SJC Upholds MBTA Communities Act Against Home Rule Challenge: Marshfield v. Commonwealth (SJC-13840, September 18, 2026)

Marshfield tried twice to comply with the MBTA Communities Act. Voters at special town meetings in April and December 2024 rejected both proposals. The select board then voted not to submit an interim action plan. In February 2025, the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities warned Marshfield that noncompliance would cost the town access to State grant programs. The town and board sued, claiming the act violated State law on multiple grounds. A Superior Court judge dismissed the complaint. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed across the board.

The MBTA Communities Act

The Legislature enacted the MBTA Communities Act in 2021 to address the Commonwealth’s housing crisis. G. L. c. 40A, § 3A, requires municipalities served by the MBTA to adopt zoning that permits multifamily housing as of right in at least one reasonably sized district. A noncompliant MBTA community loses eligibility for certain State grant programs, including the Housing Choice Initiative, the Local Capital Projects Fund, MassWorks infrastructure funding, and HousingWorks infrastructure funding. The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities sets compliance standards and determines whether a municipality has satisfied them.

After this court invalidated HLC’s initial guidelines in January 2025 for failing to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, Attorney Gen. v. Milton, 495 Mass. 183, 196 (2025), HLC promulgated emergency guidelines. Those guidelines gave noncompliant municipalities until July 14, 2025, to request a written determination of compliance. They also required each noncompliant municipality to submit an interim action plan by February 13, 2025, explaining how it intended to achieve compliance. Marshfield did not submit a plan.

The Facts

Marshfield held two special town meetings to consider zoning amendments intended to bring the town into compliance. Both proposals failed. After the second failure, the board voted unanimously not to approve an interim action plan. On February 19, 2025, HLC notified Marshfield that the town was not in compliance and therefore risked losing State grant funding.

Before the board met to discuss that letter, the division of local mandates issued determination letters to three other MBTA communities on February 21, 2025. DLM concluded that the act constituted an unfunded local mandate under G. L. c. 29, § 27C, in part because the Commonwealth had awarded some MBTA communities technical assistance grant funding for the purpose of developing compliant zoning. After receiving the HLC letter and considering DLM’s determination, the board voted to seek judicial relief.

The Unfunded Mandate Claim

Section 27C provides that a State law or regulation constitutes a local mandate if it takes effect after 1980, changes existing law, and imposes a direct service or cost obligation on the municipality above incidental local administration expenses. Marshfield rested its claim on two categories of expense: costs already incurred in evaluating, drafting, and presenting zoning proposals at town meetings, and anticipated future costs.

The court held that Marshfield failed to plead facts that plausibly showed the act imposed mandatory costs outside the statute’s exclusions. The complaint alleged only that Marshfield incurred costs to evaluate and draft compliant zoning bylaws. It did not describe the nature, amount, or necessity of those costs in a way that distinguished them from incidental local administration expenses or costs Marshfield chose to incur in pursuing its preferred path to compliance. The plaintiffs conceded that costs of conducting the town meeting itself were incidental local administration costs.

The allegation of future costs fared no better. Describing future costs as direct stated a legal conclusion, not a well-pleaded fact. The complaint did not identify what the future costs would be or show how the act itself would impose them. If the costs concerned another effort to amend the zoning bylaw, the complaint did not allege facts suggesting those costs would differ in character from the costs already incurred. If the costs concerned future municipal services associated with later housing development, they were indirect and speculative.

The DLM letters incorporated by reference in the complaint did not remedy the deficiency. The letters were issued to three other municipalities, not Marshfield. DLM identified no municipality-specific mandatory costs, much less any costs imposed on Marshfield. The court noted that DLM’s legal conclusion that the act constitutes an unfunded mandate does not bind the court; the ultimate legal question is one for the judiciary to resolve. The grant-related facts referenced in the letters showed that some municipalities received assistance for work connected to MBTA Act compliance but did not show whether those costs were mandatory expenditures imposed by the act rather than costs attributable to local choices about how to pursue compliance.

The Voting Rights Claim

The plaintiffs argued that the act infringes on the constitutional voting rights of town meeting voters. The complaint did not include a free-standing constitutional voting rights claim, and the parties disputed whether the plaintiffs preserved the argument below. The court did not decide the preservation question because neither Marshfield nor the board had standing to assert the claim.

Marshfield is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth and therefore may not challenge the constitutionality of State laws, aside from exceptions not applicable to this voting rights claim. Constitutional protections belong to persons generally considered independent of the Commonwealth. The board members sued only in their official capacities and alleged no injury personal to themselves, so they likewise lacked standing. Public officers generally cannot challenge the constitutionality of a statute when suing in their official capacities.

The Home Rule and Zoning Act Claims

The plaintiffs contended that the MBTA Act violates the Home Rule Amendment and conflicts with G. L. c. 40A, § 5, which governs the procedures for adopting or amending local zoning bylaws. The court concluded that the Home Rule claim was waived but reached the merits because the issue is of public importance.

The Home Rule Amendment preserves municipal authority over local matters but does not prevent the Legislature, through a valid general law addressing a matter of Statewide concern, from imposing substantive requirements that municipalities must implement through existing local procedures. The MBTA Act addresses the Commonwealth’s housing crisis, a subject not confined to any one municipality and squarely within the Legislature’s retained authority. The act therefore does not violate the Home Rule Amendment.

The act also does not conflict with section 5 of the Zoning Act. The MBTA Act does not displace the procedures for adopting or amending local zoning bylaws. It leaves those procedures in place and imposes a substantive State law requirement that the resulting zoning must satisfy. Town meeting voters retain the authority to debate, amend, approve, or reject any proposal placed before them under section 5. But that authority does not include the power to exempt the town from an obligation imposed by a valid State law. The consequence of rejecting a compliant proposal is noncompliance with the MBTA Act, not a conflict between that act and section 5.

Why It Matters

The decision resolves key questions about the MBTA Communities Act’s validity and enforceability. Municipalities cannot avoid the act by claiming it imposes an unfunded mandate without pleading specific, mandatory costs outside the statute’s exclusions for incidental local administration expenses and voluntarily incurred costs. Towns and their boards lack standing to challenge the act on behalf of voters. The Legislature retains authority under the Home Rule Amendment to impose substantive zoning requirements on municipalities in matters of Statewide concern, even when local voters reject compliant proposals. The act leaves local zoning procedures intact but requires the outcome to satisfy State law.

Practitioners should note that the court did not decide whether costs associated with MBTA Act compliance are categorically excluded from section 27C. The dismissal rested on the inadequacy of the plaintiffs’ factual allegations, not on a categorical rule. A municipality that pleads specific, mandatory costs with sufficient factual support might state a viable claim. The court also did not address whether Marshfield accepted the act by appropriating money for purposes of the law, which would take the town outside section 27C’s scope.

Read the full opinion: Marshfield v. Commonwealth (SJC-13840, September 18, 2026).