Five years after it began, the fight over a controversial state housing law is nearly over.
The final compliance deadline for the MBTA Communities Act — the 2021 law that requires cities and towns served by the T make room for more multifamily housing — came and went at the end of 2025. And after a series of sometimes-bruising local fights, 165 of the 177 cities and towns the law covers have passed zoning intended to comply with it.
The remaining noncompliant towns are: Carver, Dracut, East Bridgewater, Freetown, Halifax, Holden, Marblehead, Middleton, Rehoboth, Tewksbury, Wilmington, and Winthrop.
That just 12 communities are considered out of compliance represents significant progress for Governor Maura Healey’s administration, which embraced the nearly-passed law when Healey took office in 2022.
One of the most ambitious attempts to boost housing production in Massachusetts in decades, MBTA Communities has become a cornerstone of Healey’s efforts to dig out of the state’s severe housing shortage and rein in sky-high rents and home prices that are driving people to leave Massachusetts.
To close the supply gap, state officials estimate Massachusetts needs to add 222,000 new homes between 2025 and 2035. The idea of MBTA Communities — which emerged from the Legislature and was signed into law by then-Gov. Charlie Baker in early 2021 — is to open up development in towns that have historically resisted new housing. Boston and a few nearby communities have been responsible for the majority of the region’s housing production over the past few decades, while much of the rest of the state has built relatively little in comparison.
But from the outset, some towns have fought MBTA Communities, complaining that it would bulldoze local zoning powers and add too much housing too quickly, straining local infrastructure like roads and sewer systems.
The reality has been far more measured: Some towns like Lexington quickly passed new zoning with the hope of generating new housing development, and have seen a significant influx of projects. Many others have designed their zoning plans to comply with the law while generating as few new homes as possible, in some cases none at all.
Still, opposition to the law was at times intense. Voters in Milton in early 2024 overturned a compliant zoning plan passed by Town Meeting in a dramatic referendum, setting up a lawsuit from Attorney General Andrea Campbell that was heard by the Supreme Judicial Court, which sided with Campbell.
In other towns, like Winthrop, the issue has completely taken over local politics.
Over time, though, most towns that opposed the law have fallen in line. The state’s threat to bar noncompliant towns from state grant programs that fund infrastructure and other projects, proved particularly impactful.
How Healey and Attorney General Andrea Campbell will handle the remaining 12 holdouts is still an open question. Speaking on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio” on Tuesday, Campbell said her office would give towns until the end of January to comply. If they do not by that point, she said, her office “will take action.”
“We gave folks to the end of January, based on our guidance last year, to come into compliance,” Campbell said Tuesday. “And those that do not, we will take action as appropriate by the end of the month.”
A group of nine opposed towns filed lawsuits last year over the law, which they claimed is an “unfunded mandate.” Most of the suits were thrown out, and the majority of the towns that sued now comply with MBTA Communities, but the SJC has agreed to hear Marshfield’s case later this year.
Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker. Christina Prignano can be reached at christina.prignano@globe.com. Follow her @cprignano.