A Flurry of Housing Activity as the Massachusetts Legislative Session Nears Its End
- Jonathan Berk
- Jul 16
- 8 min read
As the Massachusetts Legislature races toward the end of its session later this month, a flurry of housing policy proposals is moving through Beacon Hill. Here's a quick rundown of what's happening.
On July 9, Governor Healey signed the FY2027 budget (Chapter 137 of the Acts of 2026). Buried within it was the most significant overhaul of the Massachusetts Zoning Act in years. Because the legislation included an emergency preamble, the changes took effect immediately. Taken together, they send a clear signal: reduce discretionary barriers, streamline approvals, and make it easier to build housing.
The House and Senate have also each released their own versions of an Economic Development bond bill that incorporates a number of substantial housing policy changes, many pulled from existing house and senate bills.
Reforms In FY27 Budget (Signed July 9, 2026)
Variances Now Weigh The Public Need For Housing
The old variance standard was one of the strictest in the country. You had to prove a "substantial hardship" from the soil, shape, or topography of your specific lot. Now a board must grant a variance where strict enforcement would cause a "practical difficulty," weighing the benefits to the applicant and the public, explicitly including "the interest in supporting the production of housing," against detriment to neighborhood health and safety.
Importantly, housing production is now an affirmative reason to say yes, not just the absence of a reason to say no. The hardship needed is only financial, it no longer has to be unique to the parcel, residential use variances are now allowed where the use was barred, and approvals last two years instead of one.
Nonconforming Property Treatment
The old process was a chokepoint. To extend or alter a pre-existing nonconforming property, an applicant had to secure a "finding" from the local board that the change would not be "substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood" than what already existed. That meant a hearing, a discretionary vote, and all the delay, cost, and uncertainty that come with putting a routine project in front of a board that could say no. For a huge share of ordinary residential work, an addition on an undersized lot, a dormer on a house too close to a line, that finding was the whole ballgame. This also presented problems for anyone considering adding a 'protected use' ADU to their property as typically greater than 75% of all lots in most communities are existing non-conforming.
Two things change. First, the protection now expressly covers alterations to a nonconforming structure, not just a nonconforming use. Second, and more consequentially, nonconforming residential uses that fail to conform only because of lot size, shape, frontage, lot coverage, or floor-area-ratio requirements no longer need that discretionary finding at all, provided the proposed work complies with height, story, and setback rules. In other words, if you're building within the bulk limits that actually shape a neighbor's experience of a project, you're no longer at the mercy of a board hearing to fix a paper nonconformity on the lot beneath you. A whole category of common residential projects moves from "discretionary" to "by right."
Hearing notices go electronic
A smaller fix: municipalities can now send required abutter and hearing notices electronically instead of only by mail, an overdue nod to how today's world actually works.
Every one of these changes attacks the same problem: the discretionary chokepoints where housing gets slowed, shrunk, or stopped. The big open question is how much weight boards give that new housing factor when a project meets neighborhood opposition, something that will get worked out board by board, and eventually in courts as these new standards are put to the test in communities across the Commonwealth. But the direction is clear. For the first time, the public interest in building homes is something local boards are required to weigh, not free to ignore.
House Version of Economic Development Bill
(Heading to Conference Committee- not settled law yet)
Yes In God's Backyard (YIGBY): The bill would let religious institutions build housing on their own land without fighting for it. Any lot owned by a religious sect or denomination for at least three years could host multifamily housing as of right, no special permit or other discretionary approval, and no municipal standards stricter than state law.
Projects could reach 30 units per acre with 20% of units affordable at 80% AMI, or up to 50 units per acre with deeper affordability, at heights up to four stories or 45 feet.
Parking requirements are waived within a half-mile of transit and capped at one space per unit elsewhere.
Site Plan Review Reform: This one attacks a quieter but pervasive problem and aims to put guardrails on what can become an unwieldy process. Site plan review, defined in Rep. Kristin Kassner's An Act Facilitating Site Plan Review, the source of this language, as the process establishing "criteria for the layout, safety, and impacts of a proposed use or development," is nominally a check on how a project sits on its lot. In practice it has become a discretionary veto that boards use to delay or downsize housing that's otherwise allowed by right. The bill puts guardrails on it.
Nearly every community has site plan review in some capacity, all governed on local rules and some case law with no codification of the process in State law. The core move here is an attempt to make the process a bit more predictable in advance. Performance standards would have to be "reasonably definite and objective so that any petitioner has knowledge of such standards prior to application submittal," no more inventing objections mid-review. Standards governing the aesthetics of structures would be flatly prohibited, and boards could not mandate specific building materials or impose bulk-and-height rules stricter than the bylaw's own dimensional limits. Conditions would be limited to those necessary and proportionate to a project's actual impacts, with off-site conditions confined to direct, proportionate effects on adjacent properties and roads.
