South Shore News | Ballot Question Series, Week 7 of 9
This is the seventh in a nine part series looking at each of the ballot questions coming to Massachusetts voters in November.
Please take the poll in the middle of the article.
Question 7 is usually argued as local control versus the housing crisis. On the South Shore, a more practical question decides where it would apply at all: where do the sewer pipes run?
The measure would bar cities and towns from blocking a single-family home on a residentially zoned lot of at least 5,000 square feet with 50 feet of street frontage, but only if the lot “has access to public sewer service and public water service.” Without public sewer, nothing changes.
Much of this region runs on septic systems. State environmental maps show almost no public sewer in Norwell, Hanover, Hanson, Halifax, Pembroke, Plympton, Carver, or West Bridgewater, about 1 to 2 percent of each town’s land, mostly private systems serving a single condominium complex or shopping center. Duxbury is about 2 percent sewered. East Bridgewater just recently expanded sewer access as explored in this article. Question 7 would barely touch these towns.
At the other end, the state estimates that 90 percent or more of Weymouth, Braintree, Abington, Randolph, Holbrook, Brockton, Hull and Whitman is served by public sewer, and about 80 percent of Rockland. In those communities, Question 7 could reach most existing neighborhoods, though not necessarily the undeveloped land, which is where sewer lines are least likely to run. How much it would actually change depends on something else: how far each town’s current rules sit above 5,000 square feet, and how much land is big enough to divide.
For two of those towns, South Shore News has checked. Rockland requires 32,670 square feet, three-quarters of an acre, for a house in every residential district. Whitman requires 10,000 to 22,500. Question 7 would lower both to 5,000 wherever its tests are met.
Tufts University’s Center for State Policy Analysis made the statewide version of this point in its voter guide. It expects the biggest effects in “Boston-area suburbs that already have broad sewer infrastructure and lots that are large enough to split.” What follows applies that finding to this region, as far as public data allows.
What it would do
Question 7 adds one paragraph to Section 3 of the state Zoning Act, the section that already shields certain uses, such as schools, religious buildings and child care, from local prohibition. The new paragraph says no zoning ordinance or bylaw “shall prohibit, unreasonably restrict or require a special permit or other discretionary zoning approval” for a single-family home in a district that allows housing, if the lot meets three tests:
at least 5,000 square feet
at least 50 feet of frontage on a street or public way
access to public sewer and public water
Towns keep the power to apply “reasonable regulations, including, but not limited to, regulations concerning dimensional setbacks and the bulk and height of structures,” and to restrict short-term rentals. The attorney general’s summary also names open space and parking. The state’s housing office, the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, may issue guidelines or regulations. The measure contains no affordability requirement and no cap on house size.
It would take effect 30 days after the election, on Dec. 3. It does not apply in Boston, which has its own zoning law.
The numbers have a precedent. Section 6 of the Zoning Act already uses 5,000 square feet and 50 feet of frontage as the floor for protecting older, undersized lots. Question 7 takes that floor and makes it a right for any qualifying lot.
What the text leaves open. It does not define “access” to sewer: whether a line in the street is enough, or whether the lot must already be connected. It does not say whether a privately owned treatment plant counts as “public.” It does not say when a local rule becomes “unreasonable.” Tufts flags the first point, saying a fuller framework should address “whether it suffices for water and sewer service to be available at an adjacent parcel.” The Legislature’s committee report says opponents cited “a lack of implementation guidance.”
Lot splitting. The ballot summary never mentions it, but in Tufts’ reading, “part of the power of this ballot question is that it changes the rules for dividing lots, allowing multiple houses on a single parcel so long as each meets the space, street adjacency, water, and sewer requirements.” In principle, a sewered Rockland lot with 10,000 square feet and 100 feet of road frontage, today too small for even one new house under the town’s 32,670-square-foot rule, could be divided into two. Dividing larger parcels still means new frontage, which usually means a new road and approval under the state’s Subdivision Control Law. Question 7 does not amend that law.
The case for it
The problem Question 7 targets is not in dispute. The Legislature’s own committee, recommending against the petition, wrote that it “supports the overarching goal of expanding housing opportunities and acknowledges the need for bold and effective responses to the Commonwealth’s housing shortage.” It cited the testimony it heard and the fact that lawmakers cannot amend a ballot petition. The Healey administration has set a goal of 222,000 new homes between 2025 and 2035. Andrew Mikula, the campaign’s chairman, told NBC Boston that, according to Boston Indicators, the income needed to buy an entry-level home in the Boston region is $162,000 a year.
Large minimum lots are among the clearest drivers of scarcity. The National Zoning Atlas reports that in Massachusetts, “more than half of single-family land has at least a 40,000 square foot minimum,” close to an acre. When a house must sit on that much land, builders have every reason to make it a large, expensive one. The campaign’s official argument says large-lot rules push developers “to build giant McMansions to recoup land costs,” and calls 5,000 square feet “a size more typical of suburbs nationwide.”
Tufts, which takes no position, gives the affirmative case in terms the campaign would accept:
“Building more homes is the most direct way to address this rankling issue. And Question 7 would create new homes.” Scarcity raises prices, new supply eases them, and “any softening helps affordability.”
It gives state government a tool it mostly lacks. Even when Beacon Hill wants more housing, “municipalities largely control the development process.”
It is targeted. Setbacks and height stay local, and the sewer requirement means “new homes follow existing infrastructure.”
That last point answers a common objection. The same requirement that concentrates the measure in towns like Whitman and Rockland keeps it out of places without sewer, where new septic systems would raise real environmental questions.
