Massachusetts ADU Law Explained: What Homeowners Need to Know

Can Massachusetts homeowners now build an accessory dwelling unit on their property?

In this special episode, originally recorded for Married to Real Estate at Westford Community Access Television, Mary Foerster and Mary McCauley interview Massachusetts State Representative James “Jim” Arciero about the state’s new accessory dwelling unit law and its potential impact on homeowners, families, municipalities, renters and real estate investors.

The Massachusetts Affordable Homes Act made qualifying accessory dwelling units available by right in single-family zoning districts. Under the statewide law, an ADU may be located within a home, attached to an existing residence or built as a detached structure on the same property. State law generally defines a qualifying ADU as being no larger than 900 square feet or half the gross floor area of the principal dwelling, whichever is smaller.

Representative Arciero explains why the state changed the previous approval system, how long special-permit processes could take, and why legislators viewed ADUs as one tool for addressing Massachusetts’ housing shortage.

The conversation also explores the people who may benefit most from ADUs, including:

• Older adults who want to age in place
• Families caring for relatives with disabilities
• Young adults struggling with housing affordability
• Homeowners seeking rental income
• Families interested in multigenerational living
• Investors looking for additional housing opportunities

Mary, Mary and Representative Arciero also address some of the more complicated questions surrounding ADUs, including septic capacity, local permitting, construction costs, public safety, neighborhood concerns, owner-occupancy requirements and the role of individual cities and towns.

Massachusetts began allowing qualifying ADUs by right statewide in February 2025 following the 2024 Affordable Homes Act.

In This Episode

• What qualifies as an accessory dwelling unit
• What “by right” means for Massachusetts homeowners
• Why the previous special-permit process created barriers
• Who may benefit from building an ADU
• How ADUs can support aging in place
• Housing options for family members with disabilities
• ADUs as potential sources of rental income
• How Massachusetts is responding to its housing shortage
• Attached, detached and interior ADU options
• The statewide 900-square-foot standard
• When a local special permit may still be required
• Septic system and Title 5 considerations
• Construction costs and financing resources
• Public-safety benefits of legal, permitted housing
• Community concerns about density and neighborhood character
• Commercial-to-residential property conversions
• The future of ADU construction across Massachusetts

Guest Bio

Massachusetts State Representative James “Jim” Arciero

James Arciero is the Massachusetts State Representative for the 2nd Middlesex District. He has served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives since 2009 and represents Westford, Littleton and part of Chelmsford.

Representative Arciero previously served as House Chair of the Joint Committee on Housing and played an important role in conversations surrounding housing production, accessory dwelling units and the Massachusetts Affordable Homes Act.

He is a graduate of Westford Academy and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a Master of Public Administration from Suffolk University.

About the Co-Hosts

Mary Foerster

Mary Foerster is a real estate professional and the host of Real Estate Connections, a podcast focused on real estate decisions, housing transitions, aging in place and the professionals who help people navigate important life and property changes.

Mary McCauley

Mary McCauley is a Massachusetts and New Hampshire real estate professional and one of the co-hosts of Married to Real Estate. Her work combines real estate expertise with a strong commitment to the Westford community.

Episode Credit

This conversation was originally recorded for Married to Real Estate at Westford Community Access Television and is being shared as a special episode of Real Estate Connections.

This episode is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Representative James Asiero of Massachusetts. But most fun was I had a chance to partner up again with Mary Macaulay, my podcast mate from Married to Real Estate. And we had the pleasure of talking about accessory dwelling units. Massachusetts is the 19th state of 20 that have passed legislation so far. Other states are considering it as a way of easing housing shortages. That's one of the goals of accessory dwelling units. So stand by, great conversation, has so many tentacles into other issues. And I know you're going to enjoy listening to Representative Asiero and Mary Macaulay. Welcome to Real Estate Connections Podcast, where relationships open doors. I'm Mary Forrester, and housing is a universal need. We are often thinking about our existing housing, our future housing, that possibly of family members. This is where you're going to hear the issues and the people who are working the issues every day. Please hit subscribe and like if you find this podcast helpful to you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Okay, welcome everyone to back to Married to Real Estate. Here with Mary Forester, I'm Mary McAuley, and we have a special guest today, Jim Marciero, who is our um rep from Westford, Littleton, and parts of Chelmsford, which I thought was interesting. Not all of Chelmsford. South Chelmsford?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

