The state’s highest court on Sept. 18 has denied the latest legal challenge to the MBTA Communities Act, brought by Marshfield and its select board.
Marshfield Town Meeting voters twice rejected zoning amendments that would comply with the law, G.L.c. 40A, §3A. The Marshfield Select Board then voted not to submit an interim action plan or take further steps towards compliance with the law. Instead, Marshfield joined several municipalities that took the state to court in litigation consolidated before Superior Court Judge Mark C. Gildea.
In June 2025, Gildea granted the motion to dismiss brought by the state and its Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
In its appeal to the SJC, Marshfield continued to argue that the MBTA Act is an unfunded local mandate, in violation of G.L.c. 29, §27C; that it violates the voting rights of Marshfield’s town meeting voters under the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights; that it violates the Home Rule Amendment; and that it conflicts with the Zoning Act, G.L.c. 40A, §5.
But in an opinion authored by Justice Serge Georges Jr., the SJC rejected each of these arguments.
On the unfunded mandate front, the court did not reach a broader question of whether costs associated with MBTA Act compliance are categorically excluded from §27C because it could resolve the issue based on deficiencies in Marshfield’s complaint. Marshfield had not adequately alleged costs outside the statute’s exclusion for incidental local administration expenses, nor had it presented facts showing that the alleged costs were mandatory expenditures imposed by the MBTA Act, the court explained.
Marshfield tried to ground its unfunded mandate claim on two categories of municipal expenses: the costs incurred in evaluating and preparing proposed zoning amendments and presenting those amendments at a town meeting, and anticipated future costs that it attributed to the act and regulations related to it. It also tried to rely on a letter issued in February 2025 by the Division of Local Mandates within the state auditor’s office, which had concluded that the MBTA Act constituted an unfunded local mandate under §27C because it imposed more than incidental local administration expenses on municipalities.
Marshfield’s complaint was deficient because it failed to “allege enough factual content to distinguish its costs from those §27C excludes, i.e., voluntarily assumed expenses and incidental local administration costs,” George wrote.
As to the anticipated future costs, the complaint was also deficient, the court concluded.
“The complaint does not identify the future costs or include facts showing how the act itself will impose them rather than the town voluntarily assuming them because of local policy choices or other reasons,” George wrote.
If Marshfield was talking about the costs related to services provided to later housing development, such alleged costs are “indirect and speculative,” the court determined.
The Division of Local Mandates letter — issued in response to requests from other communities — did not identify any municipality-specific mandatory costs, much less any costs imposed on Marshfield, the court noted.
“The letters may support the general proposition that some municipalities incurred expenses in connection with MBTA Act compliance, but they do not show that Marshfield incurred costs outside §27C’s exclusion for incidental local administration expenses and voluntarily incurred expenses,” Georges wrote.
Marshfield’s argument that the MBTA Act’s zoning requirement infringes on the constitutional voting rights of the town meeting voters was rejected on the grounds that neither Marshfield nor the select board had standing to assert a claim to vindicate the purported constitutional voting rights of Marshfield’s town meeting voters.
Marshfield also contended that the MBTA Act violates the Home Rule Amendment by depriving municipalities of meaningful authority to adopt or amend zoning bylaws, except by approving an MBTA Act compliant bylaw.
While Marshfield had technically waived that claim, the court decided to reach it “because the issue is of public importance.”
While the Home Rule Amendment preserves municipal authority over local matters, it does not prevent the Legislature from imposing substantive requirements that municipalities must implement through existing local procedures by enacting a valid general law addressing a matter of statewide concern, the court ruled.
“The MBTA Act addresses the Commonwealth’s housing crisis, a subject not confined to any one municipality,” Georges wrote. “That subject falls squarely within the Legislature’s retained authority under the Home Rule Amendment.”
The SJC also rejected Marshfield’s contention that the MBTA Act conflicts with G.L.c. 40A, §5 by compelling Marshfield’s town meeting voters to “vote yes” and approve the act.
“There is no conflict,” Georges wrote. “The MBTA Act does not displace the procedures set out in §5 for adopting or amending local zoning bylaws. It leaves those procedures in place and imposes a substantive State law requirement that the resulting zoning must satisfy.”
Georges continued, “Town meeting voters retain the authority to debate, amend, approve, or reject any proposal placed before them under §5. But that authority does not include the power to exempt the town from an obligation imposed by a valid State law.”
In an emailed statement, Attorney General Andrea Campbell praised the court’s decision.
“Massachusetts has a housing crisis, and it’s impacting everything from our ability to grow our workforce to the everyday cost of living,” said Campbell. “Today’s decision by the SJC rejects Marshfield’s claim that the MBTA Communities Law is an unfunded mandate and reaffirms that the Law is constitutional and compliance is mandatory.”
Marblehead’s interim compliance
At May’s Town Meeting, Marblehead adopted a new multifamily zoning plan, which includes land on Broughton Road and Tedesco Country Club. During debate over the plan, resident Nick Ward called it “a gimmick” that all but ensures no additional housing would be built in town.
Resident David Modica then went viral by finding a more colorful way to express the same concept.
“Are we kinda being pricks?” Modica famously asked.
With the favorable vote on the plan at Town Meeting, Marblehead achieved “interim compliance” with the MBTA Communities Act, though its district compliance application remained “in review” by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities as of Sept. 18, according to the state’s website.
