Marblehead’s yearslong battle over MBTA Communities Law zoning may finally be winding down, but the debate it ignited over housing in town appears far from settled.
At Town Meeting earlier this month, voters approved a new 3A zoning plan intended to bring Marblehead into compliance with the state’s MBTA Communities Law after the town lost roughly $4 million in state grants following the rejection of a previous proposal in a referendum vote last year.
But critics questioned whether the new plan — which includes the Tedesco Country Club property among areas eligible for multifamily housing — would meaningfully increase housing production at all.
That skepticism crystallized in a viral Town Meeting moment when resident David Modica asked the crowd, “Are we kinda being pricks?” The comment quickly spread online and drew statewide and national attention.
At a May 12 Housing Committee meeting, members themselves acknowledged similar concerns.
“We’re relieved that it’s done, but we’re certainly not happy with the result,” member Kurt James said.
Member Nisha Austin summarized it more bluntly: “Our metric isn’t compliance; it’s housing production. And… by putting zoning where everybody knows nothing will get built, I think that we should just be honest with ourselves that we’re actually like not achieving what we’re setting out to do as the Housing Committee.”
Now, after years of contentious debate over 3A, residents, housing advocates and local officials are confronting a broader question that has lingered in Marblehead for years: What comes next for housing in town?
Marblehead’s Housing Production Plan, first adopted in 2008 and updated in 2020, identified many of the same issues dominating local conversation today: high housing costs, limited housing diversity, a lack of affordable units and zoning patterns heavily weighted toward single-family homes.
At the time, affordable housing represented only 3.9%, or roughly 333 units, of the town’s housing stock — far below the state’s 10% affordability benchmark under Chapter 40B.
State data suggests little has changed since then.
According to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities’ 2025 Subsidized Housing Inventory, Marblehead remains below 4% affordable housing stock, with 332 subsidized units representing roughly 3.84% of the town’s housing units.
The plan also warned that rising housing prices were making it increasingly difficult for teachers, municipal employees, young families and older residents to remain in town.
Using 2017 figures, it noted that the median sale price for a single-family home in Marblehead was $645,000, while condominiums sold for a median price of $342,500, according to data from The Warren Group.
By last December, those figures had climbed to $1.01 million for single-family homes and $665,000 for condominiums, according to The Warren Group’s sales data.
A built-out town
For some local officials and committee members, Marblehead’s greatest obstacle is geographical.
“The biggest challenge is that we have a very densely populated, almost 100% built-out town,” James told the Current. “The opportunities to create significant affordable housing… are very limited.”
The newly formed Housing Committee, created earlier this year through the merger of two existing housing bodies, has continued exploring potential housing initiatives on public land and through state housing programs.
James said the town has made progress in some areas, pointing to discussions surrounding the Coffin School property, land near the former Community Store site and the ongoing Broughton Road redevelopment project.
“We definitely continue to support and explore opportunities to use public spaces for housing,” James said.
He also described the Chapter 3A process as what had been a “high priority opportunity” to expand housing options through rezoning but acknowledged that it “obviously didn’t turn out as we had hoped it would.”
“It’s probably not going to result in any housing other than at Broughton Road,” he said.
James noted that even many of the earlier proposed zoning districts were already heavily built out, making large-scale redevelopment unlikely, regardless of zoning changes.
“Developers can develop multifamily housing anywhere in town under 40B,” he said. “And there’s only been two projects that have gone forward so far.”
Marblehead has also adopted other zoning tools over the years intended to encourage multifamily development, including smart-growth overlay districts and incentive zoning bylaws.
But James said uptake has remained limited, largely because developable land is scarce.
“I think the bottom line is there’s just not a lot of vacant land,” he said. “Generally speaking, most of our initiatives are somewhat stymied by the geographical challenges.”
Supply vs. resistance
Housing advocate Nick Ward sees the issue differently.
“I don’t think available land is the obstacle,” Ward said.
Ward, a Marblehead resident and vocal pro-housing advocate during the 3A debate, argued that the town’s housing challenges stem less from physical limitations and more from restrictions on what types of housing can be built.
“The primary failure, both in Marblehead as well as across the Commonwealth, is the lack of sufficient housing supply,” he said.
Drawing an analogy to cars, Ward said the state does not force everyone to buy “Chevy Suburbans” or mandate a minimum vehicle size, but instead allows a range of vehicle types and prices to meet different needs and incomes.