It's going to be more West Chelmsford. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Acton Road.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So you're Acton Road? Right next to the Gulf. Okay, no, no, that's what South Chumpsford. So that would be more going towards Colonel, etc. Okay. That's okay. But you know, it's confusing. I've been a legislator for 18 years and they've redistricted redistricted a number of different legislators within Chumsford for like 20 years, which is absurd. Okay. But we've done our best to um, you know, represent Chumsford. Um, and we love Chumsford actually because I've represented for so long. But they've moved us around a couple of times on the redistricting. So I'll still adopt you. I'm adopting you. Thank you. Okay, good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Yes, adopted. I like that. Um so Jim, we're here to talk about um ADUs. So you were instrumental in 2025 of getting that 24, um, getting that passed in the state of Massachusetts. So tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah, absolutely. So um What is an ADU first? An accessory dwelling unit. So uh that would be um just to put it into layman's terms, a granny flat and you know, uh an apartment that was built, uh either, you know, attached or detached or above a garage or below um uh you know, a single family home um in order to provide more housing. That's like a real simple, easy answer. Um we sometimes think about EDUs as a new concept. Um, they really aren't. Uh they've existed uh for decades. Big in California, but in Massachusetts, they've existed too. We think that they're so new. What's new about it is they're by right.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

So in the past, it was a special permit. Right. And so put that aside for a second, the ADU piece, and we talked a little bit about housing. So during the pandemic, um, we're dealing with you know, people not being able to, you know, um get out of their homes, right? We're dealing with um the pandemic, we're dealing with folks who couldn't pay their bills because they couldn't get to work, we hadn't figured out the the system yet, but we had um almost uh a billion people that, you know, were you know had the possibility of not being able to make rent. And um, so during that period of time, we worked with the federal government and our partners to get rental assistance to people to ensure that we were uh avoiding evictions. So during that period of time of great crisis in housing, a lot of the concept that had been around for decades is that Massachusetts lead behind in housing development. Um we have an unhealthy vacancy rate. Uh we're one of the most expensive states to live in um in the nation. And so the calculation essentially was that we needed to build about 225,000 units by 2030. That was the goal by the six years, five years. By by the the the goal of uh the the the Healy administration by taking sort of the bull by the horns on the housing issue and how it affects, right? It affects our economic vitality, uh, quality of living, affects obviously families. Um but when you talk to employers and like the the Boston Chamber of Commerce or any sort of statewide chamber of commerce organization, the three major issues that every employer wants to know in biotech, life sciences, or any of the big sort of education or health care um sectors and spaces that that we're so known for in the country, the three major issues to attract employees is housing, it's uh child care and it's transportation.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

So how are like those are the most important issues? So looking at that, the legislature and the governor um certainly looked at the future of Massachusetts and the affordability of Massachusetts. And there's a lot of certain, you know, certain different uh ways that people want to achieve that. I know in the ballot initiative we have uh rent control is an issue that that that some you know more progressive folks want to see happen. But what we wanted to do as legislators in the governor's office was to have a uh a stronger and a healthier vacancy rate. How do we do that? Building more.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

And so the Affordable Homes Act essentially was about building more, trying to uh reach that goal of a healthy vacancy rate by 2035. Although the goalposts have moved a couple of times just to could, you know, and certainly to be able to reach that. But part of the Affordable Homes Act was to put a $5 billion investment in housing production by investing in our our um our um housing authorities, 243 across the state, um who suffered uh a lot of uh years of backlog and maintenance. And um this way we could start to build back our uh our housing authorities across the state better and more sustainable in the future. But another piece of it was housing production. And I think that's where it sort of leads to the Affordable Homes Act and looking outside the box and trying to figure out other ways that we can increase housing that didn't specifically have to do with with investing with developers on production. What are other tools in the toolbox that we could utilize right now for people to be able to find a way to find a place to live to live and have a good life?

