CommonWealth Beacon reports Milton voters today rejected a plan to rezone the town to allow more housing units, making it the only community served by the MBTA to tell the state to shove its requirement that MBTA-served towns do their part to ease the area housing shortage.
"While we are hopeful that we can work with the town to put forward a new plan that would bring them into compliance with the MBTA Communities Law, at this time they are non-compliant, which means they will begin losing out on significant grant funding from the state," state Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus said in a statement.
Augustus said 175 other cities and towns served by the T have submitted plans that for districts in which developers would be allowed to build more units than they had earlier.
Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!
Ad:
Comments
A lady from Milton
By StillFromDorchester
Wed, 02/14/2024 - 11:14pm
Parks her car in front of my house and walks to shawmut station all the time, I assume she's from Milton because of the bumper and window stickers. I would like Boston to zone my street for city residents only :) :)
Resident Parking.
By Brian Dorchester
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 7:42am
Talk to your city councilor.
Affordable housing is
By Todd W
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:14am
Affordable housing is desperately needed all around eastern Massachusetts , and it should include affluent towns with sprawling houses, these houses should be torn down for mega multi unit buildings for the growing population, if the state doesn’t act now about housing shortage, people will be living at terminal E at Logan.
Good luck
By anon
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:26am
We have resident parking that isn’t enforced. Multiple out of state plates parking for days on end without getting one ticket. Forgot about investigating the Staties, BTD needs investigating.
city council should be helpful/useful
By David
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 10:35am
contact your city councilor and ask for help. (Constituent services if supposed to be their job). the city is very responsive to a neighborhood petition to make a street permit parking, especially if it's near a train station.
Empty threats
By Sock_Puppet
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 6:30am
I think Milton will survive without that.
Before 2021
By Bostoneer
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 6:49am
2021 is an arbitrary cutoff that marks the beginning of this program. Kinda makes sense planning around this would take some funding in the last few years. However that cap over the highway in the middle of the neighborhoods that rejected this was funded with programs like that. Milton has long been an “I got mine screw you” community. Of course it will survive at the expense of others, it’s a rich suburban enclave.
A good start
By Ari O
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 7:14am
Would be to revoke their Chapter 90 funding ($626k). Don't want housing? Don't expect the state to pay for your roads.
A good next step would be a builder's remedy: either come into compliance, or your entire zoning code is nullified.
Do we expect the state legislature to do … anything?
So...
By John Costello
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 7:39am
Milton car owners don't have to pay excise tax then, right?
Milton does need more housing. Absolutely.
Vengeful self-crowned transportation nerds should stop acting like they are General Sherman on the way to Atlanta however.
You sound like some dipshit congressman who is going to shut off funds for something because a book had the word gay in it in some library in California.
Okay then
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:04am
How much and how do you pay for the impact of your driving on public health?
Massachusetts asthma rates top the nation for both adults and children. 14% of children with asthma is a costly issue and automobile exhaust contributes to that cost.
You’re ok with electric cars then, right?
By robo
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:26am
Zero emissions.
ICE is dying and by 2035 won’t be allowed to be sold new in the US.
You need a big asterisk there
By burzmali
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:30am
Currently the overwhelming majority of the power going into electrics is still generated with fossil fuels. Until that changes, electrics still have emissions, just with a much longer exhaust pipe.
Electrics help alleviate air and noise pollution.
By Lee
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 11:21am
But the drivers still crash and sometimes harm pedestrians. Electrics are still a part of traffic congestion, they block the box, they hog road space and everything else a gas powered vehicle does.
Weight
By Sock_Puppet
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 11:32am
And they weigh considerably more than comparable ICE vehicles, causing greater wear and tear on the roads.
All those signs saying "No truck over N tons?" 2, 3, whatever?
You can buy a 9,500 pound (almost 5 ton) electric GMC Hummer. Should you drive that up the J-Way? Is it helping the environment?
Just the battery weighs 2900 pounds, more than, say, a Kia Soul.
