Massachusetts ballot puts lot density up for a vote of the people

Massachusetts housing advocates spent this year quietly signing up voters for a statewide ballot fight few were watching.While rent stabilization grabbed attention nationally, a separate campaign succeeded in collecting signatures to ask voters in November to cap minimum lot sizes statewide, the first time any state has put that question directly to a ballot. Statewide ballot measures on housing have historically leaned toward eminent domain and private property rights, not zoning mandates such as this.Fights to loosen minimum lot sizes, the linchpin of housing-affordability efforts nationwide, typically die in state legislative committees, not ballot boxes. If successful, the ballot measure would cap minimum lot sizes for single-family homes at 5,000 square feet along with qualifying conditions. Capping the minimum lot size at 5,000 square feet, vs. current pervasive minimums of 10,000 square feet to 2 acres minimum, would open more municipal parcels and districts to greater density. The irony is difficult to miss. Voters decide the measure on Nov. 3, just three weeks before the 100th anniversary of Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., the 1926 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ga...