SPEAKER_03 6:35

Right. So everyone in Massachusetts now has the right to have an ADU on their property um by the state.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

So before the Affordable Homes Act, it was a special permit. So for instance, in Westford, I'll give you an example. I've talked to um the land use department on a number of time a number of occasions during this whole period of time. And the average time it took for an individual to soup to nuts to build an ADU and to get all the permitting done and to get uh the special permit passed and the specifications checked off was two and a half years.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

The approval process. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

The whole process itself was in Westford on average is about two and a half years. Now that's about standard for the state.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Some communities differed, right? So so the ability to have a special permit with an accessory dwelling in it, essentially all cities and towns have that ability. So ADUs have existed.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

There's been more patient individuals um went through the process and uh you know in Westford and they they didn't disapprove them necessarily. Um, but the process was a little more rigorous and longer. And I think that was the issue. The issue is people need relief now. Yeah, what how can we within Westford in our community offer more housing options? So why are ADUs important? Well, we look at the affordability rate, we look at where Westford and the Massachusetts is, and we talk about 200,000 units by by you know by 2035 in order to have a healthy vacancy rate. Well, we have to continue to do that, and we have to continue to look outside the box on other ways that we can, you know, provide tools in the toolbox. So who benefited from ADUs? Well, individuals want to age in place. There's a lot of empty nesters or people that don't want to leave when their daughter or son has children, they want to be in the mix and around the area and they want to downsize. So there's a lot of interest in downsizing and being with your family, which is pretty traditional of how a lot of us grew up. Exactly. Uh, secondly, uh, would be you think about um young people and you're just starting out. If your parents don't want you to officially live in the basement or not, you can have additional options of independence. Right? You can have additional options of independence for a period of time to get yourself, you know, um get you know, you get your sea legs and go out and and um you know, may possibly find another place to live at one time. But though those are the options for young people, not just with their own home, but young people that need a place to live in just a single apartment that's affordable. That you know, you you know the some of the prices, you you folks are in real estate, you know what it's like at Bell Apartments and how much that costs and and the apartments that have crept up. But that that is a major issue, Sue. And the last I would say is probably the most important um to so many families is disabled. Disabled brothers and sisters who have not a lot of options. Um families couldn't afford necessarily for to put them in assisted living in some cases. And and let's face it, they want to keep people together, right? We want to keep our families together. People want to want to care for their loved ones within their own roof.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

Sure. I think especially after COVID, that was abundantly clear how much.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

It's definitely changed. And I think that's kind of this conversation about housing in general, right? During COVID, there's a lot of time for for leaders, for individuals, for people to sit back and look at things and and think about how we envision the future and what we want to invest in. And that's why the five billion dollars was the largest investment in the state's history in housing.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Well, I also think too, you left off one thing that for me comes to mind as a realtor probably is uh a source of income for families.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Oh, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

You know, um that you could rent that ADU out, or you could live in the ADU and rent your big house out. Um as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

There was an issue too with owner-occupied, right? So so to get to that piece. And I'll I'll get to all the ADU uh the ADU pushback.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

I was gonna say when you were talking about the categories of people who are gonna benefit from ADU.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Sure. I didn't get to the to the landlord yet.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Yes. Having been in Northern Virginia a lot of time in DC a lot of the time, coming up here, the housing stock is so old.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

It is.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

You know, you can't even fit um an elevator or whatever else. So that ability to kind of flatten, you know, for disabled elderly, um, to actually have a level unit with all the all the um you know uh amenities that you need to live in a in a 900 square foot or less prop piece of property, that in itself is amazing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

You you make a you great point. Two two provisions of of the Affordable Homes Act, I'll touch on, we'll get back to eight years. But but two huge provisions. Number one was the fact of historical tax credits, looking at you're right. Um 70% of the housing stock in Massachusetts was built before 1978.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

So you're that's very accurate, Mary. It's it's it's some old infrastructure. Yeah, it's okay. And and you know, another two major provisions of old infrastructure.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

One was just like us, old infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Historic tax credits to allow like stuff like the Abbott Mills to be re you know, re-revitalized and used. Yeah. Um the conversion tax was something, um, excuse me, the conversion um law, which was something uh that I was very interested in. And what is that? And that's to take commercial properties and allow for residential.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

