Question 7: Single-Family Homes on Smaller Lots
Would require every city and town to allow single-family homes on small lots with water, sewer, and road access, overriding stricter local zoning.
Last verified October 27, 2026 against the official guide.
A YES vote: Towns must allow single-family homes on residentially zoned lots of 5,000+ sq ft with street frontage and public water and sewer. A NO vote: Local lot-size zoning stays as it is.
Page 1 of the official AG-certified petition text. View the full PDF on mass.gov
A YES vote ✓ Your choice
Requires every city and town to allow a single-family home on any residentially zoned lot of at least 5,000 square feet (about the size of an NBA basketball court with room to spare, or a typical Boston triple-decker lot) that has at least 50 feet of street frontage and access to public water and sewer. Much of Massachusetts currently zones for minimum lots of a half-acre to two acres, so this would override those larger minimums wherever the three conditions are met. The official summary notes those homes would still be subject to reasonable local regulation of certain aspects.
A NO vote ✓ Your choice
Leaves minimum lot sizes up to each city and town's own zoning rules, as is the case today.
Who this affects
- Homeowners and would-be homebuyers, especially in suburbs with sewer access and large lots that could be split
- Cities and towns with large-lot zoning, which would lose some local control over roughly 200,000 parcels
- Builders and developers
Common questions
Why 5,000 square feet specifically?
It's roughly a 50-by-100-foot lot. Most Massachusetts towns currently require far more: a half-acre to two acres (21,780 to 87,000+ square feet), so this is a 4-to-17x reduction wherever it applies.
Does this override zoning everywhere, or only in some places?
Only where a lot is already zoned residential, has at least 50 feet of street frontage, and already has public water and sewer access. Towns keep control everywhere those three conditions aren't already met.
How many properties would this actually affect?
Roughly 200,000 parcels statewide would newly qualify, according to the Tufts University Center for State Policy Analysis. How many homes actually get built is a much smaller number: Tufts estimates 350 to 1,200 additional homes a year, with a central estimate nearer 750, or about 3,500 to 12,000 over the first decade. Their summary is that the effect would be real but limited. Qualifying is not the same as building, and they point to homeowner resistance, the size of the construction workforce, and borrowing costs as the obstacles.
Don't towns get any say if this overrides local zoning?
That's the Massachusetts Municipal Association's central objection as the opposition's lead voice: the override applies automatically wherever a lot already qualifies (zoned residential, water and sewer access, street frontage), without a town vote or hearing, even in places whose schools, roads, and sewer systems weren't built for the added density. The override isn't total: the Secretary of the Commonwealth's summary says those homes stay subject to reasonable local regulation of certain aspects.
Who's for it, who's against it, and why
Supporters say
The Legalize Starter Homes campaign sponsored the petition, with support from Abundant Housing Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. Led by Andrew Mikula of the Pioneer Institute, they argue large minimum lot sizes are a big reason smaller, cheaper homes rarely get built, pricing lower-income buyers out of entire towns; a Tufts analysis they cite estimates the change could add 350 to 1,200 new units a year.
Funding: About $1.72 million across three committees. Legalize Starter Homes has reported about $1.47 million since it organized in 2025 ($1.31 million of that in 2025), and Abundant Housing Legalize Starter Homes, which registered in July 2026, has reported $250,000.
Opponents say
The Massachusetts Municipal Association is leading opposition, arguing that overriding local zoning could add density in places whose schools, roads, and sewer systems weren't built to handle it, without giving towns any say. It hadn't registered a formal ballot committee as of late August 2026.
Funding: None reported. No committee has registered with to oppose Question 7, so there's no spending to report. That's not the same as no one objecting. It means no one has filed.
Committee filings at OCPF: Support: Legalize Starter Homes · Abundant Housing Legalize Starter Homes · Democratic Socialists For a Fair Massachusetts
Funding figures are total receipts reported to OCPF since each committee organized, through filings covering the period ending October 26, 2026, checked October 27, 2026. They will shift before Election Day.
How to read these numbers
In-kind support is noted separately where it's significant. Check every figure against OCPF's own ballot-question filings. OCPF's summary view reports money spent, and it splits a committee that works on two questions evenly between them, so its per-question totals are smaller than the receipts shown here. Each committee's own OCPF page shows its receipts.
Official source: Secretary of the Commonwealth, 2026 Information for Voters. The ballot language, official summary, and any fiscal statement come from there. Independent research: background and funding figures compiled by this site from Tufts University's Center for State Policy Analysis and OCPF campaign finance filings. Not an official state source.
Other places to look
No single guide should be your only one. These are worth your time, and a couple of them do things this site can't:
- Information for Voters, the state's "red book". Mailed to every household. It prints the full legal text and the arguments written by the campaigns themselves, which is a primary source no summary replaces. If anything on this site conflicts with it, believe the red book.
- League of Women Voters of Massachusetts. Explainers plus live forums where you can hear the campaigns and ask your own questions. They are nonpartisan on candidates and parties, and they do take positions on some of this year's questions; they say openly which ones.
- Tufts Center for State Policy Analysis. Nonpartisan analysis of what each question would actually do. Takes no positions.
- OCPF campaign finance filings. The raw source behind the funding figures here. Check my numbers against it.
- Ballotpedia. Background and history on each measure.