Condemning Result of Milton Zoning Referendum 

Statement Condemning Result of Milton Zoning Referendum 

Milton Has Decided to Defy the MBTA Zoning Law, Now the Attorney General Must Hold the Town Accountable

Milton residents voted down critical zoning changes that would have allowed for more multi-family housing development within the Town’s borders. As a result, Milton now joins Holden in open defiance of the MBTA Communities Zoning mandate, which required the Town to enact those changes by the end of last year. With multiple towns expressing hostility against the mandate, we are at the precipice of a damaging cascade of non-compliance. The Governor and Attorney General must step in to halt this domino effect. 

Lawyers for Civil Rights (“LCR”) condemns Milton’s decision in the strongest possible terms. To put it simply, Milton has decided to preserve an exclusionary status quo rather than inviting greater socio-economic diversity and doing its part to help ease the Commonwealth’s crushing affordable housing crisis. This is an affront to the hundreds of other communities that have already achieved compliance with the Law or are working hard to do so. Every town in the MBTA region, including Milton, has a shared responsibility to produce more housing. 

Attorney General Andrea Campbell has repeatedly threatened—both in last year’s legal advisory and more forcefully in recent weeks—that her office will take enforcement action against any municipality that shirks its obligations under the Law. Now that Milton has officially chosen that path, the Attorney General must swiftly make good on those threats.