And so you saw was down and empty buildings and we needed housing.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Westford is the the greatest example of this because I've been a, again, a legislator for a number for almost two decades now. And during the subprime mortgage crisis in 2009, 2010, we were cutting ribbons because we were growing high-tech businesses on the 110 corridor from Littleton to Chumsford. We had Red Hat, Net Scout, IBM's largest software lab in North America, 2,700 employees and I was IBM, which brings me to the conversion piece. Right. Middle of the pandemic, we're going to Rhode Island, but we're going to we're going to um we're going to California, we're going to Cambridge, and we're going to um we're going to North Carolina. Right? So that was Red Hat was leaving. Uh most of their employees were leaving, they still had a presence. They were purchased by IBM. IBM left. So this having a housing crisis in the Affordable Homes Act, the conversion piece was to take commercial to residential and give incentives for developers like Salipoli, who's a local developer, to develop a 500,000 square foot campus into about a thousand units of housing.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

And other things, restaurants, it's going to be mixed up. It's going to be a mixed place. It's going to be amazing. It's a great location.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Certainly, which which can be argued by Littleton. Some Littlet people don't think it's a great location. But yeah, if you live outside, yes, of course.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Yeah, tricky.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

But that was a really big piece when it comes to old infrastructure and looking at the businesses and the business sector, because what changed during the pandemic is we adopted a lot of the remote work. A lot of big companies said, why we spend this much on overhead? We're going to have people come into Boston or the home office maybe two days a week, three days a week, and work remote the rest. A lot of that sort of post um sort of workforce stuff that came from the pandemic is still in practice. Although some employers, like State Street, others want to come in five days ago. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

So there's a little bit of a hybrid mixture, right? But ultimately, these big companies started saying, Are we spending this much on overhead to have people come in here? We can have them do remote. So now we have space in Tech Park West, Tech Park, uh, I should say tech park east. Um, a lot of across from Neshoba Tech, there's a a number of discussions about possible housing and other things there. I know Neshoba Tech wants to use it for for parking in some sentences because of their lack of parking. So there's a lot of sort of looking at old infrastructure or in that case, business infrastructure and repurposing it. Repurposing it when it comes to old storic buildings and having credits to do that.

SPEAKER_04 14:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

And then lastly, I would think would be something, and this is deviating a little bit from ADUs, but it's important on old infrastructure, is the whole idea of the Healthy Homes Act. And what does that mean? Well, if 70% of our housing stock is this old and has been built before 1970, 78, then we're gonna have issues with asbestos, we're gonna have aspicies with lead paint, we're gonna have issues with black mold. And so this is a program that we put in the Affordable Homes Act to be able to identify individuals and look towards um uh incentives for those people who bought these old houses to to to A, get in some cases a loan program and others a grant program to help them get their house whole.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

The other area I guess you talk is thinking about is the um the efficiency of utilities because we're now have no more gas, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:20

We're putting in electricity, we're putting in splits, and many of these things are really can destroy Well, even Mass Save is all about the um the heat pump and all electric heat pump that's well that's the big challenge I think in in another conversation we could have on on the energy bill stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Um people get you know really nervous about affordability. And so we've had some energy bills that we've worked on, one particular in in the house, and people were very critical of the house cutting back on the mass save program. Well, the mass saving program is almost six billion dollars, and we support the mass saving great, great program, but there has been a lot of people to fall through the cracks to be able to put that money up to be able to benefit from the mass save program. Do you have the money to do the renovations and the payback? So we're looking at reform on that too and making sure it works better. Um, but ultimately to get back to housing for a sec, and especially when the ADU I think the question early on is how did this come up?

