Residents at a Special Town Meeting on Tuesday night rejected a plan 26-394 that would have opened the door for more multi-family housing in Carver.
The vote sidesteps a state mandate that requires Carver to zone for 235 units suitable for families with children, which, if constructed, could put additional townhouses and duplexes in town.
Carver is one of 177 towns required to rezone for multi-family housing by the end of this year. The law was created to address the state’s housing crisis by allowing multi-family developments near commuter rail stops.
Since Carver is located near Middleboro, Kingston and Halifax — all of which have commuter rail stops — it is classified as an “adjacent small town.” Although, each station is about a 20 minute drive from the center of Carver.
In August, the planning board voted 3-1 to propose 30-32 West Street, currently occupied by Ferreira’s Used Cars & Parts, as the site to rezone to meet the unit requirements.
But prior to Tuesday’s town meeting, the planning board reversed course.
According to Planning Board Chair Mari Ellen Williams, the board unanimously voted to indefinitely postpone its proposed MBTA compliance plan.
“This article that was presented to us is not anything that any of us wanted on the planning board,” Williams said.
Since early August, Town Planner Thomas Bott has consulted with Barrett Planning Group to determine sites Carver could rezone for while following the state’s guidelines.
Williams said that the group’s proposal came back to the town with the potential for 839 units of multi-family housing, which far exceeds the state’s required 235 units.
Williams said that the board agreed to the Barrett group’s proposal with the understanding that there would be a limit of 235 multi-family housing units and open space on the rezoned property.
“Turns out, that is not the case,” she said. “It’s not what we want.”
The move sparked heated questions among some voters, including resident Bob Belbin, who argued that the town should take an immediate vote on the proposal, rather than postpone it.
“Who created this? And who went ahead and reviewed this?” Belbin said. “We all came here to vote on this article for MBTA, okay, so whose head should we put on a platter to say, guess what? You need to be fired because you screwed up.”
Belbin said that the Town Planner, Town Counsel and Board of Selectmen put the article on the warrant and that reconsidering it is wrong.
“We’re gonna vote on this ‘yes or no’ and I think a lot of people out here are gonna vote it down,” Belbin said, generating applause from the crowd.
Some voters questioned the impacts that non-compliance could have on the town, including the state having a heavy hand in deciding where to place multi-family zoning.
“I think it’s much better that we have a parcel of land that we can all live with that can only develop that 235 and not some larger amount,” resident Cherie Poirer said in support of the planning board’s request. “I strongly urge everybody to postpone.”
Poirier warned that the state could take control of Carver’s rezoning location.
State Sen. Kelly Dooner (R-Taunton), who has opposed requiring towns like Carver to comply with MBTA law, said she didn’t believe this would happen.
“We have not received any knowledge of the state coming in and mandating…as far as if you’re voting it down, we have not been informed, to our knowledge, that the state will come in and mandate the zoning themselves,” Dooner said.
Poirier emphasized the importance of developing a plan.
“I don’t think the state’s gonna be beating down the door of Carver to sue us if we’re trying to do something,” Poirier said.
Planning board member Cornelius Shea also asked voters to postpone a vote on the article.
“Give the planning board a chance to sort it out,” Shea said. “…This is our community too.”
Amid chatter from the crowd, Shea reiterated the planning board’s opposition to the current plan and its desire to change it.
“I worked harder on this than anybody in here,” Shea said. “Give us a chance. We’ve been sabotaged. We’ve been stabbed in the back. And we work like hell for this town.”
Despite the planning board’s pleas, residents voted 181-240 to reject postponing the vote and ultimately turned down the proposal outright.
No residents spoke in favor of adopting the planning board’s proposal as is.
Heated discussion on the MBTA housing law has spanned over a year among Carver officials and residents, who have grappled with how the town should comply with the state’s policy.
While the law does not mandate any construction or development on rezoned sites, its opponents have argued that potential developments could put a strain on Carver’s resources.
“Carver’s lack of infrastructure makes it really impossible for this to go forward,” state Rep. John Gaskey (R-Carver) said at a July hearing.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Dooner also stated her opposition.
“I think it’s an unfunded mandate, nobody on Beacon Hill seems to care about the smaller communities, the infrastructure challenges that we would face,” Dooner said.
In June, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that Attorney General Andrea Campbell can sue towns to enforce the law. That month, a Plymouth County judge also ruled that the MBTA communities law is not an “unfunded mandate.”
Without a compliance plan, Carver still risks losing access to certain state grants if it fails to comply with the MBTA housing law by the end of this year.
Recently, the state has been willing to enforce this.
Last month, Winthrop lost $1.2 million in climate grants due to its refusal to comply with the MBTA Communities Act. Whether Carver will face similar repercussions is currently unknown.
The planning board could create another proposal to comply with the MBTA law before the end of the year, although it is currently unclear if it will.
If it does, that proposal would have to pass a majority of voters at another town meeting before Jan. 1. And if it doesn’t, Carver will officially join the list of just over a dozen non-compliant Massachusetts towns risking grants and lawsuits to rebel against the state’s requirements.
Contact Nick Mossman at nick@carverjournal.com