“That’s fundamentally one of the things that we need to do in Massachusetts and in Marblehead,” Ward said. “We need to allow different types of housing.”
The Housing Production Plan similarly identified Marblehead’s housing stock as heavily dominated by single-family homes, with roughly 77% of units falling into that category — among the highest shares in the region — and recommended updating zoning policies to better support multifamily and mixed-use development.
Ward argued that loosening zoning restrictions could allow smaller-scale property owners, not just large developers, to create additional housing through duplex conversions, accessory dwelling units and multifamily additions that could gradually improve affordability by increasing overall housing supply.
He said he frequently hears from residents whose children cannot find housing in Marblehead, as well as older residents hoping to downsize but unable to find smaller options within town.
At the same time, Ward said he believes cultural resistance to housing growth remains a major factor in Marblehead’s debate.
“I do think cultural resistance is a big part of it,” he said.
Ward said many conversations around affordable housing in Marblehead focus too narrowly on subsidized units while overlooking broader housing shortages.
“The word ‘affordability’ has a very specific context in Massachusetts,” he said. “But housing is like any good… All housing is affordable to someone.”
He pointed to Marblehead’s historic downtown as evidence that denser housing patterns can coexist with the town’s character.
“I think it’s a genuine national treasure that deserves protection and celebration, but at the same time, it’s also the most dense and populated part of the town,” Ward said. “You couldn’t build Old Town Marblehead today.”
Ward acknowledged that some concerns raised during the 3A fight, particularly surrounding traffic, were legitimate and said Marblehead could eventually benefit from infrastructure investments such as improved bus service or safer bike routes.
But he also argued that several warnings raised by opponents of multifamily zoning have not materialized.
“We were told that our property taxes would go up if we allowed multifamily housing, and our taxes are going up anyway,” he said.
He also pointed to declining school enrollment as evidence that fears of overcrowded schools may have been overstated.
Revisiting old goals
The town’s current approach mirrors many of the goals laid out in earlier housing plans.
The Housing Production Plan encouraged the town to pursue partnerships with nonprofit developers, identify underutilized public land, explore zoning reforms and educate residents about affordable housing, among several other strategies intended to expand housing opportunities.
James said the town continues to work with organizations including the Marblehead Housing Authority, the North Shore HOME Consortium and other regional housing groups.
At a recent Housing Committee meeting, members discussed continuing outreach efforts through newsletters, public presentations and articles while also weighing longer-term zoning and funding strategies.
“The focus is on educating people as to the need of our community for more affordable housing,” James said during the meeting. “We’ve talked about the statistics of young families moving out in the last 10 years. That is changing the dynamic and the complex of our community, so if we want to preserve our community, we need to address those needs.”
Committee members also discussed revisiting adoption of the Community Preservation Act as a potential funding source for affordable housing projects, while weighing whether doing so could conflict with the spirit of the town’s proposed override memorandum of understanding.
“Most of the communities around us have passed the Community Preservation Act,” James said in an earlier interview with the Current. “It would be very beneficial.”
Members also discussed the possibility of pursuing additional smart-growth overlay districts under Chapters 40R and 40S, state programs designed to encourage higher-density housing development while providing financial incentives and school-cost reimbursements to municipalities.
James said Marblehead could potentially explore future 40R districts in areas such as Pleasant Street and Tioga Way, though he emphasized that such efforts would likely need to emerge as local initiatives rather than state mandates.
“The opposition will lose a fair amount of energy if it’s a local initiative,” James said.
Still, he acknowledged that Marblehead’s physical limitations continue to constrain the scale of potential housing growth.
“Other than the CPA and 40R, just given our geographic and demographic constraints, we don’t really have a lot of opportunities,” James said.
Select Board Chair Dan Fox did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding whether expanding housing production would remain a priority following the 3A vote or whether CPA discussions conflict with the proposed override agreement.
Community Development and Planning Director Brendan Callahan is expected to speak with the Select Board and Finance Committee ahead of the Housing Committee’s next meeting, currently anticipated for June 16, to address some of those questions.
A debate far from over
For Ward, Marblehead’s housing debate has become larger than 3A itself.
He said his advocacy for housing stems from a broader belief that communities and states must continue building in order to remain economically strong.
“Great countries build things, including housing,” Ward wrote in a follow-up message after the interview. “If we cannot get back to building, we will stop being a great country.”