SPEAKER_04 16:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Why is this coming up now? There's special permits. Well, because people weren't still able to access you know their right to there wasn't, you know, a buy right, but there was a special permit, and they still couldn't access the special permit in a timely fashion to be able to take care of their loved ones. Barriers. So initially the legislation had been kicking around for a couple of a couple of years before the Affordable Homes Act, and that was just to essentially get rid of the special permit process.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

So you got rid of the permit process, the special permit process.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

So we didn't get rid of it yet. We had the discussion about getting to get rid of it. And the bill was filed by the gov, and um it hadn't gotten to the house yet. And myself and Secretary Ed Augustus, the housing secretary at the time, came together and I and we had a long conversation at lunch. And this is how the ADU law reform bill came up. And essentially it was look, I live in the Greater Lowell area. I have the planning board in Chumsford that's very concerned about the ADU law. They're reading the Lowell Sun every day. I'm glad somebody does. And uh and and and the Lowell Sun uh really showcased a lot of people from the Belvedere neighborhood uh in Lowell that were very upset that ADUs were gonna change the character of their community and that ADUs are gonna be built everywhere. Um and so they had huge demonstrations of hundreds of people in Lowell against ADUs. And I think a lot of that frustration also came from the sort of I think I think people felt with the shelter being built um at UMass Lowell's Inn Conference Center, there's a lot of questions. People were were were were just unclear in some ways um scared uh uh uh about you know this new populations coming in, etc. And I think that connected to ADUs for some reason. I it they're completely different animal, right? But they did connect to that and some of the other towns. But I would say for the most part, the pushback and adus were local. I don't know if this is because I'm the rep from Westford, but Lowell and Shumpsford is who I heard from the most. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

In that in that the residents, not just the town government.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Town government, not as much. I mean, town government and put it this way, the city of Lowell was supporting because you could you could support locally your own version of an ADU before buy right if if it all the parameters were in place and the boxes were checked off with um HLC, which is housing livable communities. But the rye right was see buy right piece was was so important because we wanted to make it uniform and to access it and you know access housing right away. Well that was the goal.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

And how's that how's that coming up?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

It's going well. Um if you can tell, I mean, there's been a you you guys know in real estate there's a lot of interest in ADUs and and and people that want to build ADUs. There's small businesses that have cropped up um all over the state to to build these things. Um they typically take about they they they typically they've cut the time down. I I I I you know I've heard anywhere from six six to eight months. Um but I've also heard the price tag is you know 90,000 to like 120, 130,000. Um, I know a lot of individuals that want to build it, but the barrier, as you say, Mary, some of it was the special permit process.

SPEAKER_04 19:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

And so some cities and towns want to hide behind that. We want a special permit process. We don't want people to just go and build these kinds of things and all, etc. And the biggest issue that we heard, and maybe this is it came from Lowell at the time in Belvedere neighborhood, is they were afraid that we're gonna build dorms. So it's too expensive to live, you know, um, in an apartment for individuals, etc. Their fear was a developer's gonna come and build college dorms essentially out of like a big house in and Belvedere, and it's gonna be, you know, a party house, it's gonna be animal houses, it's gonna be all these kinds of things. And so how do we sort of make people feel a little bit more comfortable about this major policy piece that we're we're gonna be passing? Well, we did this. Ed Augustus and I got together over coffee and we're we we had talked about how you know some other cities and towns had pushed back and were resistant on it. So this is what we did. We knew that the college dorm issue or people building multi units in a one location uh could make people a little, you know, scared or have some trepidation about you know allowing these things to move forward and to not speak up and have their concerns. But we said, okay, the majority of everybody is building one unit. I've never heard of multi-unit ADUs being built in our career, you know, in my in my time as the the housing chair. All right, we'll put the money where your mouth is. So what we said is we're gonna have an EDU buy right for everybody across the Commonwealth. If you want to build dorms and you want it an additional dorms, is just a name that's something they threw out there. If you want if you want multi-unit, you want an additional unit, you have to go for a special permit.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

And guess what? No one's doing that. No one's that where the um 900 square feet 900 square feet was for the most part, we uniform the 900 square feet. It had differed. Um, and actually we could talk about it a little bit later, but there's opportunities within communities to, you know, Westford could could vote for a larger 120 uh unit if it's within these parameters. There, I think there were some questions too about how is this being, you know, is there oversight? How does this work now? Well, Juana Mateus is the new um uh secretary of housing. She's a she's a great friend. We sat together in the house for a couple of years. Um and she's doing a great job. They have created an ADU unit within HLC and the actual The Oversight is actually an E, you know, and HLC is under Secretary Mateus and has a whole ADU coordinator and community assistance unit for any technical assistance as well as ADU financing that is it's a program through mass housing that you can you know see if you qualify for, look, look into it and and see what the parameters of it are.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Yeah, so that's for residents that want to do it and don't know how to navigate it. It's a resource.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

100%. Or or people who want to build them.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Right. And how do you what what you know? How do you've seen all across the state now, Westford in particular, just had like a workshop, right? So um land use has been great in Westford and in Chumsford and Littleton about you know, people interested and that this is these are the parameters of the of of the specs that you can do.

