Cambridge's dimensional requirements make virtually every multifamily structure in the city violate the city's zoning code and have to go in front of the BZA, by design, even if multifamily housing is technically "allowed". And it is 100% intentional. So yes, it is egregious.

I read through the towns surrounding mine (Waltham) and they seemed to be concerned about losing commercial tax base to lower tax base residential (someone tell them about mixed use zoning please) but generally they appeared to be at the acceptance stage of grief.

Waltham's response was at the bargaining stage though with a lot of excuses as to why we shouldn't have to comply and some nimby nonsense about luxury housing.

Middleborough: "OK, let's John Galt this shit. Shut down the Commuter Rail station here and rename it as the 'Bridgewater/Lakeville' line."

Brookline is a lost cause.

Cambridge is not bad at all, just a popular target.

Look at Malden where 80% of the town is on 6000 sqft min lot size, that they want to make 7,500.

Malden: https://www.cityofmalden.org/DocumentCenter/View/5562/Zoning-Map-FY2022

All of that light yellow is 6,000 sqft.

Cambridge: https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/Maps/Zoning/cddmap_zoning_base_11x17_202102.pdf

The light yellow "A-1" between Harvard and the cemetary is the only 6000 sqft remaining.

Nowhere in the same UNIVERSE much less "egregious".

The new line is the typical MA thing of spending 75% of the money of doing it right, to get 25% of the value of doing it right. And likely poisoning the well for ever doing it right.

It's going to be an incredibly long ride, service levels are shit, and the routing/scheduling requires a ton of wishful thinking to think it's not going to collapse the entire Old Colony lines into delays in reality - since, among other problems, they have single-track chokepoints and the proposed schedule basically requires everything to be perfectly on time to not have cascading delays. Good luck with that.

And for the limited service they're going to run - they really ought to have picked just one endpoint for now rather than splitting frequencies by branching. One big city with tolerable service > 2 with shit service.

The "full-build"/Phase II (PDF warning) - which would go to Stoughton and inbound from there, is a fine enough concept and could be a useful service. This half-assed one is not. And when the ridership is utter shit, it's going to kill the chances of actually finishing the project properly.

What should be happening is building SCR to Stoughton from day 1 and extending the Middleborough line to Buzzards Bay - with a couple a day over the bridge like the Cape Flyer does seasonally. That would actually be useful and effective. This is not.

Anyway, back on topic.

Middleborough can't even plan for developing at the new station either, because if the full-build/"Phase II" gets built, they'll likely switch back to the old (current) station site instead and the new station will be abandoned. If they actually follow the rules and rezone around the new station....they're risking creating this whole situation again in 10 years for a different set of lied-to people.

Good for Middleborough for standing up to what is best for their city. Hope they can hold out. No one needs to be bullied into doing something that is not right for them.

Makes sense. The law unfairly targets towns that have already been increasing housing density.

Don’t forget Brookline.

There are giant SFH neighborhoods only a block or two from green line stops.

It’s utterly ridiculous.

"Town character" is a non argument. "We cannot build something here because something like that has not been built here."

Your original town character was goddamn trees you go far back enough. Its just a nonstarter that can be dismissed out of hand.

To be honest, I expected more concerted pushback against this law than there has been. The fact only 4 towns failed to submit the required action plan is honestly fewer than I expected.

I'm sure we will see some towns not follow through with their action plans fully, but I was concerned we'd see a refusal to comply at all by a number of towns. The overall reaction has been better than I expected.

their town character is the worst character since poochie. they make andy bernard look like dwight schrute. fuck their town character

Looks like you're right

https://www.mass.gov/service-details/south-coast-rail-project-corridor-maps

The map shows the current line ends in Middleborough. Google maps shows the town does indeed have a large commuter lot, and a fair bit of apartments/townhomes immediately adjacent to the current station.

Now, the state is proposing to move the station to a junction about a mile north so it ties into the line in Taunton.

Honestly I get the frustration on the towns part but in the grand scheme of things, the new line with provide services to tens of thousand of people as opposed to a few hundred that might live in those apartments.

There are apparently towns that are requesting the the MBTA close stations so that they don't have to build housing. Which is absurd and shouldn't be entertained

Cambridge’s situation is particularly egregious IMO. 6000sqft minimums on SFH in some parts of the city.

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No, you're not understanding the situation, and Boston.com's description is wildly misleading.

Middleborough is entirely in the right to be furious with the state. The state built a MBTA station in 1997. Middleborough did exactly what the state wants them to do - built a significant cluster of higher density transit oriented development in walking distance from the station, built a big park + ride lot, and did solid ridership numbers.

Now the state, for their idiotic South Coast Rail Phase I plan (SCR could be useful, but not this plan), is closing the station and moving it to somewhere else that's not walking distance from any of that existing housing/where they'd been building.

Middleborough is not upset about having a train station, Middleborough is upset about doing the right thing and getting royally fucked by the state for it. Now they've got a pile of apartments with unhappy developers/owners that are vastly less attractive and the new station location will be far more challenging/disruptive to develop around.

All for a plan that's an idiotic waste of money and will not provide them any benefits.

Again, it's Middleborough. I doubt most of them are driving from there into Boston.

Why so many thought South Coast rail is a boondoggle.

To spin off of that, Middleborough's town character would be a cop who faked an injury to get disability and spends his day beating his wife.

But then more people drive which means more pollution, traffic, noise and drivers taking up valuable space in the city. Its better if the state just gives them less money than towns that do comply.

Especially around the Eliot stop on the D.

>If they don't want to comply, they can request the MBTA close the station down then.

Sounds like they might be dumb enough to do that:

>The Select Board has been vocal in recent years about its disapproval of the MBTA’s South Coast rail project, which will add a new commuter rail station in the town, as well as other South Coast towns like New Bedford and Taunton. (Middleborough already has one operational commuter rail station.) The Planning Board voted in 2021 to send a letter to the MBTA expressing their discontent with the project, and even weighed public displays of activism to prevent the station from opening. (The station is under construction and set to open later this year).

There are large swathes of boston newton cambridge etc that are single family only still.

wish we could abolish that shit.

Pretty ironic coming from the people who claim to support “free market solutions”.

Shitty towns want to stay shitty. news at 11