Supporters also point to history. Zoning is a power the state delegates to towns. Ben Forman of the research group MassINC told the New Bedford Light: “Zoning is a power that the state has given to communities, and communities have horrendously abused that power.” For a decade the state has tried incentives (the Housing Choice program) and then mandates (the MBTA Communities Act and the 2024 law allowing accessory apartments by right), with uneven results.
Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll endorsed Question 7 on Sept. 22, the highest-profile backing the measure has drawn. In a statement carried by the State House News Service, Healey said: “By opening doors to first-time homeowners, we’ll help more young people afford to stay in Massachusetts and build their future here.”
Other named supporters include Abundant Housing Massachusetts, Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, Greg Reibman of the Charles River Chamber, U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, several regional chambers of commerce and, by one account, more than 50 endorsers in all.
Two polls have measured it. A YouGov survey of 800 registered voters, released in the spring by Abundant Housing Massachusetts, which runs its own Question 7 committee, found 58 percent support and 21 percent opposition. An independent poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, taken Sept. 17–21 among 564 likely voters with a margin of error of 4.1 points, found 59 percent yes, 38 percent no and 4 percent unsure.
Support has held; opposition has roughly doubled. The two polls used different pollsters and different screens, so this is not a clean trend line, but the voters who were undecided in the spring have not broken toward yes.
How many homes
The two estimates are far apart.
Tufts estimates about 850,000 parcels statewide meet the measure’s tests. Most already allow a single-family home or more, which leaves about 200,000 whose rules would actually loosen. Counting lots that could be divided, those parcels could “theoretically enable 320,000 new homes.”
Tufts expects far fewer to be built: 350 to 1,200 net new homes a year in the first decade, with a central estimate of 750. That would raise single-family construction by about 15 percent and total housing production by about 5 percent. Its reasoning: “Some folks will never hear about the zoning adjustments; others won’t be interested in dividing their land. Even eager builders may crash against high borrowing costs and a limited construction workforce.” For a floor, Tufts looked at owners who can already subdivide and found that “less than 1 in 1,000” add a home within a decade. Its estimate sits well above that, on the expectation that newly eligible owners will behave differently.
The campaign is more ambitious. Mikula told NBC Boston in June: “We anticipate that this could do up to 20% of that goal,” meaning the state’s 222,000-home target. That would be as many as about 44,000 homes over the decade. Tufts’ central estimate, 7,500, is about 3 percent of the goal. The campaign has not published how it reached its figure.
The state budget office, the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, called the scale “difficult to project” and found “no discernible material fiscal consequences” for state or local finances.
Tufts adds a caution: towns that dislike the mandate “may also find new ways to hamstring development — wetlands impediments, sluggish permitting — as seems to have happened after the statewide legalization of accessory dwelling units.”
The case against it
The official argument against Question 7 was written by Adam Chapdelaine of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. It begins with a concession: “Massachusetts needs more housing, but this statewide ballot measure is the wrong approach.” It argues the measure would apply “regardless of existing neighborhoods, infrastructure or environmental conditions,” and “replaces thoughtful local planning with a one-size-fits-all mandate that ignores the individual needs of all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns.” In an earlier statement, the MMA said it “strongly opposes any unnecessary preemption of local decision-making authority, especially one promoted and paid for by the for-profit development industry.”
Tufts’ version is more specific. Even where there are water lines to tap, “it’s possible the local wastewater treatment plants lack the needed capacity.” That concern applies directly to the sewered towns this measure reaches. And: “just because it’s called a ‘starter home’ petition doesn’t make the homes smaller or less disruptive. There’s no actual requirement for modest size or affordability—and towns can’t impose one.” Tufts expects the effect on prices “would be relatively small,” and notes that “the high cost of land in Massachusetts generally encourages larger, more expensive homes.”
Rockland shows what a locally tailored version can look like. Its bylaw already protects certain older lots of at least 10,000 square feet and 75 feet of frontage from being merged with neighboring land, but on the condition that any new house have no more than 1,850 square feet of heated living space and at least three bedrooms, and not be used as a seasonal or short-term rental. That is a starter-home rule with a size cap. Question 7 has none. Supporters would answer that Rockland’s version applies only to certain existing lots, at twice Question 7’s minimum.
Two South Coast legislators made the local-control case to the New Bedford Light. Rep. Christopher Markey said voters “should know that one size doesn’t fit all.” Rep. Steven Ouellette said existing zoning rules “are in place for a reason, and that’s what the towns voted for, particularly those with open town meeting.”
The Legislature’s Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions heard the measure March 16 and voted May 4 to recommend no action. The report was signed by Sens. Cindy Friedman, Brendan Crighton, Paul Feeney and Barry Finegold and Reps. Alice Peisch, Kate Hogan, Frank Moran, Michael Day and David Vieira. No minority report was filed.
Since the guide went to print, the MMA’s executive director, Adam Chapdelaine, has sharpened the argument. Question 7, he told WAMC on Sept. 23, contains “nothing in this ballot question that would make any homes constructed … either a starter home or affordable,” and a developer may “build a home, sell it at market rate, and thereby do little to actually enhance affordability.” To Boston.com he put it more simply: “zoning decisions are inherently local.” The Massachusetts Republican Party has also urged a no vote.
Unlike Questions 1, 2 and 6, Question 7 has a named opponent, so the secretary of the commonwealth did not have to write its No argument. But as of Sept. 28 no committee had registered with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to oppose it. Of the three ballot committees formed since Sept. 1, none concerns zoning.
