A group of residents is attempting to have an election scheduled to repeal Town Meeting’s Oct. 21 decision to pass a plan that was more substantial than required to bring the town into basic compliance with the state’s MBTA Communities Law for creating more multifamily housing.
The group launched a petition drive over the weekend with a table near the Needham Heights Common. They have subsequently been seeking signatures outside venues such as Sudbury Farms and have been active on Needham-centric social media pages, asking residents to download copies of the petition and seek signatures. None of the signature collectors approached would speak with a reporter. The organizing group did not respond to an interview request.
The repeal effort has been initiated by Needham Residents for Thoughtful Zoning and will first require the petitioners to collect signatures from 15% of the town’s 25,000 registered voters (3,750) by the deadline date of Nov. 15.
If the petitioners clear the 3,750 signature bar, it will force a townwide election that would likely occur Dec. 10. In addition to requiring a majority of those who vote, at least 20% of registered voters — or more than 5,000 — will need to have voted in favor of overturning Town Meeting’s decision or the repeal effort will fall short.
If the repeal effort succeeds, Needham would no longer be in compliance with the MBTA law and would have until Dec. 31 to hold a Special Town Meeting to act on a possible replacement article. Given the holiday season and the notice requirements for holding a Town Meeting, that may be difficult to accomplish.
Failure to comply means Needham could incur state penalties that include loss of access to multiple state funding programs and possible legal action from the state attorney general, as happened in Milton when that community held an election that overrode its Town Meeting vote to comply with the law.
It has been more than four decades since a Town Meeting article was subject to a repeal vote, and that election occurred under a different town charter. Supporters of the recall are arguing that a large-scale zoning change deserves a direct vote of the citizenry.
The repeal effort seeks to undo the work Town Meeting did on separate articles to create a zoning district that satisfied the MBTA Act’s requirement to have sufficient zoning capacity to allow 1,784 multifamily units in a district with at least 50 contiguous acres and an overall density of 15 units per acre.
The MBTA law does not require that a single unit of housing actually be built, only that the zoning district creates the minimum required capacity and allows multifamily housing “by right.” That means the town could conduct a site plan review of a proposed project but not apply a more rigorous special permit review process.
Needham chose to build its plan around the town’s commercial spine, crafting a 100-acre area that today is home to 775 units of housing, mostly apartments.
The first vote at Town Meeting was on the so-called base plan to create a district that made relatively minor dimensional changes to the existing zoning scheme and increased the zoning capacity from the current 1,019 units to 1,870 units. That plan was passed by an overwhelming voice vote.
An article to amend the base plan and replace it with the more ambitious “neighborhood plan” immediately followed, with supporters claiming the base plan had little potential to move the needle on multifamily housing production.
The neighborhood plan covers 92.5 acres and creates zoning capacity for 3,296 units, largely by loosening dimensional requirements to allow greater height and density. Town consultants estimate it could yield 1,342 new units that would be built over an extended period of time.
Town Meeting debated the merits of the plan for about two hours before finally voting 118-90 to adopt the neighborhood plan.
During the Town Meeting discussion, opponents expressed concern about the impact the potential new housing units would have on the town’s infrastructure, traffic volume and, perhaps most prominently, school enrollment.
They also objected to the process, which some described as rushed and incomplete due to the lack of a “sensitivity analysis” and other “third-party” reviews by outside consultants. They claim the impacts were insufficiently studied and did not provide an estimate on what it would cost the town.
Proponents countered by pointing out the plan was the product of three years of planning that began in 2021 with a 15-month, highly public process led by the Needham Housing Plan Working Group, which produced a nearly 200-page document assessing the town’s housing needs.
Additionally they noted the Housing Plan Advisory Group (HONE) followed with a nearly year long public outreach effort with more than a dozen public meetings, multiple public hearings, three community-wide meetings and reviews by nearly all of the town’s relevant elected and appointed boards. They also noted the town hired third-party consultants who conducted a traffic study and produced an economic impact analysis that showed a net positive fiscal impact.
The Charles River Chamber also weighed in with a letter of support from dozens of local businesses and nonprofit organizations.
The coming weeks will no doubt feature a competition for the hearts and minds of local voters. There are citizen groups on both sides of the issue, with the Needham Housing Coalition defending the plan and the Charles River Chamber also weighing in.
John Judge, a 15-year town resident, said he was alerted to a signature-gathering event and had a conversation with the petitioners that persuaded him to join the effort.
“From what I can see, the process was followed,” said Judge. “For me, the impact is substantial enough that I support the idea that we should bring this to the voters of Needham.”
He said when he reaches out to friends and neighbors, “More often than not I get a bewildered ‘What? When? How?’ Folks just did not know this was happening.”
This perplexes Paula Dickerman, one of the leaders of the Needham Housing Coalition, which has been holding monthly educational and informational meetings and other forms of outreach for more than a year regarding the MBTA law process.
“If there’s a referendum, we’ll have our own campaign,” she said, adding she thinks it’s a good thing that people are finally paying attention. “We’ll do our best to convince people that the neighborhood plan has been well studied and is the far better option, not just for compliance but for Needham. The forecasted impacts are almost all positive and the consequences of non-compliance are dire.”
Supporters and some town officials have expressed concern that noncompliance could jeopardize the town’s position for securing upwards of $60 million in state support for the planned reconstruction of the Pollard Middle School, as well as millions in future funding for long-planned traffic improvements.
As for town officials, the logistics and funding required to hold an off-schedule townwide election during a holiday season was on the agenda of today’s regular meeting of the chairs and co-chairs of multiple town elected and appointed boards.
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