That sign doesn't mean what you think it means
By merlinmurph
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 10:47am
When a sign says "NO TRUCKS IN EXCESS OF 2 1/2 TONS", it's referring to the classification and not the actual weight. For example, a Ford F-150 is a 1/2 ton truck, a F-350 is a 1-ton truck. I don't know what a 2 1/2 ton truck is, but it would be quite large.
Yes, there are other signs that have an actual weight limit in pounds, like 20000 lbs or x lbs per axle. That's different.
Tires and brakes
By blues_lead
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 12:35pm
A considerable amount of the atmospheric pollution cars produce is from brakes and tires. Electric cars don't eliminate that.
They also don't do anything about runoff from roads and parking lots.
Tires
By Sock_Puppet
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 12:41pm
Electric cars go through tires a lot faster than ICE cars, mostly because of weight.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/electric-vehi...
Where do you think the electricity comes from Keebler Elves?
By Nowy Liberté
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 6:12pm
With the exception of the reliable 3.3 GW from our Nuclear Power Plants and some hydro imports -- the vast majority of the electric power on the ISO New England System comes from burning Natural Gas and that is not likely to change much in the next decade
As of 17:52 EDT on 02/15/24:
ISO NE reported that 16.254 GW was being consumed and that it was coming from:
Milton car owners don't have
By iamblued
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:23am
Excise taxes and the gas tax barely anything. We (including those who do not own private vehicles) pay for roads to the tune of around 1.2 Billion a year according to MassDot all that is from the general budget or drawn from the MassDot Trust Fund. Tolls contribute 2 million and excise and gas about the same.
Or statewide democratically elected representatives who after years of negotiation have created a bill to address our critical housing shortage that if ignored will begin to make our state less competitive and cause dire economic consequences.
Barely anything
By robo
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:27am
Try 50%.
I will say both should be higher to cover more of the cost, but that would require politicians to actually do something.
Cars should pay 100% of road
By cinnamngrl
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:52am
Cars should pay 100% of road costs.
That's not how taxes work
By merlinmurph
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 10:58am
Everybody, and I mean everybody, benefits from a good transportation system.
I don't have kids. About half of my local real estate taxes go to schools. That's a lot of money, but education is important for all of society.
Paved roads existed before cars
By ScottB
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 11:52am
Because they are useful for vehicles other than cars, like buses, delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles, and even bicycles. Where's the demand for taxes to cover the road costs from those vehicles? Buses and trucks cause more wear-and-tear on the roads per mile traveled than cars.
Bicycles?
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 12:36pm
Sure - how much would it cost to collect the cost of those on the road compared to the $1 a year that would be more than the fair share of damage?
Yeah. Okay.
Private company buses and
By cinnamngrl
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 2:03pm
Private company buses and trucks pay commercial taxes. They are not exempt from paying for roads.
I'm actually OK with this
By DotRatKehd
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 2:58pm
As long as we get to justifiably "dispatch" anyone on a bike found using the roads we pay for...
Oh cute
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:37pm
So murder threats are okay now? I bet your insurance company would like to see this.
BTW, you do realize that it was cyclists who got those roads paved to begin with, right?
Great, so cyclists shouldn't
By DotRatKehd
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 9:32am
Great, so cyclists shouldn't have a problem being forced to pay an excise tax for using the roads they apparently invented...
Ok...
By lbb
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 9:52am
Excise tax is based on vehicle value. Got any more dumb ideas?
Flat rate. $50/yr to use the
By DotRatKehd
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 10:00am
Flat rate. $50/yr to use the car's roads. Time for bike ppl to stop suckling at the teat and contribute
Thay are not the car's roads
By merlinmurph
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 10:50am
I hate feeding trolls, but that's just stupid.
Except cars pay 79% of road costs via fees and taxes
By robo
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 11:22am
Bikes pay nothing. Doesn’t seem very fair to me.
TIL cyclists don't pay taxes or fees
By fungwah
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 3:42pm
Just waiting for my refund now...
OMG! Neither do pedestrians!!
By Lee
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 4:41pm
Yet we build them sidewalks and crosswalks and walk/don’t walk lights!!!!
They don’t even have put license plates on their shoes!!!!!
