Arlington Population: 48,219
Town Meeting down-zones R7 district, lowering maximum height from 110 to 60 feet and maximum stories from 12 to 5.
Arlington opposes the Red Line Extension.
Town Meeting passes a new master plan, zoning map, and zoning bylaw, creating a Special Permit process for any housing with three units or more. The zoning map typically re-defined acceptable use based on what was already on a lot. Many existing apartment and multi-use buildings were put into zones that were just a little more restrictive than the existing use, making them “non-conforming”.
6,000 people march against school busing in South Boston.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upholds Arlington’s moratorium on apartment buildings – as long as it is a temporary ban.
Supreme Court Case Morgan v. Hennigan finding in favor of the plaintiff that the Boston School Committee had indeed implemented de facto segregation and that redistricting and busing would be the court’s primary tools to reduce said segregation. This would kick off a decade of protests and violence in Boston against de-segregation.
Moratorium on apartment building construction in Arlington passes Town Meeting 154-17.
Federal appeal court rules that racially restrictive covenants violate the Fair Housing Act and that the recording of deeds with such clauses violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
President Nixon declares a moratorium on federal housing efforts, largely ending the construction of new public housing and moving the federal government’s housing efforts toward block grants and vouchers. Those vouchers are commonly known as Section 8.