MA: Mass. AG sues 9 towns for not following MBTA Communities housing law

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell is suing nine towns for failing to follow a 2021 law intended to increase the housing supply near public transit.

Campbell’s office filed the lawsuit Thursday against the towns of Dracut, East Bridgewater, Halifax, Holden, Marblehead, Middleton, Tewksbury, Wilmington and Winthrop, some of the last remaining municipalities that have not followed the MBTA Communities Act. The attorney general told reporters Thursday afternoon that the law was a key part of addressing Massachusetts’ housing affordability crisis.

“Stable housing is not a luxury. It’s an essential need,” she said. “Housing goes beyond where we live. It allows one to build generational wealth. It ensures families can remain rooted in their community. It allows businesses to grow and create more jobs and sustains the future of our incredible state.”

The MBTA Communities Act, passed in 2021, requires cities and towns served by the MBTA to have at least one zoning district where multifamily housing is allowed by right. Its goal is to make it easier for developers to create new housing, relieving pressure on the expensive local housing market.

As of Thursday, 12 communities — the nine named in the lawsuit along with Freetown, Carver and Rehoboth — were still considered noncompliant by the state.

Campbell said Thursday that she did not include the other three towns in the suit because unlike the nine defendants, which had a deadline of July 14, 2025 to pass compliant zoning, their final deadline was Dec. 31, 2025, and she wanted to give them more time. She noted that Freetown was supposed to hold a Town Meeting to vote on zoning on Jan. 26, but it was delayed to Feb. 2 due to the recent snowstorm.

All nine towns named in the suit have voted at least once on zoning proposals meant to satisfy the law’s requirements, but have been unsuccessful in passing them. In Marblehead, zoning actually passed Town Meeting in May 2025, but was overturned two months later by a referendum ballot vote.

Cities and towns that do not follow the MBTA Communities Act are also ineligible for many state grants and funding opportunities.

Campbell previously sued the town of Milton in early 2024 after voters there overturned its new zoning districts in a town-wide referendum. In January 2025, the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the law was mandatory for the 177 communities that fall under its purview and that the attorney general’s office had the authority to enforce it.

Milton has since passed new zoning districts and been deemed compliant by the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.

“When local communities refuse to allow new housing, housing prices everywhere across the commonwealth increase. They thwart a family’s ability to access all the benefits that stable housing provides,” Campbell said.

She emphasized that her office still wants to work with towns to come into compliance, and said that if any of the defendants do so, “Our lawsuit goes away.”

The complaint, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, asks the court to declare the towns noncompliant, affirm that they must amend their zoning and award “injunctive relief reasonably tailored to achieve each Town’s compliance.”

It was not immediately clear what that relief could look like. When asked for more details, Campbell would say only that the goal of the suit was to force the towns to recognize their responsibilities under the law.

“The lawsuit is essentially the hammer,” she said. “We know it’s a tool that works, and we have to make it crystal clear to these communities ... it’s not an option.”

Earlier this week, a report by Boston Indicators found that nearly 7,000 new homes have been built or planned in MBTA Communities zoning districts around the region. The researchers wrote that that made the legislation one of the most effective for housing production in decades, but it was still far from enough to meet the significant demand for housing in Massachusetts.

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