Like schools
By robo
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 5:54pm
Everyone benefits from sidewalks. Only the miserable bike brigade benefits from their exclusive bike lanes. God forbid someone walks in a bike lane and they’ll hear some choice words almost immediately from some entitled biker.
Not a troll...Just find Bike
By DotRatKehd
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 11:26am
Not a troll...Just find Bike ppl to be insufferable. At the end of the day, car owners pay the vast majority of the costs for road upkeep. Why shouldn't grown people using children's transportation incur some cost as well?
They do
By fungwah
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 3:43pm
Cyclists also pay taxes and fees.
They also cause far less wear and tear to the roads, so they're more than paying for what they use.
What fee does a cyclist pay?
By robo
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 5:52pm
That a non-cyclist doesn’t?
What service does a cyclist use that a non cyclist doesn't?
By cinnamngrl
Sat, 02/17/2024 - 11:42am
You imply that there is a lot of money being spent on cyclists. In fact, it is mostly just painting different lanes on the same pavement. And that pavement lasts a lot longer with lighter weight and less oil and fuel leaking over it. Actually narrowing streets and creating separate infrastructure may cost more, but again it lasts longer. When you design that structure around safety and public transportation everyone benefits. Slowing down cars saves lives, including drivers. And again drivers have a lot of debt to make up in the infrastructure that they didn't pay for. Most of the complaining is really about slowing traffic to the speed limit.
Bike lanes take away travel lanes or sidewalk space
By robo
Sat, 02/17/2024 - 12:54pm
They’re not free. They need to be plowed, painted, repaired, protected with equipment, etc. That’s not an insignificant amount of money. Ok, they last longer of something cyclists have paid nothing for. Instead big bad cars have paid for them.
Drivers pay 80% of road costs. Cyclists pay nothing aside from the general taxes that everyone pays. I still can’t understand how cyclists can be so greedy - give me, give me, but I’m not going to pay for it. It must be entitlement.
So you should be happy to give up the 20% you don't pay for
By cinnamngrl
Sat, 02/17/2024 - 3:59pm
everyone benefits from safer roads and its the only reliable way to get drivers to drive the speed limit. I really think you must be a parody account
Non drivers pay more than 50
By cinnamngrl
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 3:54pm
Non drivers pay more than 50 dollars per year for roads
So they won't mind $50 more
By DotRatKehd
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 5:22pm
So they won't mind $50 more in excise tax. Glad we are on the same page
They should mind, since
By cinnamngrl
Sat, 02/17/2024 - 4:00pm
They should mind, since greedy drivers won't pay their share.
We pay our normal taxes, plus
By DotRatKehd
Sat, 02/17/2024 - 7:30pm
We pay our normal taxes, plus gas tax, plus excise tax...Gonna open my driver side door without checking the mirror in your honor
you don't pay for the roads you use
By cinnamngrl
Sun, 02/18/2024 - 7:13pm
stop whining.
huh?
By lbb
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:45am
50% of what? Citation needed.
Seriously?
By robo
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 10:29am
This gets brought up once a month on this site and as such a frequent poster you’re either not reading anything before posting, or have a very short term memory.
Anyways, back to the question - according to this site it’s 79% for MA, but that seems high compared to what I’ve seen in the past.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-inf...
So
By Ari O
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 2:14pm
About
$762 million in gas tax
$448 million in licences and fees
$1.03 billion in tolls
And $580 from the general fund
(FWIW the T gets $127 million from the general fund each year.)
Plus an additional
By robo
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 3:35pm
$1.3 billion from sales tax, a year. Don’t pretend like the T isn’t getting tons of money from the state each year.
The whole thing is fiction.
By Ben
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 6:44am
The whole thing is fiction. Many communities met the zoning change requirement but utilized properties that would be impossible to ever develop in anyone's lifetime (like the Market Basket in North Andover). Milton is simply being more transparent than the rest.
MBTA served towns
By Anon
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 6:57am
Is the most hilarious line in the whole thing, as if the MBTA serves anyone properly which is the reason why most drive and why Granite Ave is a parking lot in the morning. Loved the first 90% of my life in South Boston and the last 10% in another Boston neighborhood, I have seen first hand what over development can do. So good on you Milton, protect your town.
