Where to focus affordable housing activism at the local level
Affordable housing activism is a tricky, wonky area that’s very contextual to whatever location and level of government you’re in. People know what they want (for rent and housing prices to go down), but knowing which levers you have control over, which are the easiest and hardest things to accomplish, and where you should place your effort, are all tricky to grasp.
So, I’m writing up this blog post as a little guide of where I — as one City Councilor, at this time — think that activists can best focus their efforts. This is relevant to Medford, Massachusetts on Sunday, May 25th, 2025. I’m listing different initiatives in the order of which are the most timely, impactful, and which will take the most or least effort on the part of activists, starting with the most pertinent items and ending with longer-term projects.
Speaking up in favor of the Neighborhood and Urban Residential Zoning Proposal
Right now, City Council is completely rezoning the city, and one of the most important initiatives you can undertake is to support that rezoning. We’ve rezoned Salem Street, Mystic Avenue, and passed a new green score initiative, while rezoning for Medford Square, West Medford, and a new ADU ordinance is in the works. The most important rezoning initiative coming up, however, is our neighborhood and urban residential zoning proposal, which affects the city as a whole rather than a specific corridor or policy.
Importance: Rezoning the city with incentives to build more affordable housing is the single most important lever City Council has to have a positive impact on housing, and this proposal affects more housing overall than any one piece of zoning we’ve passed so far.
Ask: Come to the Community Development Board meeting on June 4th at 6:30 PM on Zoom. If and when it’s passed back to City Council, speak in favor of it at the next regular Council meeting that will feature it. I described how this went previously with Salem Street. In a nutshell, showing up and being vocal for one evening can bring huge benefits for the long term.
Contact: The Community Development Board, then the City Council. Emailing the Mayor with support on this would also help.
Effort: Show up to one or two meetings — an evening or two on your part!
Feasibility: This is already happening. It’s just a matter of whether City Council and the CDB hears enough public support to make zoning support more building and commercial development or not.
Three local studies that would really help out the housing situation
At a recent budget meeting, I needled the Chief of Staff over the use of the city’s free cash reserves on three different studies: an affordable housing nexus study, a transportation demand management study, and a study to update the city’s capital improvements program completely. Relative to what we’ve been spending money on, these are pretty low-cost ways to make massive investments in Medford’s future. (The Mayor did put up a petition to sell off public land to pay for the affordable housing nexus study, though it was voted down 5-2 in Council.)
Importance: I’ve previously discussed transportation demand management and the linkage fee situation. Essentially, TDM would integrate Medford into the Lower Mystic TMA, which would aid development; it would also greatly expand transportation options within the city, which would help with congestion. Our linkage fees are what we charge developers to build in Medford, and we need studies to support how much we can raise those amounts. Updating all of our existing fees in the capital improvement programs (Police & Fire, Water & Sewers, Roads & Traffic, and Parks & Recreation) would put more funding towards all of those programs. Adding a fifth linkage bucket for affordable housing — which we need a nexus study for — would be the single best way to get money into the Affordable Housing Trust.
Ask: To allocate between $60,000 and $300,000 to studies that would update the city’s capital improvements program. (The city has $28 million in free cash at the moment, which is supposed to be used for one-time costs like these studies.)
Contact: The Mayor makes requests to the City Council on free cash allocations, so emailing her is the best bet.
Effort: Very little — an email to the mayor encouraging her to allocate free cash to undertake a transportation study, an affordable housing nexus study, and a capital improvements program study would be a pretty low-cost ask that would put huge investments into the city.
Feasibility: This is very feasible and likely to happen with a few nudges.
Linkage fee bill at the state house
City Council passed a Home Rule Petition to update our linkage fees, which would need to be approved by the state house. Home Rule Petitions are where cities request that their state delegation do something. It was submitted to the state house, but they didn’t get to finally passing it before the year-end deadline. Since then, there’s been nothing.
Importance: I explain it in this post. Essentially, linkage fees are fees that we charge developers to build, and this makes it so that those fees don’t get eaten by inflation over time (our last update was in 1990, so our linkage fees are a fraction as valuable then as they were now). Very important for the long term.
Ask: To refile this bill and get it passed before budget season is over.
Contact person: Representative Paul Donato, who filed the bill late last year.
Effort: Very little — just email the state representative. Depending on which district you live in in Medford, you can also try Rep. Barber or Rep. Garballey.
Feasibility: It’s perfectly feasible — it passed for a third reading last year but just fell by the wayside because the state house got caught up in other things.
Engaging with the Community Land Trust project
Community Land Trusts are land within a city, owned by members of the community and used for the common good rather than one individual. I was involved in a group that collaborated on a Community Land Trust study that will help to educate future efforts, which was inspired largely by Somerville’s effort.
Importance: Using land for a CLT can help to build up affordable housing, particularly on land owned by the city. We consulted with Somerville’s CLT staff when working on the study.
Ask: To acquire land and build up a CLT.
Contact person: The current housing planner in the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability.
Effort: This would be a not-insignificant amount of organizational effort, though it would be a very worthwhile community activity for a group of people looking to build it up.
Feasibility: It could be initiated over the next few years and grown over time.
Petitioning the City to raise our CPA surcharge from 1.5% to 3%
This is an initiative that Somerville took on last year (while Medford was itself dealing with the overrides). Essentially, the Community Preservation Committee puts a 1.5% surcharge on property tax bills that is matched by the state and goes towards affordable housing, open space, and historic preservation projects in Medford. A lot of the good things that we’ve seen happen in Medford in recent years has happened because of the CPA, including the playground at McGlynn, repairs to the Chevalier, restoration of much of the Brooks Estate, and the only funding that the Affordable Housing Trust has seen thus far.
Importance: This would be a substantial revenue source towards affordable housing in the future. Walkling Court, which was supposed to begin building last summer, is still a few million short of that, so having a local cash source to help the city fund these initiatives would be huge.
Ask: City Council and the Mayor would need to agree to put it on the ballot, though realistically the political capital and public will to do so would need to be built up over time.
Contact person: Current and former members of the CPC could know something about this.
Effort: High — this would require a whole campaign in itself to pass the ballot initiative, even after the Mayor and City Council approved it.
Feasibility: Perfectly feasible, though it would depend on local organizing. Again, Somerville did the exact same thing last year.
Home Rule Petitions
I discussed this here (under “housing home rule petitions”), as well as the follow-up to the real estate transfer fee opposition campaign from the Greater Boston Real Estate Board here. These are statewide initiatives like rent stabilization and the real estate transfer fee that need to be done either via statewide ballot initiative or a vote of the legislature. Medford can pass home rule petitions asking the state to act on these, but the state is under no obligation to do so.
Importance: Huge — if they worked, they would substantially contribute to the funding of housing, reduction in speculation, and housing stability.
Ask: Ask your state reps. It’s more likely that it will require a ballot initiative to pass either of these initiatives, however. Professional organizers have been at this for years.
Contact person: City Life/Vida Urbana and the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization are my go-to activist organizations.
Effort: To pass the home rule petitions, a bit of effort. To actually enact the changes that the home rule petitions ask for, quite a bit more effort is needed.
Feasibility: This is something that could very well pass with new leadership at the state level, or if activist organizations collect enough signatures to put it on a statewide ballot, but I don’t see them acting on home rule petitions from cities under the current circumstances. Even so, it’s good for cities to do that in order to signal support.