SPEAKER_04 22:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

And I haven't heard any horror stories just yet about ADUs. They're gonna take some time, they still take time to build, right? Yeah, and they're still costly. But when you think about those three major categories, of course, income is there as a landlord, additional income. But you look at those three categories and you know, disabled folks, young folks, and people age in place, you just can't put a price tag on it.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

So let me ask you this um about septics. So obviously in Boston, proper, they they're not worried about, you know, there's more sewers than obviously not septics, but out here we have septics. So building an ADU, that's one of the biggest uh hurdles is to figure out as well as an expense, added expense. Is there a reason why that wasn't addressed on the state level?

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Or is was it just part of a unit already, right? It's part of a house already. So you're adding one more bathroom.

SPEAKER_03 23:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

You're adding you're you're not adding multi-units. Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

And so it goes by bedroom.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

So if you have a four-bedroom septic and you already have a four-bedroom house, how do you you know Well, that would have to be done with through the planning, like the planning offices, land use office, um, getting direction from HLC of what you can, you know, actually physically accomplish. Yeah, right. If if the infrastructure is completely lacking, you'd have to look towards other sort of mechanisms to have that happen. Um I don't know, it'd be a case to case basis.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

Yeah, I think it does shake out as a case-to-case basis. Also town to town. So Mary and I have we've interviewed other people about ADU's um town advocates for Chelmsford. Yes. And um, you know, the hurdles that the towns well, I think it's funny. You put you put in the legislation and now everyone has the right to do it. Um, but then the towns are like, yikes, we're not really they seem not ready. The different towns did not seem ready for what this was really gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Well, they would have to mold it by law in the same specs as the state, number one. But number two, there's also other um local ADUs you can have. Um and I I wrote uh jotted a few things down. So you can have a local ADU that can be worked through through your town and through HLC as as well. And that may be up to um you know 1200 square feet, uh a special permit from the zoning board of appeals in your district. So that would be local too. So if the if the town and town meeting votes, you know, to to have you know something, I guess you would say a little bit more progressive ADU or or liberal ADU, you could have different specifications.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

I think it's a disconnect between um since it really hadn't been done.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 25:28

So now they're trying to figure it out and as as it gets done.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

But the I think the difference is, and you're right. I mean, I think the difference is too is having more of a uniform sort of cookie cutter to work with, and then towns can can sort of expand on that if they wanted to do something a little bit, you know, more creative. Um, but for the most part, it was really the issue of a special permanent being the barrier.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

So aside out just just I was remember the discussion we went to from the town, which are so many septic systems are out of date or not functioning properly. They have to go through a Title V typically, and now they are facing another issue of updating their septic system. So, did you run into that as you were?

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Um, I've seen that. I mean, we yeah, uh yes. So, I mean, either you can build the unit with its own sort of way to do that, or you can try to tie it in, but um, it depends on if you know you only have so you have a four-bedroom septic and you had four bedrooms, but now you're empty nester, so one's a library, maybe one's a library, right? So then you can um a little wink wink, but um, but if nobody's living there and it's not a bedroom, then you can sort of transfer that and and and make that work depending on the town.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Well, I'll give you another completely different angle about all this.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Public safety. How does public safety fall into this? How interesting, right? We talked about the cities and and and you know, um utilities and infrastructure issues and stuff like that. Well, there was a number of legislators. Now remember this too, the time that this was passed and the time that this was up was during the migrant pro the migrant crisis as well. So there was you know a lot of xenophobia out there that if we're gonna build ADUs, there's gonna be, you know, 400 undocumented people living in an ADU.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Like a flavorella.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Of course, right? So there's all that stuff that came up. So in caucus, I had to sort of, you know, obviously sell the benefits of this and and uh you know push back on on folks that thought it was gonna be something it wasn't. But I met with the um Fire Chiefs Association in Massachusetts. They endorsed it. You know why they endorsed it? Because they're building them illegally anyway, and there's no coding. Um there is no um sort of identification with the fire department or the town where these units are. Right, right. So this way they're still gonna have illegal units in different places, but especially in the city, the pushback I got from city legislators was oh, there's a bunch of you know, undocumented living in all these things, etc. And you know, they're causing this problem to happen. And we, you know, it's like, okay, guys, like relax number one. Number two, the fire chiefs association endorsed this bill so they can identify where these issues were and they could they could try to, you know, um prevent a crisis before it happens by by you know not letting it exacerbate because they didn't know where the location was or they didn't know how many people living there.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

