Amid mounting costs, the Winthrop Town Council rejected a suggestion that the town join a lawsuit against the state over the 3A housing law, in a retreat from the cause for which many of its members were recently elected.

The council voted 4-4 Tuesday on the request, thereby defeating a plea that they join or endorse anti-3A legal action led by Diana Viens, a daughter of the council’s current vice president, Suzanne Swope.

The opponents included the council’s president, James Letterie, and two other new council members – Kurt Millar and Kim Dimes – who Mr Letterie helped win their seats in the November election with their repeated anti-3A promises.

All argued – to some catcalls from a small number of 3A opponents at Tuesday’s council’s meeting – that they were merely making a strategic retreat and not changing their fundamental opposition to the 3A law.

Opposing forces

Yet their action followed a series of defeats and headwinds against Winthrop and a few other remaining non-compliant towns, including a lawsuit brought against the towns last week by the state attorney general, Andrea Campbell.

Mr Letterie, speaking briefly just ahead of his vote, talked of perhaps considering legal action at the federal level, but without offering details. “I don’t think this specific suit is the way to go right now,” Mr Letterie said.

“The town can’t just jump on a lawsuit – there are more steps to it,” Mr Millar said. “We need to start new, we need to start together,” Ms Dimes said.

The three 3A critics were joined in their vote by Max Tassinari, the one remaining council member who had long made clear his willingness to accept that numerous legal options against the state over 3A had been exhausted. The nine-member council also has a vacancy from resignation of John DaRos, meaning that four votes can defeat a motion.

Mr Millar and Ms Dimes had showed signs of possibly softening their 3A approach in recent days. Ms Dimes blocked the council’s consideration of joining legal action against the state at its January 20 meeting, and Mr Millar posted a statement Sunday to social media saying that he remains opposed to 3A but is still deciding how best to pursue that position.

Council hesitations

After that January 20 session, the Town Council twice scheduled then postponed new votes on the idea of joining the anti-state lawsuit led by Ms Viens. And before Tuesday’s vote, Mr Letterie noted that town officials were due to meet next week with their state counterparts to discuss their options with regard to 3A.

The attorney general’s suit seeks to have Winthrop and the other non-compliant towns declared in violation of the 3A law and subject to penalties, which could include the state imposing its own zoning map on the towns.

Winthrop had the opportunity for a relatively easy time with the 3A law, because its geography and history gave it the option of complying with the law by rezoning parts of town that already have multifamily housing. Yet Mr Letterie and his allies argued the town would benefit from fighting the state – even after state courts ruled in favor of the state’s right to set zoning and to enforce the law, the town started losing access to millions of dollars in state grant money, and most other communities backed away from the fight.

The 3A law required 177 cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts to zone for more multifamily housing. The legal action by Ms Viens and allies against the state seeks to have Winthrop declared as exempt from 3A, even though courts already have ruled that it is not. The advocacy group Lawyers for Civil Rights accused leaders of Winthrop and the other eight towns of perpetuating outright segregation with their resistance to 3A.

Weak effect

The 3A law was passed almost unanimously by the state legislature in 2021 as part of the MBTA Communities Act. It gave the affected communities a wide berth for defining proximity to public transportation – to the point where even many 3A backers described it as fairly weak.

Massachusetts officials last year estimated the state needed to add some 222,000 homes by 2035 to meet growing demand and prevent runaway home prices. Yet the research group Boston Indicators published a report last week showing that 3A the law so far has created only about 100 projects in a few large developments covering fewer than 7,000 housing units. And only 30 percent of the homes are within a half mile of a transit station, it said.

State officials, while confident in the legal authority of 3A, have acknowledged its limits and hesitated on what other directions they might go.

Solutions, according to Boston Indicators, could include more aggressive attempts to enable housing construction and other development very close to transit stations. Yet in one of the most recent high-profile examples, the MBTA canceled plans to redevelop 30 acres of land it owns around the Alewife station on the Red Line station, including a deteriorating 2,700-space concrete parking garage, on the grounds that it couldn’t find a developer willing to partner on the project.