Some Republican representatives are trying to kickstart a conversation over the MBTA Communities Act when the House takes up its budget next week. It’s high time someone did, because this legislation bears scrutiny.

As State House News reported, of more than 1,600 amendments filed to the House Ways and Means Committee’s fiscal year 2026 budget, a few align with the small but vocal group of municipalities that are calling on the state to reconsider its requirements for towns to comply with the zoning law.

The law calls for cities and towns with or near MBTA service to zone for multi-family housing by right in at least one reasonably sized district. It  was ostensibly designed to help address the state’s housing supply shortage.

As the state’s website reads: “The lack of zoning for multi-family housing is a barrier for new housing development in Massachusetts. By allowing multifamily housing near transit, we can create new housing in walkable neighborhoods closer to transit. This is not just good housing policy, it is good climate and transportation policy, too.”

But does good housing policy have to come with green strings? A look at the map of MBTA Communities shows these designated municipalities clustered in the Eastern part of Massachusetts, stopping at Bourne. The rest of the Cape lacks regular MBTA service, making it ineligible for Communities Act compliance. Neither does Bourne, but it’s adjacent to a town that does.

If the state were really serious about adding affordable housing, they’d add the Cape to the affordable housing zone law. Because the Cape is in dire straits when it comes to housing.

Last week, the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates officially declared a housing crisis, citing the price of a single-family home rising more than 60% since 2019.

“We have hundreds of thousands of dwellings on the Cape that are sitting empty,” said Daniel Gessen of the Barnstable County Assembly told WHDH. “Rewarding towns that are going out there and trying to produce multi-family housing or housing for working families or housing for municipal workers, maybe creating some financial incentive there. Maybe we can follow a successful model to incentivize home ownership and ability to live out the American Dream on the Cape.”

And maybe the state can expand the access-to-the-T rule behind the MBTA Communities Act and promote affordable housing zones on the Cape and other parts of the state not covered thus far. While the Healey Administration takes the carrot-and-stick approach to compliance — follow this law or watch your funding disappear — offering incentives to municipalities that are striving for more housing would go a long way to solve Massachusetts’ glaring housing problem.

There are those who will complain about the cost, but when the Healey administration has spent more than $700 million this fiscal year on taxpayer-funded shelters housing migrants and local families, the point is all but moot.

Some towns, like Milton, are chafing at the Communities Act requirements; others, like those on the Cape, are desperate for affordable housing to be built. The MBTA Communities Act needs some tweaking.

The goal should be adding affordable housing to the state’s stock, whether in T-accessible communities or places that require a car.

Editorial cartoon by Gary Varvel (Creators Syndicate)