Getting Started
In January 2021, the Massachusetts State Legislature passed a state-wide zoning reform bill, The MBTA Communities Act, that requires all communities with or near transit to zone for multi-family housing. Abundant Housing MA is providing resources for grassroots organizations and local advocates to educate their communities on this fairly new and important law along with tools to help build more multi-family homes in their neighborhoods.
For a deeper dive on understanding the intricacies of this new zoning law, you can refer to Chapa’s compliance guidelines, Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development final compliance guidelines, slide show and frequently asked questions.
Organizing & Messaging Tools
Please click on the photo to access the document. Direct links can also be found below.
Training Videos
Data Training: Using Data to Inform Your Pro-Housing Advocacy
Media Advocacy Training: How to become an effective communicator
MBTA Communities: Next Steps for Advocates towards implementation!
Just Action: How to challenge housing segregation and build people-centered communities
Building a Pro-Housing Super Force in Your Town: Inspiration from Brookline
For messaging targeted to your specific local community, check out how some of our local partners frame the MBTA CA and how it applies to their particular landscape in Newton, Arlington and Brookline.
Members ONLY: How to respond to NIMBY/Anti-Housing concerns and myths. Please email info@abudanthousingma.org for this document.
Research and Supporting Materials
A special thank you to our partner organization, Equitable Arlington, for curating and collecting key materials on zoning and housing.
Videos:
- Urban Institute’s video, Zoning Matters: How Land Use Policies Shape Our Lives, explores how zoning shapes where we can live, work and play.
- Based on Richard Rothstein’s book, Color of Law, the video, Segregated By Design, explains how local, state and federal government housing policy historically led to racial segregation and housing discrimination.
- Vox’s video, How the US made affordable homes illegal, is a good primer on the role of single family zoning in our affordability crisis.
Popular press articles:
“A hundred years of choking housing growth catches up with Massachusetts”, Boston Globe, April 10, 2023
“A Massachusetts town leads a way out of the housing crisis,” Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, April 19, 2023
“In Boston’s brutal rental market, the final insult has arrived: bidding wars”, Boston Globe, June 11, 2023
Research reports:
“Zoned out: Why Massachusetts needs to legalize apartments near transit,” joint report from the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings and Boston Indicators Project at the Boston Foundation, October 21, 2020. This full data-driven research report makes the case for zoning for multifamily housing near transit as a way to address racial and economic segregation, lack of housing supply and untenable housing costs and the climate change consequences of living in car dependent communities.
“The data packed case for how increasing production can help solve the affordable housing crisis in Massachusetts” Housing Forward Massachusetts’ brief, data-driven research report has a valuable section on addressing affordability concerns about the growth of market rate housing supply.
“Waning Influence of housing production on public school enrollment,” Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), October 2017. Suburban housing opponents often bring up the concern about increased school enrollment with new housing production. This data-driven research report demonstrates housing production is not an accurate predictor of school enrollment and that in fact, there has been a well documented decline in school enrollment in many suburban school districts.
Next Steps
This toolkit will continue to evolve as we add more requested resources. Please send your suggestions for other items we can include that would be useful for other pro housing advocates in our statewide network.
Join our movement! Join AHMA as an individual member or as an institutional partner. If you want AHMA to support you in starting a new pro housing group in your town, please reach out to us at info@abundanthousingma.org.
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