The Need for Prick-Proof Housing Laws |
Housing Policy
The Need for Prick-Proof Housing Laws
Plus: the damage done by inclusionary zoning, total YIMBY victory at California gubernatorial forum, and Trump's reversion of build-to-rent
Christian Britschgi | 5.12.2026 12:10 PM
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(Credit: Via @TheYoungJurks/X ()
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week, we have stories on:
A new report finds that Portland, Maine's inclusionary zoning law is crushing housing development. A New York Times-hosted gubernatorial forum where everyone tried to sound like a YIMBY. President Donald Trump's rapid reversion to supporting an effective ban on build-to-rent housing.But first, we cover how Massachusetts' particular approach to zoning reform makes it too easy for local governments to be pricks.
Massachusetts' Need to Prick-Proof Its Housing Policy
Marblehead, Massachusetts, resident David Modica has gone viral for asking at a recent Town Meeting whether people in town were "being pricks" for attempting to comply with a state housing production law by upzoning a golf course that, in all likelihood, is not going to be redeveloped into housing.
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It's a funny clip that's made only better by a planning board member conceding in his response to Modica that upzoning the golf course was indeed not intended to merely meet the on-paper requirements of state housing law without producing new housing.
This guy is trending on MBTA multi-family zoning "are we kind of being pricks?" pic.twitter.com/lZV5RRccNu
— The Young Jurks (@TheYoungJurks) May 5, 2026
Modica has since been profiled by the local Marblehead Independent and The Wall Street Journal. There's been some additional commentary from YIMBYs agreeing with Modica that Marblehead residents are, in fact, "being pricks" by going to such great lengths to avoid building housing in the exclusive town.
If Marblehead residents are being pricks, however, it's because the state law enables them to be pricks. While Modica's comments were aimed at his fellow residents, the planning battle he found himself in the middle of illustrates deeper flaws in Massachusetts' chosen means of boosting housing production.
If the state actually wants to build more homes, it needs to prick-proof its housing policy.
The state law at issue at the now-viral Marblehead Town Meeting is the MBTA Communities Act. Passed in 2021, it requires localities to create new zoning districts where new multifamily housing is allowed by-right—meaning it could be built without special permits and discretionary approvals.
The state law also set minimum standards for how much land would have to be covered by localities' new multifamily zoning districts and how many units would have to be allowed within them. Marblehead was required to upzone at least 27 acres to accommodate a minimum of 867 new units.
One problem with Massachusetts' approach is that the state is leaving it up to anti-development localities to upzone themselves when they don't want to.
That creates a procedural challenge in Massachusetts, where localities have robust systems of direct democracy. Over the course of two town meetings and one referendum, Marblehead residents rejected or overturned zoning plans that brought it into compliance with the MBTA Communities law and would produce a little bit of housing.
The town was one of nine communities sued by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell in January for failing to comply with the state's housing law.
In response, the town planning board put their heads together and came up with a fourth, now-adopted zoning plan, that placed almost all the apartment housing it needed to permit on a local golf course.
State officials approved this plan prior to the town meeting where Modica's comments went viral.
These kinds of games will be familiar to anyone who's observed California localities evading their state's housing goals by upzoning veterans' cemeteries and thriving businesses.
One could maybe fault the Massachusetts Legislature for having California's example and still failing to build a more robust remedy into the law. (In fairness, the MBTA Communities law requires many communities, albeit not Marblehead, to upzone around transit stations specifically.)
The more serious problem with the law revealed by the Marblehead episode is that neither NIMBYs nor YIMBYs think the 18-hole golf course that's to be zoned for by-right multifamily development will actually be redeveloped.
Golf courses are,........