MA Governor Balances Fire Safety, Housing Production in Zoning Law

Gov. Maura Healey says towns resisting compliance with the controversial MBTA zoning law won’t be blocked from fire safety grants, as she considers a housing production tool that fire officials describe as a “serious life safety hazard.”

Healey has said that her administration’s “eye” is on building as many homes as possible as quickly as possible. The governor has faced some backlash, though, for having fire departments sign off on whether their municipalities comply with the MBTA Communities Act to receive funding for fire safety equipment.

State Sen. Kelly Dooner, a Republican representing a handful of towns and cities in Bristol and Plymouth counties, brought the issue to the governor during a hearing on Healy’s $63.4 billion budget proposal for the next fiscal year, starting July 1.

The state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security and the Department of Fire Services have made roughly $4.99 million available for local departments to purchase fire safety equipment.

A special condition outlined in the application states that the “applicant agrees to comply with the following: … the MBTA Communities Act.”

“There is a lot of communities that have volunteer firefighter departments or on-call firefighter departments,” Dooner told Healey last week, “and they very much depend on those public safety grants, those fire grants, just for everyday needs.”

The governor initially responded, “Look, everything’s going to be evaluated case by case.” Healey pointed out how the zoning mandate, requiring communities to create compliant zoning districts to boost housing near MBTA stations, was signed into law under Gov. Charlie Baker.

The state says that 165 out of 177 communities have met the mandate so far. Attorney General Andrea Campbell, in late January, sued nine towns to ensure compliance with a 2021 law: Dracut, East Bridgewater, Halifax, Holden, Marblehead, Middleton, Tewksbury, Wilmington and Winthrop.

This is not the first time the fire safety grant MBTA zoning compliance issue has caused concern. Healey’s administration changed course last spring, telling fire departments that if their cities or towns resisted compliance, they’d lose funding.

Healey highlighted some of her administration’s efforts to boost housing construction “as quickly as possible,” ranging from “utilizing surplus land to expediting permitting.”

“As a former prosecutor and attorney general,” Healey said, “I understand the preeminence around public safety. I think this administration has done a tremendous amount to support, and always will, public safety.”

Dooner responded, “That’s great. I just wanna make sure there’s a priority for public safety in communities that are noncompliant … aren’t excluded, and putting lives at risk.”

Healey alerted the senator that the fire safety grants are pending, and her administration has “never denied or withheld fire safety grants for noncompliance.”

“That will be our practice with respect to those,” the governor said. “We will not deny or withhold fire safety grants for noncompliance.”

The Healey administration has been slammed in the past for withholding various grants from municipalities that have yet to comply with the MBTA zoning law. For instance, Middleton has lost a $2 million grant aimed at improving safety at what has been described as one of the North Shore’s “most dangerous” intersections.

Some state officials have apologized for how they’ve communicated over the withholding of funding, in particular instances. Late last year, the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation said it “mistakenly informed” two schools that they were not eligible to receive state money for a student financial literacy program.

Healey pledged not to withhold fire safety grants the day before she signed an executive order creating an advisory group to study whether the state building code should be updated by legalizing single-stair, mid-rise housing units.

Healey and housing advocates argue that the state’s current building code limits the feasibility of mid-rise housing developments because it typically requires two exit stairs for buildings above three stories or with long interior corridors.

“While the double stair requirement plays an important role in ensuring safety,” Healey said in a statement on Thursday, “it’s also holding us back from the type of housing construction we need to meet demand.”

Moving to single-stair, mid-rise housing units, though, has faced pushback and safety concerns before in Massachusetts and other cities and states.

The state Department of Fire Services declined to provide the Herald with a comment on Healey’s executive order.

Fire Marshal Jon Davine, in the past, though, has raised concerns about eliminating secondary egress requirements for buildings up to six stories. Davine pushed back against single-stair residential buildings in a DFS newsletter in January 2025, describing the recommendation as a “serious life safety hazard.”

“Modern homes and furnishings burn faster than ever before: removing yet another fundamental life safety requirement from the regulations intended to keep us safe,” the state fire marshal wrote, “would be a short-sighted and potentially deadly decision.”

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