Anyone who has been pulling building permits in this state for more than a few years knows the math has stopped working. The land is the problem. Not lumber, not labor, not the code cycle — though none of those have gotten easier. The problem is that in most of the communities where people actually want to live, a buildable lot costs so much that the only house that pencils in is a big one. So, we build big ones. Then everybody wonders where the starter homes went.
This November, voters get a direct shot at that. Question 7 — the citizen-led measure from the Legalize Starter Homes campaign — is on the statewide ballot. It will be the most consequential residential zoning vote in this state in years.
What Question 7 does.
Question 7 would amend the state Zoning Act to make it easier to build single-family homes on smaller lots in every city and town in Massachusetts, with the exception of the City of Boston, in a residentially zoned district if three conditions are met, they are:
- The lot contains at least 5,000 square feet in area
- It has at least 50 feet of frontage, and
- It has access to public water and sewer
Where those conditions exist, a city or town cannot require a larger lot or more frontage. It cannot require a special permit or variance. A single-family home can be built as a matter of right. That is the whole mechanism. It caps the minimum lot area requirement and it removes a discretionary hurdle. Five thousand square feet, for scale, is roughly the footprint of an NBA court. This is not radical.
What Question 7 does not do.
Cities and towns still retain local authority to set minimum setbacks, maximum building height, maximum building size, and maximum lot coverage. Wetlands protections, both state and local, remain in place. Minimum parking requirements, if any, stay. Title 5 and every other health and environmental requirement stay exactly where it is. And local regulation of short-term rentals is unaffected.
Note the infrastructure condition, because it does a lot of quiet work. If there is no public sewer, no application. In large parts of Cape Cod, the South Coast, and Central and Western Massachusetts, the sewer map is the real constraint — not the zoning bylaw. This measure changes what is legal where the pipes already are. It does not put a house on a septic lot in the middle of nowhere.
Why it matters to our end of the business.
Two reasons.
First, supply. The Commonwealth needs roughly 222,000 new homes by 2035 to stabilize costs. The campaign's own estimate is that this reform would produce somewhere between 2,200 and 5,700 homes a year. That is not the whole answer. It is a real piece of one.
Second, product mix. When you are carrying a land basis that only a 3,500-square-foot house can justify, you build a 3,500-square-foot house — not because that is what the market is begging for, but because that is what the pro forma allows. Lower the land cost per unit and the modest home becomes a viable product again. Most of us would rather be building homes a young family in our own town can actually buy.
That is not a new position for this industry. The association has been working this ground for a decade: the 2016 amendments to Chapter 40R, the creation of Chapter 40Y in 2022, and the starter home lot provisions in the 2024 Affordable Homes Act. Question 7 is the same argument, taken to the voters instead of the State House.
The other side of it.
The Massachusetts Municipal Association opposes the measure and their argument deserves a straight hearing rather than a strawman. Their position is that a statewide, uniform standard is a blunt instrument, that communities differ enormously in infrastructure capacity and buildout pressure, and that zoning decisions belong at the local level. Some planners have argued the practical effect will be concentrated in suburbs near Boston and modest almost everywhere else. Those are fair concerns. They are also, in my view, arguments about the right tool rather than the right goal.
What to do between now and November.
Read the actual text. Not the mailer, not the yard sign — the text. It is short.
Then talk about it. Talk to your customers who have been priced out of the town they grew up in. Talk to your planning board, who will be fielding questions either way. Talk to the young project managers on your payroll who cannot buy within thirty miles of your office.
Most voters will make up their minds on a slogan. Our industry is one of the few that can explain what a 5,000-square-foot lot actually looks like, what it costs to build on, and what happens when the answer is no. That is worth doing well.
Too many young families, first-time buyers and first-generation buyers can’t find a home they can afford. Question 7 won’t alone solve our housing shortage and housing affordability crisis alone, but it’s a start.
Please vote “Yes” on Question 7 on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3rd.
Keep reading
Related News
