New report highlights how local permitting delays or derails much needed housing in Massachusetts
Statewide zoning reforms can be undermined by process delays, negotiations, and the threat of litigation, says urbanist Jonathan Berk
September 15, 2026
Boston – A new report from renowned urbanist Jonathan Berk and Boston Indicators, the research center at the Boston Foundation, suggests Massachusetts’ efforts to reshape zoning and spark housing construction are running headlong into local permitting processes that can delay or stop projects entirely. Delayed by Design: How Discretionary Permitting Stalls Housing in Massachusetts, explores the gaps between what zoning allows on paper and what permitting makes possible in practice, drawing lessons from middle-housing projects in six Massachusetts communities, and makes a series of recommendations that protect review processes while reducing uncertainty and delays.
“Statewide zoning reforms like the MBTA Communities Act have created the opportunity to build more needed ‘missing middle’ housing, but this report reminds us that is just one step in a longer process,” said Luc Schuster, Executive Director of Boston Indicators. “Jonathan highlights how the complicated local processes and the lack of administrative capacity can drive up costs and sidetrack projects that in the end could create much- needed homes.”
In the report, Berk looks at the lessons that can be drawn from the experiences of six projects, demonstrating the systemic challenges of navigating discretionary review, fragmented local regulations, and prolonged timelines that put pressure on developers and builders to reshape or even abandon projects at multiple points in the permitting process.
“These projects are just examples of some of the ways that the 351 cities and towns across the state administer the local permitting process,” said Jonathan Berk. “Because each community sets its own rules, the result is hundreds of different standards and timelines, and a significant amount of administrative overhead that taxes not only permit applicants but also those in each community who must manage and weigh in on the permitting process. The result is slower development and greater friction, even in places where zoning rules would suggest real opportunities for needed housing development.”
The case studies, which explore the progress of developments in Salem, Marblehead, Newton, Melrose, Arlington and Lexington, highlighted how individual communities’ processes and decision-making play central roles in whether or how projects get built.
In the two examples cited as “cautionary tales,” the report tracks the progress of a proposal to build a 20-unit building on the site of a closed auto repair shop that has met five years of slowdowns and appeals, and an assisted living and memory care facility in Marblehead that required more than six years of hearings and appeals before opening as the Mariner in 2023.
The cases are not outliers, but rather examples of the challenges facing those trying to build new housing in a fragmented system of governance that effectively creates 351 separate sets of rules that could apply to a single proposal depending on the city or town of its location.
The researchers suggest the most lasting way to reduce permitting timelines, lower costs, and expand production is to substantially reduce, and place tighter guardrails on, discretionary review through a package of zoning, permitting, and process changes. The report lists out 18 potential recommendations to do so, including liberalizing underlying zoning rules to reduce the need for variances and special permits, rightsizing review processes and criteria to take project scale into account, measures to reduce delays and accelerate appeal processes, and state-level reforms to encourage and support more streamlined processes.
The full list of recommendations is available as part of the interactive report at bostonindicators.org.