Administration launches $15M MBTA Communities Catalyst Fund

Gov. Maura Healey (left) announces that the application period is open for a new MBTA Communities Catalyst Fund at an event in Somerville on Oct. 1. She was joined by Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll (center) Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus (right). (Photo courtesy Joshua Qualls/Governor’s Press Office)

At an event in Somerville on Oct. 1, the Healey-Driscoll administration announced that the application period is open for a new MBTA Communities Catalyst Fund, which will provide grants for housing and infrastructure projects to communities that are certified as complying with the MBTA Communities Act.

The administration said the grant program, administered by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities and funded at $15 million over three years, recognizes that promoting housing growth in communities requires additional resources. The grants will be used to support activities related to housing creation, infrastructure projects associated with housing, and the acquisition of property to promote housing.

The Notice of Funding Availability can be found online, and applications will be accepted on a rolling basis.

According to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, the following 33 communities are currently eligible to apply: Abington, Andover, Arlington, Braintree, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Dedham, Easton, Grafton, Harvard, Hull, Lexington, Lincoln, Lowell, Medfield, Medford, Northbridge, Quincy, Randolph, Revere, Rockland, Salem, Sharon, Somerville, Stoneham, Swampscott, Taunton, Tyngsborough, Walpole, Wayland, Westford and Worcester. Three additional communities — Everett, Malden and Newton — are considered to be in conditional compliance.

Funding for the Catalyst Fund is available for fiscal 2025, 2026 and 2027. The administration said awards will typically fund projects with grant requests between $250,000 and $1 million.

Eligible MBTA Communities are those that have received a determination of compliance letter from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities at the time of the funding request.

The MBTA Communities Act, signed into law in January 2021, requires 177 cities and towns to establish at least one district of reasonable size in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right. The districts must allow multi-family developments without discretionary review processes. Zoning must also be located near transit stations, when applicable, and the districts cannot impose age restrictions.

Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus said more than 1,600 units of housing are in the pipeline to be built in MBTA Community zoning districts, “with several communities going above and beyond the guidelines.”

Thus far, 75 cities and towns have passed zoning intended to comply with the law, and many others are expected to adopt multifamily zoning at town meetings and city council meetings this fall. The compliance application deadline for Commuter Rail and Adjacent communities is Dec. 31.

Over the last three years, the state and its partners have provided more than $7 million in technical assistance to 156 of the 177 MBTA communities to help them develop districts to comply with the law.