Lots of jurisdictions have some form of local control to resist state mandates, but Marblehead, Massachusetts, takes it to a different level. Citizens can send Town Meeting decisions to a townwide ballot, so even though the town had approved a plan to build housing that complied with statewide rules, the same plan was ultimately rejected.
David Modica, who went viral last week for speaking out against the town’s new plan to evade the state’s rules, joined Jerusalem Demsas on a Substack live video to explain why he was motivated to speak up.
"Are we kind of being pricks?"
Marblehead didn’t start out being “pricks,” that was the result of a (somewhat) democratic process.
“We are one of those places that you’d expect to sort of be open and welcome and inclusive — at least that’s what we say our values are. And I think the fact that we were so clearly not doing that and flaunting the rules in such a cynical way really bothered me,” he said.
The town’s new plan is to upzone a golf course: somewhere that has no housing and no immediate plans to add any housing. And while Marblehead’s process for arriving at this plan was unique, similar shenanigans pop up all over the country.
“Once you give localities that kind of discretion, what you end up getting is attempts to fake-meet the target, right?” said Jerusalem. “If you upzone a golf course, the golf course isn’t likely going anywhere. That golf course is going to continue to be a golf course. Yes, it is now legal for a developer to buy on that golf course and turn that into multifamily housing but that’s just not going to happen. And this happens all the time.”
Check out the video above to hear their full conversation, which touched on the demographic makeup of Marblehead and the legitimacy of NIMBY opposition.
