Can we talk about another housing issue in Milton that has the potential to bring residents together. Town farm. In 1701, Royal Governor Stoughton deeded his 40 acre wood lot to benefit the town’s poor. Today, only 4 acres remain and many in town believe affordable housing is the best way to honor the will. In 2023, Governor Stoughton Trustees (who double as Select Board members) issued a request for proposals for thirty-five units of affordable housing on the site. But a change in control of the Select Board in spring 2024 meant the responses to that RFP were put on hold.

A Town Farm review committee was set up in July 2024 and didn’t meet until January 2025. When we did (yes, I managed to get appointed to this committee), we held a public forum to hear ideas for the site from residents.

While there is a wide range of opinions among committee members and town residents, I believe there is a strong consensus forming in town that the remaining four acres of one of the last remaining poor farms should include permanently affordable housing. What that housing looks like, how many units, and who should live there are all questions where there isn’t full agreement. But most residents seem to agree that housing for the “poor” is part of the history of the site dating back to 1805 and should be part of its future.

Our committee heard from many Milton residents who support that position. Fully forty of the fifty-five commenters supported some form of affordable housing on the site. Some said it should be senior housing. Some preferred rental housing while others pressed for homeownership. We heard from residents about a “Home Inc” style development featuring townhouses while many commented positively on the farmhouse style design reusing existing buildings featured in one of two RFP responses. A dozen commenters opposed affordable housing on the site and another three expressed other concerns.

We listened to several ideas about alternative uses and heard creative proposals around a public farm to support the Milton Food Pantry, a non-profit animal shelter for people that need to find a home for their pet while they work toward stable housing, an organic farm/beehive, and hybrid ideas such as a land trust or co-housing, food forest, environmental education park, childcare facility, nonprofit incubator, or veterans housing. We heard from some that the land should be sold, similar to the 30 acres on Woodlot Drive, to a developer to build market-rate homes and the interest on the proceeds used to increase support for the Food Pantry and Milton Residents Fund.

The Governor Stoughton Trustees should move swiftly to pursue a plan for the site that prioritizes the creation of affordable housing held in perpetuity. This site has been a political football for far too long. Serious debate about the future of Town Farm began over twenty years ago. In 2011, the town sold 30 acres to Pulte Homes but left the remaining four acres for future Trustees to decide.

We have a chance to save one of the last remaining poor farms in New England and now is the time to do it. Both neighbors, and the town as a whole, deserve certainty about the future of this historic piece of land. Governor Stoughton Trustees should open a conversation with the Milton-based development team that responded to the RFP to see what is possible on this important site. The Homes at Stoughton Farms, as Milton resident Ralph Parent has proposed, would honor the past and provide for a future of this site that would make Milton proud.

“I get up in the evenin’
And I ain’t got nothin’ to say
I come home in the mornin’
I go to bed feelin’ the same way
I ain’t nothin’ but tired
Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself…”
– Bruce Springsteen, Dancing in the Dark lyrics

Tired. Last night, Milton’s Select Board voted 3-2 (sound familiar?) to submit a tired letter to the state commenting on the new MBTA Communities Act regulations. Four years after its passage and after two full years of vigorous debate and opposition to this “massive state overreach”, our Select Board filed a letter taking exception to exactly one provision of this state law – our trolley is not rapid transit, they said.

The letter conveniently ignores that Chelsea, served by no subway lines but rather Silver Line dedicated bus route, is also considered rapid transit. The letter also cites the “abandonment” of a project in 1968 that would have extended the Ashmont branch to Mattapan using the trolley right-of-way and Red Line subway cars. That project was, of course, abandoned after vigorous protests from Milton residents.

Our current Select Board majority is “tired”, even “sick and tired”, of hearing about how we were “classist and racist”. We should stick to history and fact, they say.

Here are some facts and some history. 177 communities have been asked to comply with a 2021 upzoning mandate by the state with one of the worst housing affordability problems in the nation. 118 have submitted compliant zoning plans in good faith; 26 of 30 communities submitted action plans by February 13 stating an intention to comply with the revised state deadline of July 14, 2025 (the remaining small towns under 7,000 people have until Dec 31, 2025 to submit plans).

Four communities, Milton included, decided to remain in the increasingly lonely space of non-compliance. Defiantly non-compliant. And tired. Milton’s opposition is increasingly tired after each successive loss we endure. Losing at the game of “she won’t sue us”. Losing state grants. Losing legal fees. Losing at the state Supreme Judicial Court. And now losing with the vast majority of our peers who are complying with the law.

Milton has a long history suing the state. Milton vs. MBTA in 1968 tried to stop the replacement of the trolleys with subway cars. Milton residents at the time argued that there was “no apparent transportation benefit to the proposal” to replace the trolley with subway cars. Now, we argue that the trolleys are so inferior to other transit options that our zoning requirement should be slashed by 60% or even 80%. Our “unique” town is on an unenviable, and costly, losing streak. And that is tiring.

“At this time, the Town is unable [emphasis mine] to submit an Action Plan because the Town disagrees with the classification that Milton is placed in by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable
Communities (EOHLC).” – January 14, 2025 letter from Town of Milton to Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities

Unable? Let’s try unwilling.

With a 3-2 vote, Milton decided to continue its lawbreaking ways on Friday. First, our Select Board missed the actual state-imposed deadline of February 13 to submit an action plan announcing the town’s intention to submit a compliant zoning plan before Town Meeting no later than July 14, 2025. Then, on Friday the 14th, they voted down the motion by Select Board members Erin Bradley and Ben Zoll to submit an action plan as required by the state.

Our advocates for “no” celebrated the one-year anniversary of the referendum vote to break the law with yet another vote to break the law. And virtually nothing offered by the no side has turned out to be true.

Advocates for no said the town wouldn’t get sued. We got sued by the Massachusetts Attorney General almost immediately.

Advocates for no said the AG couldn’t enforce compliance with the law. The decision in January 2025 by the Supreme Judicial Court said she could.

Advocates for no said the state couldn’t compel local zoning reforms. The January SJC decision determined the law was Constitutional.

Advocates for no said the trolley wasn’t rapid transit. The emergency regulations published in January 2025 make it crystal clear that the Mattapan High Speed Line, with its four stops in Milton, is rapid transit.

Advocates for no have been wrong on virtually everything. Their one victory, of sorts, was that the SJC ruled that the previous “guidelines” were not enforceable and that the state must go through a proper Administrative Procedures Act process to repromulgate enforceable “regulations”. Those paying attention, though, saw that the process used to develop the guidelines included extensive public comment and resulted in many changes to the original draft guidelines. To expect a different outcome now is really a stretch. In mid-April, Milton is likely to have final, enforceable, Constitutional regulations and be faced with yet another deadline – this one on July 14th.

Our no side still has no plan other than to continue to litigate, this time with “less expensive lawyers”, as one of the lead organizers of the no campaign said recently at a Select Board meeting. That always proves to be a winning strategy!

Voting no has dug a half-million dollar sized hole for the town between lost grants and legal fees, not to mention our well-earned laughing-stock reputation in the region. We are in that hole now and our elected officials can’t seem to stop digging. Will they stop? Or will voters have to stop them first?