Massachusetts Chapter Defends Land Use Reform Act

A recent letter to the editor of the Boston Globe from the president of APA's Massachusetts Chapter supports efforts to revamp the state's zoning enabling law.

Chapter President Thomas Broadrick, AICP, was responding to a January 26, 2003, letter to the editor of the Globe. In that letter, Kevin Sweeney, president of the Home Builders Association of Massachusetts, took to task a Globe article supporting zoning statute reform in the state.

Sweeney wrote in part:

"Though there may well be some political currency attached to changing zoning laws to further limit development, those changes could be at the expense of the Commonwealth's overall economic health.

Instead, state leaders should focus on ensuring that local communities allow the smart growth tools that are already in place to work, creating a universal set of statewide environmental regulations for new developments, creating the infrastructure, and continuing efforts to encourage the development of affordable housing."

Here is Broadrick's January 28, 2003, response:

Zoning Reform Allows Local Smart Growth Efforts to Work

Massachusetts's homebuilders say they want local control of zoning issues to bolster new affordable housing ("Proposed Zoning Laws Will Hurt State," January 26). State leaders looking for ways to ensure that local smart growth efforts encourage affordable housing should embrace the Massachusetts Land Use Reform Act. Provisions of the Act give greater authority to local governments to plan growth and create affordable and diverse housing near existing infrastructure.

In a "home-rule" state like Massachusetts, the responsibility for land planning and the authority to regulate development rests with its cities and towns. At the same time, state laws that set the framework for this local control contain unclear or restrictive provisions that deprive municipalities of the authority consistent with their responsibilities.

Massachusetts was listed by the American Planning Association as one of the states with the most outdated state land-use laws. These old state provisions have often made local planning ineffective, or even discouraged it. Zoning is often created in a vacuum, local plans receive little attention from the courts, and land-use regulation is often unrelated to or even contradictory to the express desires of the community.

Local efforts to build more livable, sustainable, and affordable communities will have little success without significant changes to archaic state zoning statutes. The Land Use Reform Act now before the State Legislature is the most promising vehicle for attaining the results that Massachusetts's homebuilders say they want.

Thomas Broadrick, AICP
President
Massachusetts Chapter of the American Planning Association