Right, have legal and safe housing makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

100%. So that's a big part of the ADU law that people don't think too much about, and it's really about public safety.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

So what who what organizations, I mean, it seems like a bunch of like affordable housing organizations just kind of came behind this. Yes, this sounds like this was a big deal. I mean, in terms of the issue coming forward.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

It was an issue that's been brought up, Mary, for decades. People talking about why is it so hard to do this, why is it so hard to build this? This is their own property. And you know, you guys, you guys know chapter 40 B. Remember that 25 years ago and how that was gonna end, you know, civilization as we know it. And you know, Westford grew. We've been one of the fastest growing towns uh over the last 20 years. And and you know, in real estate, it's it's a high demand place to want to live.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

And and people are you know attracted to you know the the the history of the town and and the the great open space and the great school systems that we have, but it's just so hard to live and so hard to find someplace that's affordable. I I look at myself um and I bought a house for a song because I I just happen to run into something, but I've also have a 200 year 130-year-old house. And and I'm constantly my wife and I are constantly doing something. But that's that's the reality for a lot of a lot of people that that you know may not be wealthy. You know, how do they make ends meet? How do they live in the community they grew up in? How do they want to, you know, find uh sort of a balance of of affordability? And so those are the challenges, but the public safety issues real. Um it doesn't make sense that a special permit should I just remember the town telling me two and a half years. That's that's insane. Um so it has been a popular law, and to your to you to to your question, Mary, like it's been kicking around for a long time. But I think that balance we carved to allow one special permit so people didn't feel as if there was this huge intrusion on single family homes and a huge character change, if you will, um, in a neighborhood uh is to limit that to one special permit. And if the town chooses they want to, then they can do it. And that's how we look at it. Put it back on the town.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

You know, it seems like it was so subjective. The barriers were subjective, right? Um in Northern Virginia, everything's run by a county, and you go to the county for everything. There are a few little independent towns. Um, but there was a lot of xenophobia in a very international area. You can't pave your more certain percentage of your lawn because it will have 20 cars and things like that. And you can only have an in-law unit. Yep. And so that was a big thing. Well, it had to be released. And when they weren't there anymore, you couldn't use it anymore. And how was that enforced? And and so there were a whole lot of barriers. They felt very subjective and they took forever.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

So this is amazing progress, amazing progress.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah, it's exciting. Um, I'm very proud about it. And especially since that even the change that we did on allowing one special permit, and each additional will go to to to you know, town meeting or or the select board or something like that, depending upon what what you know, what your legislative body is within that town. Um, but ultimately it wasn't there wasn't much pushback, and the people that still didn't want it no matter what didn't have a lot to say back then. Exactly. But but but but still it was this whole idea that oh, okay, well, you know, you're you're you're opening up the floodgates to something else. And that's where it came to like the owner-occupied stuff. We went back and forth. We had before the debate happened, we had a lot of internal conversations about owner-occupied. At the time, there was a lot of sort of like I would say real estate organizations, others that wanted owner occupied because they felt that people, people, people would have some sort of trepidation about letting folks they didn't, you know, let having a presence of someone who owned it still, that it wouldn't go into disarray, or or or or people wouldn't be inviting additional, um, I don't know, additional sort of individuals into into the community that that that you know wasn't you know supposed to be, you know, slated for, or they have additional, you know, people living in there that are supposed to, all these kinds of things, and owner occupy would prevent that. Well, there's a lot of racial and racist undertones on that as well, and that you're creating additional barriers by making it owner occupied, and we're in a housing crisis, so we want to have all the tools available to people to build more and to live someplace and to address this. And so that was an additional barrier that I just don't really it was really rude in reality that owner occupied really had too much to do with it.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