The reform also puts the process on a clock and narrows the exits. Decisions on as-of-right uses would need only a simple-majority vote within 90 days, and failure to act in that window would be deemed an approval. A project could be denied on just two grounds: that it doesn't meet the bylaw's specific requirements, or that the applicant failed to submit the required information and fees. Municipalities could even designate a building commissioner or planning director to run routine projects through administrative review with no board vote at all, and approvals would last a minimum of three years.
Just as we saw in the change to variance language, this takes a step that had drifted into a discretionary chokepoint and make it predictable, objective, and time-bound to bring just a bit more predictability and flexibility to the discretionary review process.
Commercial to Residential Conversions: Gives cities and towns a local option to adopt as-of-right zoning allowing commercial buildings and lots to be converted to housing, through adaptive reuse, new multifamily, or mixed-use development, on every commercially-zoned lot. To make conversions feasible, the zoning would let existing setbacks remain as legal nonconformities, allow footprint expansion for code and utility upgrades, and let already over-height buildings keep their height, while capping residential parking at one space per unit and eliminating it entirely within a half-mile of transit.
Towns could require affordability on up to 10% of units at 80% AMI, and projects would need to meet only the base energy code rather than the stretch codes. Municipalities could also establish a streamlined single-application process to the zoning board of appeals in lieu of separate filings to multiple local boards.
Senate Version of Economic Development Bill
(Heading to Conference Committee- not settled law yet)
Statewide Duplex Legalization: This is big! No zoning ordinance could prohibit, unreasonably restrict, or require a special permit for a duplex on any lot zoned for residential use. Towns couldn't regulate duplexes more strictly than single-family homes, couldn't cap their height below three stories, and couldn't impose rules that, individually or cumulatively, make a duplex physically or financially infeasible. Notably, any local rule stricter than state minimums would be "presumed unreasonable unless it addresses a specific, articulable concern that cannot be addressed by less restrictive means," a real burden-shift onto municipalities. Reasonable site plan review, setbacks, bulk/height rules, and Title 5 still apply.
This section incorporates, but does not go as far as, the Yes In My Backyard Bill, supported by Abundant Housing Massachusetts and sponsored by Senator Brendan Crighton in the Senate (with a companion version sponsored by Rep. Andy Vargas in the House) which would allow up to 5-units on any lot statewide with water and sewer access.
Site plan review reform: The same overhaul we just went through from Rep. Kassner's bill, objective, "reasonably definite" performance standards, no aesthetic regulation, a 90-day clock with constructive approval, narrow denial grounds, and an administrative-review option. The Senate folded it into this bill nearly verbatim as it heads to conference committee.
Preferential treatment for pro-housing communities: The bill directs state agencies running discretionary and competitive grant programs to give a preference to municipalities whose zoning encourages housing, for example, as-of-right multifamily capacity, elimination of residential parking minimums, and elimination of restrictive lot-size requirements. It's a funding carrot tying state dollars to pro-housing zoning, and it lets multi-town partnerships qualify only if every member meets the bar.
Commercial conversion / adaptive reuse: A local-option tool very similar to the House's version, a city or town could adopt as-of-right zoning allowing conversion of commercial buildings to multifamily or mixed-use on every commercially-zoned lot, in exchange for offering at least one adaptive-reuse incentive. It smooths the physical barriers, letting existing setbacks stay as lawful nonconformities, allowing footprint expansion for code and utility upgrades, and permitting existing over-height structures to keep their height.
Parking is capped at one space per unit, and zero within a half-mile of transit. Inclusionary requirements are limited to 10% of units at 80% AMI (with state discretion to go higher), and projects need only meet the base energy code, not the stretch codes. Towns can also set up a streamlined single-application process to the ZBA with a 60-day constructive approval.
What's Next for The House and Senate Economic Development Bills?
Well, a mid-summer of late nights and lots of negotiations. Next, the Senate takes it's version to the floor for debate next Thursday, amendments, and an engrossment vote; because the two chambers' versions differ, the bill then goes to a six-member conference committee to negotiate a single compromise text, which both chambers must approve up-or-down before enactment votes send it to Governor Healey. There are a number of other housing bills that did not make the final cut that advocates will be scrambling to try and incorporate into this final bill over the coming weeks. This is an improvement over housing action from the legislature in prior session but still not where the Commonwealth needs to be in terms of the levels of reform to actually unlock the scale of housing production necessary.
Formal sessions end July 31, roughly two weeks out, and since this is a bond bill needing roll-call votes that can't easily pass in informal session, much of this work must happen over the next 2-weeks but new legislative rules give some flexibility to push beyond the July 31 deadline.
Jonathan Berk, the founder of re:MAIN is an urban planning and housing policy professional, attorney, and nonprofit leader with more than a decade of experience advancing housing, land use, and economic development initiatives through partnerships between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. His work focuses on addressing barriers to housing production and community investment, including zoning, permitting, and financing challenges. He has worked with local governments, developers, nonprofits, and advocates to advance practical policy reforms and implementation strategies. Jonathan is also a frequent writer and speaker on housing and land use policy.
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