The leaders of Winthrop’s climate commission joined several residents of flood-prone sections of town in demanding the Town Council end its symbolic protest of a Massachusetts housing law they see costing Winthrop opportunities for state funding to protect their homes.

About a half-dozen homeowners came before the Town Council on Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to reverse Winthrop’s status as non-compliant with the state law known as 3A that generally requires cities and towns to expand zones for multifamily housing.

“What are you going to do to save my home,” Jennifer Jones, a resident of the Morton Street area, asked council members. “What is the plan – I really want to know what the plan is,” she pleaded. “There is a moral responsibility to help,” said Brendan Cooney, a resident of the Pico neighborhood.

The town’s governing council assembled just days after Massachusetts officials formally told Winthrop that the town, because of its 3A defiance, already is not eligible for at least two state grants totaling about $1.2 million that could help alleviate chronic flowing in the Morton and Pico areas of town.

Winthrop, due to its existing density, could comply with 3A without actually adding housing, by rezoning parts of town that already have multifamily buildings. But several Town Council members have refused, saying they would rather demonstrate their principled defiance of state authority – even though courts have affirmed that the state holds the constitutional right to establish local zoning rules if it chooses.

‘Terrified’ residents

The town already has paid for engineering plans that it hoped to implement in Morton and Pico and beyond, such as raising sea barriers and cleaning out drainage pipes. But now, the Town Council’s position on 3A has residents in flood-threatened parts of Winthrop “terrified” about the future of their homes, a co-chairman of the town’s Citizens Advisory Commission on Climate, Norman Hyett, told the council.

“You chose letting us lose this opportunity,” the panel’s other co-chair, Ana Tavares Leary, told the council.

The state legislature approved the 3A law almost unanimously in 2021. The state law raised some protests in cities and towns around Boston, though most communities complied after courts ruled in the law’s favor. Winthrop, however, has been a holdout, driven by a small group of activists who allege that the law gives a green light to unchecked development.

Yet even the Town Council’s president, Jim Letterie – an opponent of 3A compliance – has acknowledged that the law wouldn’t require any new housing units in town. Mr Letterie instead has argued that the state eventually would find some other way to force new housing on the town. “I don’t feel in totality that’s what will end up happening down the road,” he said of his own no-new-housing expectations for 3A, in a July interview with the WCAT program Winthrop and the World.

Three other council members – Rob DeMarco, Patrick Costigan and Suzanne Swope – have consistently joined Mr Letterie in his position, preventing majority support of the council for 3A compliance.

Towns that do not comply with 3A lose eligibility for a range of state funding. Other examples of state money that Winthrop has been told it cannot receive include a grant to fund projects to help children get safely to school.

The potential money for flood protection, however, is so far the largest and potentially most consequential for Winthrop. Opponents of 3A compliance have downplayed the significance of their position, saying the town is never guaranteed to win any state grant money. But Boston and Revere already have received money for similar work.

Worse than no grants

And that’s especially worrying for Winthrop homeowners, another Morton area resident, Nicholas Agri, told the Town Council. Because if Boston and Revere use their state grant money to raise their seawall protections, Mr Agri explained, that could make the flooding problems for neighboring Winthrop even worse.

In response, the Town Council’s four opponents of 3A compliance pushed forward resolutions Tuesday endorsing three pieces of legislation put forth by state Representative Jeff Turco, of Winthrop, that call on his State House colleagues to overturn 3A or exclude Winthrop from its provisions.

Some council members favoring 3A compliance voted to endorse some of Representative Turco’s bills, acknowledging they would rather not have state pressure on zoning. Overall, however, the council support of the Turco bills stands as a “purely performative exercise,” resident Carina Campobasso told the council, since state lawmakers have the right to enact 3A and have made clear they have no intent to reconsider it.

Regardless of its outcome, the confrontation over 3A in Winthrop has been seen by parties on both sides as coarsening the tone of civic discussion. Opponents of 3A have insisted that their concerns over the future of the town are not being taken seriously. One, Mark Sennott, said he fears a pathway toward large waterfront condominiums. “Winthrop Shore Drive will look like Revere Beach,” he told the Town Council.

Another, Lois Baxter, a lifetime resident of Winthrop who has seen houses taken down by flooding near the Revere border, complained of seeing “nastiness in this town, that pit people against each other.” She equated housing growth with car congestion, adding: “Leave our nice town the way it is, and forget about 3A and wanting to build more.”

But advocates of compliance noted that Winthrop continues to add hundreds of housing units even without 3A in place locally. The town has its own approval boards to regulate housing construction if it chooses, said council member Max Tassinari, the subject of a failed recall campaign over his support for 3A compliance. But by refusing to comply with state law, Mr Tassinari said, “all we’re doing is shutting ourselves off from state funding.”