WEYMOUTH — Oct. 19, 2026 — The Weymouth Town Council on Monday heard a consultant’s draft Housing Production Plan that puts the town’s subsidized housing inventory at 7.13%, short of the state’s 10% benchmark, then closed the public hearing without adopting the plan, with a council vote tentatively planned for Nov. 9. Councilors also approved $200 and $300 fines for repeat violations of mandatory water restrictions.
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The council opened its public hearing on Measure 26-114, Housing Production Plan Presentation and Adoption, on a motion by Vice President Fred Happel and heard the draft from Lynn Sweet of LDS Consulting Group, whose firm prepared it.
The town’s Planning and Community Development Director, Robert Luongo, told councilors the plans are updated every five years and the last was completed in 2018.
So today the Weymouth subsidized housing inventory stands at 7.13%. So it is short of that 10%, so there is some vulnerability to the community.
— Lynne Sweet, LDS Consulting Group (7:28)
Sweet said that if the council adopts the plan and the state accepts it, the town could gain safe harbor for a couple of years by producing 0.5% of its year-round housing units. She described Weymouth as built out, with new housing most likely to come as teardowns or infill, and said the inventory includes only 10 homeownership units, though the town has added 38 units since the last plan.
Most of the plan’s recommendations involve amending the zoning ordinance, Sweet said. They include an affordable housing trust, which she likened to the town’s own bank for affordable housing; making the voluntary inclusionary zoning bylaw mandatory, with cash payments in lieu of units that could go to the trust; an affordability component for the accessory dwelling unit ordinance; an expanded housing rehab program; and a 40Y bylaw for ownership housing, which she called her personal favorite). The plan’s first-year action plan targets two developments with expiring affordability, Union Towers and Queen Anne’s Gate, potentially with CPA funds.
Luongo added that since a 2001 Housing Appeals Court decision involving Arbor Hill, the town has maintained that affordable housing occupies 1.5% of its land area, an alternative way to meet the 10% standard. He said the state has changed how it calculates that land area and the question was never resolved, but the town still maintains it has that protection.
Councillor Gary MacDougall said senior housing is limited in the plan, citing the report’s projection that by 2030 about one in four residents, more than 14,000 people, will be 65 or older. Rick Coughlin said there is a housing crisis well beyond Weymouth. Carrie Palazzo asked how the council would work with the administration on implementation; President Arthur Mathews said any Community Preservation Committee or appropriation measure would come before the council with a public hearing.
Councilors were told the plan also needs Planning Board approval and a letter signed by the mayor before it goes to the state, which has about 45 days to review it. Mathews called it the tentative plan for the Economic Development Committee to meet again before Nov. 9 and to try to bring the plan to a council vote that day. No member of the public spoke, and the council voted 9-0 to close the hearing.
