I'm not an attorney either. But I spoke to one who's very knowledgeable in these matters.
My bad - HCA is law. A lot of terms and notions have been put out there. How about we stick with letter of the law to determine baselines and base our options to comply on that. The attorney I spoke to said it is his understanding that the state agency charged with overseeing this act (ELHOC), has "guidelines" in place but not "regulations." Regulations have to go through a formal rule making process, guidelines do not, and legally enforcing these guidelines is murky at best. He also believes that ELHOC has overstepped the authority granted to them by the legislation in order to gain more power. Bottom line, to comply, only 20% of the HCA zoning needs to be within 1/2 Mi of an MBTA. The other 80% can be anywhere. And the state got it right when they looked at small rural towns like Lincoln and changed the HCA zoning requirement from 100% within a half mile of an MBTA to 20% so that their downtowns would not have to be so dramatically impacted with so much concentration in one area. That is what I believe to be the spirit of the law. Kind Regards, Scott Clary 617-968-5769 Sent from a mobile device - please excuse typos and errors On Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 5:48 PM Rich Rosenbaum <[email protected]> wrote: > > *Housing Choice Act - It's not a law. It's an act. * > > I'm no lawyer, but:: > > Chapter 358 of the Acts of 2020 (sometimes referred to as the economic > development legislation of 2020) made several amendments to Chapter 40A of > the General Laws, commonly known as the Zoning Act. > > https://www.mass.gov/info-details/housing-choice-legislation > > Each bill that becomes law is given a chapter number, assigned > sequentially in the chronological order of its adoption – these are the > Session Laws. The official publication of Session Laws for any given year > is called the Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts, and is compiled and > published annually by the Secretary of the Commonwealth. The vast majority > of Session Laws are Acts. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Laws_of_Massachusetts > > Housing Choice refers to a number of changes to the state’s zoning law, > MGL Ch. 40A that were enacted at the end of the recent legislative session > through the Economic Development Bond Bill (H.5250). The governor > originally filed many of the Housing Choice provisions and the Legislature > made some modifications and introduced new concepts into the version of the > bill that is now law. > > https://www.mapc.org/planning101/housing-choice-at-a-glance/ > > > On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 3:17 PM Scott Clary <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Housing Choice Act - Its not a law. It's an act. As far as I know, there >> has yet to be a judicial process regarding this act. I think it would be >> appropriate if town leadership stopped using the term "Spirit of the law." >> It is misleading. "Choice" is a critical term in it's title. >> >> Kind Regards, >> >> Scott Clary >> 617-968-5769 >> > -- > The LincolnTalk mailing list. > To post, send mail to [email protected]. > Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/ > . > Change your subscription settings at > https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. > >
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