I think that's another big win. Yeah, that was a big win.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

It wasn't it was hard. People had a lot of concerns. I mean, even MMA had concerns, Mass Municipal Association.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Yes, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

They did. Um, and that's also those concerns are coming from their town managers and and select board people that were hearing from their residents. And so that's that's what it is. It isn't necessarily they're against it, they're just sharing the concerns of their membership.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Yeah, they painted these scenes of these developers coming in and changing the whole character of the neighborhood. You know, we're gonna have this problem, and then you're gonna have Airbnb and you're gonna have all this going on. And yes, the fear there was a lot of fear.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Even if we didn't change the the one special permit, and I mean, excuse me, uh by right and then a special permit, even if we didn't change that, I used to always say this to people, and I'd say behind closed doors that were, you know, other legislators are like, come on, it takes two years to do this.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

How can we what what we're gonna have a college dorm in Lowell in year 2058? Like when that'll be the time they finish building all these. Are you kidding me? Well, yes. What are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Well, but it's just another excuse to say this could happen, so therefore don't do anything.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

There's one other group that is really happy about this legislation. Massachusetts was the 19th state to pass this legislation, which was really amazing, you know, just to have that progress. Since then, New Hampshire has, of course, passed the legislation. Investors. Investors are so happy. You know, I there's a whole West Coast movement where they used to say, buy 10 properties, you know, have 10 renters, you'll be set for life in terms of your income. Now the message is buy five properties, make sure that you develop it with five more ADUs, and and you are then it this is the new the new way to to be very wealthy. So your investors, Mary, this is what they need to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Well it's you know, it helps all boats, you know, it's it's lifting all boats, right? Right, yeah, right. It's lifting all boats. It's it's you know, people can can can can make a living. If it's something internal with their family, they can keep their family together. It's a disabled family member, they can stay with them and and not go bankrupt for some facility that they have. And and and you know, the the you know, my my wife does home health care, and that the more people you can have at home with their family and have the treatments at home, the better. Um, these are all the things that are important to us. And I think they're the things that that that generally when you think about aging in place, right? Young people, where they're gonna go, and disabled, and and and how we protect our disabled brothers and sisters and family members. Well, I think a lot of that comes out of the pandemic. It's what do we think is important now? Like how many of us sat back and thought to ourselves, is this meeting that important, really? Well, look at the grand scheme of things. What's most important? Our families are most important, our families' well-being, where they can live, how do we protect them, where they will go. And I think that's the most important.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Well, this is awesome conversation. I know we have lots of opportunities so we can talk a lot more about it. Because a whole lot more about other housing issues, and we would love to call on your experience here too. And thank you so very much, representing.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

This was great.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

And uh we are we uh you don't know this, but maybe a year and a half ago, this wave of excitement went through the real estate community. It was like, ADUs, what is this gonna mean?

SPEAKER_01 36:29

This is not gonna be a good thing, and then ultimately was the wave of excitement about ADUs or that we didn't do the real estate transfer tax.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

I thought it was a real estate transfer tax. That was the wave of excitement for the real estate community.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

That was a wave of excitement. Here we go. We can be excited about more than one thing, Jam.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

But yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Well, thank you for hearing the show. This is exciting. Um, I was driving by uh the senior center the other day, and I saw the placard outside that said ADU discussion. I was like, how cool is that, right? Perfect. We did this, we did this law, and um, I'm very proud of it.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Good, great, thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, great.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Thank you so much for joining us today. And I hope you found this conversation useful to you and your real estate goals. You'll find the contact information for our guests in any links they recommend you have in the show notes. And should we be able to help you identify some strong real estate professionals in your area? Drop us a note at info at real estate connections podcast.com. Thanks again and bye for now.