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Builders and zoning lawyers press for changes to variance rules and appeal timelines to speed housing production

AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Senators, representatives and land-use attorneys testified in favor of multiple measures to reduce litigation delays and make variance and special-permit rules more workable for housing and other development, including tolling the one-year use period while appeals proceed and converting some appeals to closed-record review.

Lawmakers and land‑use attorneys told the joint committee that Massachusetts zoning process rules are adding time and cost to housing production and asked for statutory changes they said would improve predictability. Senator John Keenan testified on S.1448, a bill that would toll the one‑year period in G.L. c.40A §10 during the pendency of an appeal so that a successful developer or applicant would not lose the time to act while…

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