Attorney General Andrea Campbell escalated a state dispute with Milton to Massachusetts’ highest court docket, the place she requested a choose to drive the city to return into compliance with a transit-oriented growth regulation.
Campbell’s lawsuit, filed Tuesday with the Supreme Judicial Court, raises the stakes on what has been voter-backed opposition to a regulation supporters say addresses the state’s crushing housing disaster by permitting extra for housing close to public transit hubs.
The legal professional basic stated the MBTA Communities Act was enacted “to address our region-wide need for housing, and compliance with it is mandatory.” Campbell requested the court docket to order Milton to zone not less than one district for multi-family housing, a transfer that may carry it into line with the regulation.
“The housing affordability crisis affects all of us: families who face impossible choices between food on the table or a roof over their heads, young people who want to live here but are driven away by the cost, and a growing workforce we cannot house,” she stated in a press release.
Milton residents earlier this month voted in opposition to a plan that may have elevated the city’s housing inventory by greater than 2,450 multi-family items, or 25%, close to transit stations. Campbell beforehand teased authorized motion in opposition to Milton after the vote.
Community members began to chart a path ahead after the vote by searching for to reclassify the city away from a “rapid transit community.”
About 177 communities are topic to the regulation, and 12 cities and cities had a deadline of Dec. 31, 2023 to enact a “compliant zoning district.” Milton developed a plan however voted it down in February.
Healey stated each neighborhood must do their half to make housing extra inexpensive.
“I’m grateful to Attorney General Campbell and her team for taking this important step today to enforce compliance with the MBTA Communities Law. This is not just about one community – but about the future of our workforce, our economy, and our entire state,” Healey stated in a press release.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com”