Off Central Street in Byfield, near the Central Court intersection, Newbury's Planning Board has already approved 44 townhouse condominiums, the first project to use the town's new multifamily zoning. The builder is still working through sight-distance and utility details with the town before the project moves to construction. Six miles south on Main Street in West Newbury, a 19-acre lot that used to be Knapp's Greenhouse sits behind a fence, exactly as it did before the state told every town near an MBTA line to make room for more housing. Nothing has been sited there. Nothing has been approved.
Both parcels exist because of the same 2021 state law. Only one of them has cleared local approval.
If you're comparing Newbury and West Newbury as places to buy, that gap is worth understanding, because it isn't really about how much building either town wanted. It's about where.
One night in Newbury
Newbury's Annual Town Meeting on April 30, 2024, ran about three hours at Triton Regional High School with roughly 300 residents in the room. Article 14, the town's proposed MBTA Communities zoning overlay, passed 234 to 80. The Massachusetts Attorney General signed off on the bylaw that August 19.
As an "Adjacent small-town community" under the law, Newbury had to zone for a minimum of 154 new housing units. Rather than put that capacity in one place, the town split it across four separate districts: two near the Newburyport commuter rail line in the northern part of town, and two in Byfield village near the Interstate 95 interchange. The Merrimack Valley Planning Commission, which provided technical support throughout the process, noted that Newbury and Andover were the first towns in the Merrimack Valley region to pass their compliance bylaws that spring, well ahead of the state's December 2025 deadline for small adjacent towns.
By January 2026, Newbury's Select Board minutes were noting something rarer: not just a compliant bylaw, but an actual project moving through permitting. The 44-unit townhouse development from MHOC LLC is the first to use the new Byfield district, and Planning Board discussions that month were already down to practical details like the site's entrance angle onto Central Street.
Two tries in West Newbury
West Newbury faced the same law with a smaller number attached: 87 units of required capacity, versus Newbury's 154. On paper, that should have been the easier vote.
The town's Select Board and Planning Board settled on a single site: the 19-acre former Knapp's Greenhouse property at 187 Main Street, which a developer, Sarkis Development, had under agreement. The vote came up at Town Meeting on April 28, 2025, in the new high school gymnasium. It failed, 227 in favor to 302 against.
Town Manager Angus Jennings was clear that the town wasn't trying to dodge the requirement. West Newbury restarted the process, forming an MBTA Zoning Location Working Group to solicit new site suggestions from residents, and scheduled a Fall Special Town Meeting for November 3, 2025, to bring a revised proposal back to voters. Whatever happened at that second meeting, the arithmetic of the process is already telling: eighteen months after Newbury's single vote, West Newbury was still searching for a location its own residents would accept.
The two towns, side by side
| Newbury | West Newbury | |
|---|---|---|
| Required unit capacity | 154 units | 87 units |
| Zoning approach | Four districts, split between the rail corridor and Byfield village | One district, concentrated on a single 19-acre Main Street parcel |
| First vote | Passed 234-80 (April 2024) | Failed 227-302 (April 2025) |
| Current status | AG-approved, first project (44 units) approved and in final permitting | Restarted with a working group; second vote held November 2025 |
| State grant funding at stake | Newbury cites over $1.7 million in recent state grants tied to continued eligibility | MassWorks, Housing Choice, and Local Capital Projects funding flagged by the Town Manager as at risk |
The math that didn't actually change
Here's the detail that makes this more than a story about one town being more agreeable than another. Sarkis Development's own public materials for the Knapp property estimated 32 to 36 homes under the MBTA zoning plan. Their stated alternative, if voters said no, was a conventional subdivision of half-acre lots, which they expected to land at a similar overall density, just spread differently across the parcel and positioned closer to Main Street instead of set back from it.
In other words, the vote in West Newbury was never really a referendum on whether that land would eventually hold more houses. Under existing zoning, a builder can still subdivide 19 acres into half-acre lots by right. What voters were actually deciding was who controls the layout: a zoning framework that lets the town negotiate setbacks, housing mix, and open space, or a standard subdivision where those choices belong almost entirely to the developer.
Newbury's four small, dispersed districts made that same choice easy to say yes to, because no single vote felt like it was reshaping one visible stretch of town. West Newbury's single, concentrated site made the same underlying math feel like a much bigger decision, because it was asking residents to approve a specific, visible transformation of one parcel on their most prominent street.
What this means if you're comparing these two towns
If you're weighing a purchase in Newbury against one in West Newbury, the zoning outcome tells you something real about each town's near-term trajectory, separate from anything the median price will show you.
In Newbury, the compliance question is settled and a project is already approved and in final permitting in Byfield, away from the Old Town historic core and Plum Island waterfront that make up the rest of the town's identity. Buyers looking at those two villages aren't buying into a town still negotiating with itself over where density belongs.
In West Newbury, the location of any future multifamily district remains genuinely open, which cuts both ways. A parcel near you could still be nominated as the town works through its second attempt, but so could dozens of other sites the working group is evaluating. That uncertainty is also tied to money: the Town Manager's own communications to residents flagged that continued noncompliance puts the town's access to MassWorks Infrastructure Grants, Housing Choice Community grants, and the Local Capital Projects Fund at risk, the same three programs Newbury's planning materials cite when explaining why compliance mattered enough to move quickly.
Neither town's outcome is better or worse in absolute terms. But if you're picturing what either town looks like in five years, one of them has already shown you the answer in Byfield, and the other is still deciding.
Frequently asked questions
Does the new zoning affect properties outside the four mapped districts in Newbury? No. The multifamily overlay only applies within the specific parcels the town mapped in its approved bylaw, two near the Newburyport rail corridor and two in Byfield near I-95. Zoning on homes outside those boundaries is unchanged by this law.
If West Newbury eventually approves a site, will it look like Newbury's plan? Not necessarily. West Newbury's required capacity is smaller (87 units versus Newbury's 154), and the town's working group has been evaluating multiple possible locations rather than a single fixed proposal, so the eventual shape of its district may differ from Newbury's four-way split.
Is the Byfield project in Newbury final, or could details still change? The 44-unit development has cleared Planning Board review as of early 2026, with remaining discussion focused on site details like the entrance configuration onto Central Street. Buyers considering property nearby should confirm current permitting status directly with the town, since site plans can be refined even after initial approval.
Zoning maps and Town Meeting warrants tell you where a town is headed before the listings do. If you're weighing Newbury against West Newbury, or any of the towns along this stretch of the North Shore, The Cronin Team can walk you through what's actually built, what's approved, and what's still an open question, so you're comparing towns on the facts rather than the brochure. Reach out for a complimentary home valuation and a straight read on what a specific address means for your search.
