There was a two hour window where Belchertown police were like: "hey, there's a fugitive in town who might be armed and dangerous."

This sold by me a couple of years ago https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/20-Berkeley-St-Melrose-MA-02176/56288913_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare

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That’s mean

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I’ll never forget being in a cvs in Richmond VA and a guy IN THE OTHER AISLE said hello to me and got offended that I didn’t immediately say hello back

So was it the shitty part of Springfield or the shitty part of Fall River?

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Then definitiley check out the Northampton area and the Berkshires. Both kinda rural but very progressive and lots of culture.

Yeah a big problem with the whole MBTA communities definition is it includes towns that don't have an MBTA stop in or within a mile of the town, much less half a mile.

ex. Stow, MA to which the nearest MBTA stop (South Acton, Fitchburg Line) is ~1 mile from the town border. So communities like Stow literally can not comply with this law.

Well I have suburban NIMBYs in my town who do have this infrastructure who also think our city shouldn't have to allow the housing, and they're expecting rural communities to allow it instead.

The only fair solution I see here is that everyone needs to relax a little and let the market get an equilibrium... which seems to be the approach the state is going for.

For what it's worth, the state put a cap on the amount of housing required in more rural communities after getting feedback during the comment session.

Wealthy communities will care about losing State funding / grants to improve roads in the amount of above a million dollars a year. Mass Works is one program.

And losing other grants, which could include grants for conservation lands, and in the fullnessvof time, eventually could include educational funding,

Cool, and when every single suburb thinks they are special and that housing should be built somewhere else nothing gets built.

Your suburb isn’t special. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

I’m glad the state is finally telling these suburbs to shape up.

Lab spaces… you think the people who work in these offices and labs only live in Boston proper?

Funny, suburbanites have no problem outsourcing their office, labs, hospitals, museums, sports stadia, etc. to the city.

Right?? It's great for hiking and it's only 15 minutes or so from Shelburne Falls, which is quaint and lovely, but a hidden gem people are missing out on? No.

If you rezone for Smart Growth, the state gives funds for the new kids. That’s what we did in Easthampton. Beyond that, the child population of the state is declining, so an increase in enrollment is really the last thing most communities should worry about.

natural growth would require lifting zoning laws.

there's nothing natural about forcing single family housing or low density. the demand for more housing is there.

more housing will reduce total costs by reducing absurd housing costs, which are a much bigger part of most people's finances than taxes.

I don’t understand what happened and frankly don’t have the time or mental energy to want to invest in it. I did to make this comment though. Let’s talk all things Massachusetts!

It depends where - if you don't need easy access to Boston, you can have a reasonable housing costs outside 495. Daycare costs are astronomical across the state though...

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“Stop looking for government to solve your issues.”

Funny, the only ones looking for government to solve their issues are the NIMBY’s trying to use municipal governments to block housing from being built in their suburbs.

I’m in favor of less government involvement in housing. Which means letting the market having a much bigger say in what gets built where, much to the chagrin of whining, entitled NIMBYs like yourself.

And that’s literally what this push from the state is doing. It’s the state government telling local municipalities to get fucked, and to allow higher density housing yo be built.

And no, I’m not going to work a second job because people like you feel entitled to use the government to shield you from having to live close to other people.

You own your property, not your neighbor’s, not the neighborhood.

For what it's worth, I have never advocated creating zero growth communities. This state brags about how smart it is but on this issue, how smart is it to build out farm land in Holden when you have much better options near actual MBTA stations? The roads are overloaded. Putting more apartments farther from the jobs is a bad strategy. Building hundreds of new wastewater treatment plants out side the MWRA system is also a costly mistake in my opinion. I recognize something is needed to be done, I work on housing projects all over eastern mass.

Two elements fix the supply bottleneck. 1) Zoning reform. Approve any building permit request that matches the zoning of any lot within 100' of the subject parcel. This would cut permitting times into a fraction of the time now. 1 year becomes 30 days. This would include dimensional and use reform (multi vs single fam). 2) Any site within 1/2 mile of an MBTA rapid transit or commuter rail station could build with the same density of any other building near an MBTA station (this would ramp up the TOD successes that have helped increase supply.

Anything else should be incentivized through the tax code to increase supply and not beat down people's throats. Carrot is better than the stick.

a little paint and some elbow grease, good a new!

I am over 45 miles from Boston. I am in very much a rural town. We have a commuter rail station that is a 10 minute ride from my house. Other parts of the town 20 minutes to get there do to rural roads. I don't disagree that towns need to do something but it should be based on the towns wanting to not be forced to or else you lose funding. That is blackmail on the highest level.

Ugh, that's distressing to hear. Study I read said adverse effects up to 500 feet away. Hopefully the other houses and trees absorb some of the ill effects from my nearby highway.

lol, "rural."

some of the most NIMBY places are <10 miles from the city center, with T and commuter rail stations.

I'm in a NIMBY town, and I say build it. we can't afford not to.

it's wild to expect something a moderate bike ride away from Boston government center be called "rural."