Winthrop officials are tussling anew with their state counterparts over the 3A housing law, pushing for answers on the idea of rezoning the town’s golf course while trying to slow the state from finalizing its legal prosecution of the matter.

In two separate meetings in recent days, state housing officials declined to quickly endorse the idea of rezoning the Winthrop Golf Club but suggested they could decide within a couple months, while town officials told the state attorney general’s staff that they remain firmly committed to their legal thesis that the 3A law somehow doesn’t apply to Winthrop.

In the latter session, representatives of the attorney general met with Winthrop’s legal counsel to formally confirm the town’s position, as a required step before a state judge can rule on the attorney general’s request to formally declare Winthrop non-compliant and decide the corresponding repercussions.

It’s the last hurdle for the state attorney general, Andrea Campbell, “before we would expect that they will ask the judge to drop the hammer on the town,” Winthrop’s town attorney, James Cipoletta, told the Town Council this week.

Separately, the Town Council’s president, Jim Letterie, and the town’s state representative, Jeffrey Turco, met with officials of the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities – which oversees the 3A law’s implementation – to seek the EOHLC’s blessing of their idea of locating Winthrop’s 3A-required multifamily housing zone at the town’s golf course.

State review

EOHLC officials showed no receptivity to the suggestion – “There were no early signals that we received from them that they would be amenable to it,” Mr Letterie told the council. But EOHLC officials estimated that they will produce an answer within about two months, Mr Cipoletta said, if Winthrop submitted the idea through its regular online processes.

The events are part of a long-running saga starting in 2021 when the state legislature overwhelmingly passed the 3A law requiring nearly every community in eastern Massachusetts to add zones that allow multifamily housing. Winthrop is now among only about eight towns, out of 177 affected by the law, to refuse compliance, driven by a group of activists who have demanded resistance on the grounds of local control.

That position has cost Winthrop losses of state grant money and eligibility for it totaling more than $2.5 million, and it has fueled prolonged political animosities in town. Mr Letterie led a slate of Town Council candidates to their electoral victory last year on strength of their 3A opposition. He and two other new council members then backed away from the 3A fight in the face of the accumulating losses of state money and the persistent failures of 3A opponents to win promised legal and legislative victories.

The state Constitution declares, and courts have agreed, that the state has the right to control zoning in Massachusetts communities. And Winthrop has a relatively easy path for complying with 3A’s zoning requirements, as compared to other communities, because the town has three sections with existing multifamily structures that could be designated as the town’s multifamily zones. But the Town Council, under the political pressure, has voted repeatedly against accepting that plan.

Marblehead precedent

The town of Marblehead, which had been sued along with Winthrop as one of nine Massachusetts communities not complying with 3A, settled in May on the idea of putting its multifamily zone over the private Tedesco Country Club golf course, anticipating that tactic meant that no housing would actually be built there. And the state attorney general, after a review, largely approved that plan.

Mr Letterie and Mr Turco began raising a similar idea in Winthrop – with the added complication that Winthrop’s case would mean granting a long-term lease of the town-owned golf course, since the 3A law does not count public land toward compliance.

Mr Letterie meanwhile expressed a willingness to schedule a new Town Council vote on complying immediately with 3A using the plan previously rejected by the council, since his switch in positions left the nine-member council with four votes in support. And he has suggested that his bid to use the golf course, if not successful, might help win at least one more Town Council vote by making clear that all possible options have been fully exhausted.

The attorney general’s lawsuit is one of two remaining legal cases for Winthrop in its 3A fight. The other involves a lawsuit against the state, brought by a group of private citizens, challenging the equitability of the law and its application to Winthrop.

Private case

The Superior Court judge overseeing the cases, Mark Gildea, threw out the private complaint in July, citing reasons that include the plaintiff group’s lack of standing. A majority on the Winthrop Town Council agreed to join the case before it was thrown out, and Judge Gildea has not yet decided whether the town can revive it and take it over.

In the meantime, the leader of the group that brought the private case, Diana Viens, is shown in public records to have put her house in Winthrop up for sale, and to have bought one in Marblehead. And the group’s lead attorney, Michael Walsh, trails in polls – far behind Ms Campbell in his bid to unseat the state attorney general in next month’s election – after a judge described finding substantial evidence that the Walsh campaign engaged in fraud.

While the state already is withholding money from Winthrop because of its 3A position, the conditions could get worse if Judge Gildea finds for the attorney general in her case against Winthrop, Mr Cipoletta said. If the judge rules against Winthrop, “he has a lot of remedies to now apply pressure and issue orders against the town to comply,” the town attorney said.

The town did, however, get some relief this week. One year after the state denied Winthrop a $100,000 grant for planting trees in town, the federal government has awarded the town $100,000 for the same purpose. The money will come from the US Department of Agriculture, after state Senator Lydia Edwards worked with US Representative Katherine Clark, the House minority whip, to secure the funding, town officials said.