Milton say No
By anon
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 7:43am
The plan is to build a thousand housing units on Granite Ave, a location where the nearest MBTA station is Cedar Grove which is a mile away and has no parking. Traffic will be a nightmare because the plan will also include thousands of parking spaces for the residents who will never ride the T. The T has lost over fifty percent of its ridership because it is neither safe or reliable and is about to go off a fiscal cliff.
This whole situation is weird
By robo
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 7:44am
Healey came out and said comply or else (very undemocratic). The state funding loss is at max $1.7 million. There are 8800 houses in Milton so an extra on average $200 per house property tax increase to cover the loss. Not much of a loss with such a big threat.
That's...how laws work?
By fungwah
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 7:55am
I mean, unless you're going for some kind of anarchist "the government shouldn't exist", this is just describing how laws are supposed to work everywhere - either you comply with the law, or you're made to do so via whatever enforcement methods are in place. Whether or not it's democratic is how those laws were enacted, or who the people have decided is in charge of enforcing them.
Healey bluffed
By robo
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:24am
And Milton called her on it
$200 A Year In Increased Property Taxes?
By John Costello
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:35am
On Average?
That's a midget hockey team game pizza order after practice.
Miltonians will absolutely pay an extra $200 a year to keep the character of the town.
They will also do something like tell the State to let the park and ride on Granite Ave have a few hundred units thrown up on it as a salve.
Don't expect someplace called Blue Hill Landing up on Canton Ave or Milton Academy to sell a few acres for multi-family anytime soon.
robo needs to show his math.
By cinnamngrl
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:54am
robo needs to show his math. He is not good at reading.
?
By robo
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:00am
$1700000/8800 = $193.18
What other math do you need?
link to your source for the
By cinnamngrl
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:16am
link to your source for the numbers
Sure
By robo
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:37am
https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/MA/Mil...
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/02/14/...
Expect the Unexpected
By Uncle Miltie
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:20am
There’s a 52-unit building currently being constructed in Milton on Blue Hills Parkway. It’s at the site of the former ice harvesting barn near Pope’s Pond. They even gave a cute name: Icehouse.
Bluff?
By Pete X
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:57am
What was she supposed to do, say "oh you sweet special children of Milton, you can just pick and choose whatever law you feel like obeying?" And once she did say something inanely stupid as that, the entire law for upzoning in the commuter area falls apart because Weston, Winchester, Concord and all the other privileged towns in the deadline for next year also decide not to change their zoning.
This is no bluff. The state is going to sue Milton, but its going to drag out in courts while other towns sit on their hands. In the end, they'll probably be forced to comply, but its the NIMBY stalling tactic all over again, and it has consequences for all.
State already lost to Holden for a similar request
By robo
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:06am
State is 0 for 1. I bet they’re going to be 0 for 2 by the end of this.
That's Not True
By Pete X
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:13am
A lawsuit by a non-profit got dismissed on procedural grounds because the judge thought that specific plaintiff couldn't demonstrate specific harm https://www.telegram.com/story/news/local/2023/12/...
A state lawsuit will likely be able to demonstrate harm, even if they pull a judge as mis-informed as that one.
Where is there an mbta
By cinnamngrl
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:26am
Where is there an mbta station in Holden? It doesn't really compare to Milton. Milton has the trolly and buses to Ashmont and Quincy all through it.
MBTA Communities Defined
By Pete X
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 2:23pm
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/multi-family-zon...
Scroll down. Holden is an MBTA adjacent community. They don't need to comply until the end of 2024
That's ... interesting
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 8:06am
Should someone steal or vandalize one of your purported vehicles, will you tell the cops not to bother because enforcement is (very undemocratic)?
I would tell the cops not to bother
By ScottB
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 9:58am
Because the DA won't prosecute.
I just want the police report for the insurance company.
That's cute
By fungwah
Fri, 02/16/2024 - 7:50am
that you think the cops would do anything other than take a report, regardless of what the DA would or wouldn't do.
Pages
Add comment