Question 7: Starter Homes on Small Lots — What It Means for Our Old North Shore Towns

On Nov. 3, Massachusetts voters will decide Question 7, the "starter homes" ballot question. I've had a lot of people ask me what I think, so here's my take as a Marblehead broker and a licensed construction supervisor who has spent years working on old houses on small lots.

What Question 7 actually does

According to the state voter guide, a YES vote would require cities and towns to allow a single-family home in a residential zone on any lot that has:

• At least 5,000 square feet (about the size of a basketball court),
• At least 50 feet of frontage on the street, and
• Public water and public sewer.

Towns could still set "reasonable" rules on height, setbacks, bulk, open space and parking, and could limit short-term rentals. A NO vote changes nothing. According to NPR's report this morning, the question does not apply to Boston, which has its own zoning, and most single-family zoning in the state requires at least an acre, about 40,000 square feet.

Walk down any street in Old Town

Here's what strikes me. Walk through Old Town Marblehead, the Point in Swampscott or the McIntire District in Salem. Plenty of those houses sit on lots far smaller than an acre, and many are smaller than 5,000 square feet. They were built before modern zoning, and they're some of the most loved homes on the North Shore. As one housing economist told NPR about a century-old block in Braintree, "With modern zoning, these homes are illegal to build today."

So in our older towns, Question 7 wouldn't invent something new. It would make the kind of lot we already have legal to build on again, in places that have town water and sewer.

The case for YES

• Big minimum lots push builders toward big, expensive houses to cover the land cost. Smaller lots make smaller homes pencil out.
• Young families can't get in, and seniors who want to downsize in their own town have nowhere to go. I see both every week.
• Kansas, Maine, Idaho and Texas have already cut minimum lot sizes, most of them below 5,000 square feet.

The case for NO

• The Massachusetts Municipal Association says it overrides local planning with a one-size-fits-all rule for all 351 cities and towns.
• The question requires sewer and water access, but says nothing about system capacity. That's a real issue for towns already planning upgrades.
• A legislative committee flagged vague wording and no implementation guidance, and the Legislature can't fix the text once it's on the ballot.

The builder's reality check

Here's the part nobody puts on a lawn sign. A 5,000-square-foot lot in Marblehead or Swampscott is not cheap land. In Lexington, NPR found a "small lot" home that sold for nearly $1.3 million. Even an economist who supports the idea said a Massachusetts starter home might run $500,000 or more. On the North Shore, land, site work, permits and labor add up fast. Question 7 can help supply over time, but don't expect $350,000 cottages popping up on Atlantic Avenue.

And remember, towns keep setbacks, height and parking. On a tight historic lot, those rules, plus historic district review and conservation rules near the water, will still decide what actually gets built.

My bottom line

I believe in local control, and I believe our kids should be able to afford to live in the towns they grew up in. Question 7 puts those two values in tension. Read the full text, look at your own street, and decide which matters more to you.

What do you think? Would smaller lots help your town, or should these decisions stay with the town? Tell me in the comments.

— John Nestor
Nanepashemet Real Estate Services, Marblehead