Marblehead Town Meeting Makes Zoning Bylaw Decision After Heated Debate

MARBLEHEAD, MA — Marblehead town meeting voters on Tuesday chose to accept a zoning revision designed to comply with the state's MBTA Community Act, allowing for expanded by-right multi-family housing one year after the same body rejected the state mandate.

The vote on Tuesday night came one night after the annual town meeting had to be postponed and moved because of capacity issues at the middle school, and following the rejection of two attempts to reject or table the compliance vote.

• Marblehead's MBTA Zoning Non-Compliance Threatens $210K State Grant
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• Marblehead To 'Test' State On MBTA Zoning Compliance Grants
• Gov. Maura Healey Hails MA SJC Ruling On MBTA Community Law Compliance
• Crowd Crunch Postpones Marblehead Town Meeting
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It also came after a successful amendment to move the "high-interest" discussion of the zoning bylaw to the front of the warrant, despite it being Article 23 out of 52 in the overall warrant.

The final vote was 951 in favor of the Planning Board's compliance proposal and 759 against. The two attempts to delay or preemptively reverse the vote failed by a similar margin.

"This is not a choice that we have," Select Board member Dan Fox said in urging the compliance vote. "The debate is over."

Fox added that "I hate what '3A' has done to this town" in reference to the vehement debate and deep divisions that the compliance campaign has caused.

Proponents of compliance argued that the state Supreme Judicial Court has already ruled that cities and towns out of compliance can be punished with a withholding of necessary state grant funding by being out of compliance and be subject to costly litigation.

Opponents argued that the court process could still be reversed and that accepting the state mandate could result in a changing character of a small town by allowing more dense housing, threatening current infrastructure and ultimately costing the town more than it would lose in the state grants.

The vast majority of cities and town affected in the state law voted to accept zoning changes that put them in compliance, with Marblehead among a handful that rejected the original Planning Board changes, leading to Tuesday's vote, five months after the original state deadline for compliance.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)