discussion on Reddit when I do not even know if anyone will read my comment?

I have what others call a large flock of chickens for a typical family that, "has chickens," even in my community. I am a registered chicken farm with MDAR and can legally transport and sell my birds across the state. If we want to get technical, I let that certification lapse while I was fighting cancer this past year, but we will be renewing our registration this year. We are not a four-hen operation that makes some of the eggs my family eats. We are not a commercial enterprise in any meaningful sense, but what we do is real agriculture. I am not all that unique for my community.

The farm I live next to is maybe a hundred acres with more locations across the town. They sell food not only locally, but also in several more metropolitan municipalities. There are other farms similar to this in town for both animal products and produce.

Sewer is only economical on a certain scale and density. That is why the more densely developed parts of my town that are adjacent to more urban neighboring municipalities can support sewer lines. We do not have enough sewer use to afford our own treatment plant. Our sewer commission leases capacity from our neighbors. My understanding is that they are unable or unwilling to lease us more.

I am not against increasing housing in the state. My town needs to be a part of that solution. I am against this specific law that seems to view the housing challenge in every town as a nail because they happen to have already built a legislative hammer.

We could also get into unfunded mandates and how Boston rakes in taxes from businesses while leaving us to build revenue-negative housing to support their municipal economy. Development can be thoughtful. I get into some of my ideas in another reply to my original comment. If you want to discuss, I am open to listening and responding.

Some parts of my town, those closer to more populous and densely developed neighboring municipalities, have sewer because an independent sewer commission exists that leases capacity from those neighbors. It is a great thing that allows us some more urban benefits while remaining rural. We do not have the ability to increase sewer capacity.

I am glad you asked! This is a good question and worth diving into.

We absolutely need development. I would love for things to stay how they are, but that is not in the cards. Residential development is generally a drain on a town's finances, not a benefit. In general, residents use more resources than they contribute as taxes. This is less true for retired residents and more true for families.

Like most any town, we need to attract business. Not only do our residents need places to eat, shop, and work, but businesses are generally a net positive for a town's bottom line. In the long run, my town needs to evaluate its commercial and industrial zoning, see if it should be increased in some places (I think it should), and see if we need to improve infrastructure in some places to foster better growth (again, I think we should).

I am also not opposed to increased residential development. I am not even against density that is higher than typical in my town in specific circumstances. But again, this development should be thoughtful. We are a rural town where agriculture is a significant industry - we have several farms that sell their produce and animal products in the more metropolitan parts of the state in addition to feeding our own residents. We are also fortunate to still have forests and wild land that should be protected. Creating more one-acre rural-suburban parcels is not really going to help us, though owners can generally choose to do that by right.

One example of residential development I am in favor of involves building smaller micro communities that are fairly dense and also require the developer to put aside adjacent land to be preserved as conservation land or leased for agricultural use. There are names for this type of development, but they escape me. This style still allows land owners to create as much development as they could before, but with less environmental impact. It is cheaper for the builders to build less blacktop, rain gardens, etc., so they are incentivized to build this way as well. The micro communities that have been built like this in other places also show greater camaraderie between neighbors that we typically see in standard suburban sprawl, which is another benefit. But allowing agricultural leasing of the land, we can also support our tax base and lose less arable land - a resource we will never get back once spent. We do not need to build additional sewer or water lines to support this development, which my town government cannot simply choose to do. Finally, building this way can help the town keep its character. We could debate whether character is important or not, but my constituents have an opinion that it is.

What the state requires, at I believe 15 units per acre, does not exist in my town if memory serves. We have one development that approaches that, but it is in one of the few locations that could reasonably support such development. We do not control our own water and sewer systems - they are independent municipal entities with their own elected officials. Both are at capacity. Our available locations for new large scale wells in town are limited, and the town we effectively lease sewer processing capacity from is selling us all that they are willing to sell us.

The housing crisis in this state is real, but the biggest origin for these problems lies squarely in Boston's lap. They are raking in the business taxes while sticking us with the residential bills. I am not a fan of unfunded mandates from the state, and that goes doubly true when the mandates do not account for the wide varieties of communities that they are laid upon. One-size-fits-all is simply not true.

I could get into the importance of food security and hope the pandemic gave us great examples of why we need local agriculture, but I have probably written enough. Thank you for your time!

I have a role in my town government, and I follow state and Boston developments. I understand the deep need for housing - there is a real crisis. That said, my town is a rural farming community. I literally live next to a vegetable and fruit farm, I raise my own chickens, and we have close to zero restrictions on keeping livestock on your property so long as you are doing normal agricultural things with them. There is no way we can support that level of dense development. It is not within our infrastructural capabilities.

This is a law that was drafted yet again with an eye on Boston, its suburbs, and Metro West. Then it gets applied to much smaller towns that happen to be adjacent to a different town with a far-flung commuter rail station. This is not about being a NIMBY for us. We do not even have the water and sewer capabilities to host such dense development. Most of us are on septic and have wells. The limited sewer and water runs we do have are not even controlled by the town, and they are at capacity.

Smart development? Yes, please! Thoughtful ways to increase the amount of housing that is affordable? I will champion that cause in my local government. Urban density development in the land of cows, vegetable fields, and sugar bushes? Our water, sewer, and schools cannot soak that kind of increase.

I am used to being ignored by Boston. I have lived in western or central Massachusetts for my entire life. I can tolerate having our needs ignored by a city that has not done enough to support itself. It is unfortunate, and frankly inappropriate, that we must now share the exact same burden for fixing Boston's housing crisis that its immediate urban neighbors do.