MBTA Communities Law & Needham's Multi-family Zoning

Thursday Feb. 13, 2025 - Hearing on Base Compliance Plan zoning for May Annual Town Meeting 2025

Please join the Planning Board for a public hearing on the Base Compliance Plan zoning on Thursday February 13, 2025. The hearing will begin at 7:00 p.m. and will be held in the Performance Center of the Broadmeadow School, 120 Broadmeadow Rd, Needham, and by Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88046725264

The packet for the meeting can be accessed here: https://www.needhamma.gov/Archive.aspx?ADID=13500

Final Zoning Articles for October 21, 2024 Special Town Meeting:

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To provide comments and feedback on the Town's multi-family zoning initiative, please email planning@needhamma.gov

Overview

The MBTA Communities Law was passed in January, 2021. It applies to all cities and towns (excluding Boston) that have or are adjacent to communities that have MBTA transit stops. The MBTA Communities law requires 177 municipalities in the Greater Boston area to confirm that they have a zoning district of reasonable size where multi-family housing (3+ units) is zoned for by-right. Needham does not currently comply with the law and the Town's zoning must be revised to meet the new requirements. In order to remain in compliance Needham must adopt compliant zoning by December 31, 2024.

The law addresses Massachusetts' housing shortage by requiring all MBTA Communities to change zoning regulations around their local transit stations to allow multifamily housing by-right. The law's statute outlines three critical components to the zoning changes:

Minimum gross density of 15 units per acre
Located not more than 0.5 miles from a commuter rail station, subway station, or ferry terminal, if applicable
No age restrictions and suitable for families with children

On August 10, 2022 the DHCD provided the final guidelines MBTA Communities must follow in order to be in compliance with the law. Attorney General, Andrea Campbell, followed up on this on March 15, 2023 with an advisory that further details the final guidelines and consequences of not abiding by the new law. Needham is considered a "Commuter Rail" community and the final guidelines require the following:

Community	Community category	2020 Housing Units	Minimum multi-family unit capacity*	Minimum land area**	Developable station area***	% of district to be located in station area
Needham	Commuter Rail	11,891	1,784	50	1,223	90%

* Minimum multi-family unit capacity for most communities will be based on the 2020 housing stock and the applicable percentage for that municipality's community type. In some cases, the minimum unit capacity is derived from an extrapolation of the required minimum land area multiplied by the statutory minimum gross density of 15 dwelling units per acre. In cases where the required unit capacity from these two methods would exceed 25% of the community's housing stock, the required unit capacity has instead been capped at that 25% level.

** Minimum land area is 50 acres for all communities in the rapid transit, commuter rail and adjacent community types. There is no minimum land area requirement for adjacent small towns. Where 50 acres exceeds 1.5% of the developable land area in a town, a cap has been instituted that sets minimum land area to 1.5% of developable land area in the town.

*** Developable station area is derived by taking the area of a half-mile circle around an MBTA commuter rail station, rapid transit station, or ferry terminal and removing any areas comprised of excluded land.

Compliance Model

In order to determine whether MBTA Communities are in compliance with the new law, the state has created a compliance model. Cities and towns can enter zoning plans into the model to get a rough estimate of how many units per acre their proposed zoning would generate, as well as determine whether units are within a 0.5 mile radius to a transit stop among other components of the law.

Timeline

2021

Appendix 7 from the Town's 2021 Housing Plan acted as a starting off point for Needham's multi-family zoning efforts. You may review it here.

2023 Needham has met the requirements for interim compliance, including the submission and approval of an Action Plan in January 2023 and received a Determination of Interim Compliance Letter from DHCD.

The Housing Needham (HONE) Advisory Group was established jointly by the Select Board and Planning Board in 2023. The group led the community engagement process to create multi-family zoning that complies with the MBTA Communities Act (MGL c.40A Section 3A). The group will advise the Select Board and Planning Board on proposed zoning to bring to Town Meeting in 2024, informed by their individual expertise, group deliberations, and feedback received from the public.

From September 2023 through April 2024 , HONE worked on zoning proposals to comply with the MBTA Communities Act.

2024

Draft from Consultants as of April 30, 2024 - sent to Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC) for review

Pre-adoption Review Comments from Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities as of July 25, 2024

Needham Pre-adoption Review Feedback 07252024

MBTA Communities Traffic Impact Analysis and Appendices

The Planning Board Hearing on Multi-family Zoning will be held on Thursday, September 5, 2024 at 7 pm at Broadmeadow School performance center.