The Planning Board has voted unanimously to recommend to Town Meeting the MBTA Zoning Committee’s proposal to create three overlay districts that will comply with the MBTA Communities Act (Ch. 40A, Sec. 3A). The proposal will appear as Article 5 on the warrant.
The law requires the establishment of “at least one district of reasonable size in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right” in 177 cities and towns.”
Board member Brian Charville said “looking at it legally, we really don’t have much of a choice here. If you read the statute, (it says), “an MBTA community shall have,’ so there’s not an option there, we gotta do it.”
Planning Board and MBTA Zoning Committee Chair E. Page Wilkins said that under the law, a town cannot deny a developer seeking to construct multi-family housing units in areas designated by the town for multi-family housing, but “the law does not require that multi-family housing be built. It’s only a zoning change that could allow multi-family housing to be built in certain locations designated by the town.”
Wilkins said the law requires that 40 acres be designated.that would have a unit capacity of 607 units with a minimum density requirement of 15 units per acre. Wilkins said the committee has been meeting every two weeks and has had the advice of a consultant paid for by the state.
The proposal targets the MarketStreet apartments, Michael’s Landing apartments on Route 1 South and the Lynnfield Commons apartment complex and part of the adjacent car dealer lot. Those areas resulted in a reduction in the number of units from 607 to 149.
Wilkins said that the MarketStreet parcel will only allow what is currently in place meaning a four-story building of 182 units. The complex currently has 180 units.
“So, practically, that won’t change so there’s no new buildings at MarketStreet,” she said.
At Michael’s Landing, which currently has 68 units, “we created a zoning overlay over that five acres that would allow exactly what’s there to be built,” Wilkins said. “Nothing more or different could be built in that area.”
Lynnfield Commons has 200 units. Another five parcels along Route 1 at the Kelly and Herb Chambers dealerships currently with no housing units would also be included in the overlay district.
Flaws said she has heard concerns about the MarketStreet parcel, but “the only change that could possibly happen is if someone tears down the existing apartments and puts up the exact same thing. They could only add two more units so there is no change at all.”
She said that if someday the dealerships decide to sell their property, “those lots would have a maximum of two and a half stories, so again, it wouldn’t be many hundreds of units. The limit would be 149.”
In response to a question from board member Amy MacNulty, Director of Planning and Conservation Emilie Cadamartori explained that a developer could opt for the original zoning or overlay zoning.
“In this case, the general business zoning could continue if they so choose,” she said.
In response to a comment from committee member Anthony Moccia, Wilkins noted that the deadline for compliance with the state law is Dec. 31, 2024.
“If we are out of compliance we won’t be eligible for many (state) grants,” Wilkins said. “Many are street and sidewalk grants so there would be a significant impact to the town,” she said. The other concern is we get sued by the Attorney General, which Milton has gotten sued,” adding that the real risk to Lynnfield is the state could ultimately determine the location of the zoning district if the town doesn’t comply on its own.
“We’ve worked really hard to come up with a low impact compliance model here,” Wilkins said. “I don’t know that the state would come up with the same model. People that don’t live here, that don’t know what’s good for us could decide, so this is us having a very low impact to the town.”
In response to a comment from Robert McLaughlin of Wakefield, Flaws said the committee looked at the impact 149 additional units of housing, if built, would have on the schools. She said there are 96 students in Lynnfield who reside in apartments and that approximately 30 more students would be enrolled.
“They would be spread out over all of our schools so that would be minimal impact,” Flaws said. “The expectation is the tax revenue would be more than the cost of the students.”
Resident Wallace MacKenzie said the state law only mentions “three specific grants (and) it doesn’t list a slew of them… it might be helpful to see what the town has received under those three grants.”
Cademartori said that while the statute only lists three, the compliance guidelines has added 12 additional programs and “those additional programs are where the town has received funds.”
She added that every state grant requires municipal compliance with state law. “That’s a standard provision that we now realize could jeopardize every state grant,” she said. “So that’s a pretty significant broadening…Section 3A is a state law and if we are going to have a contract with a state to get a grant, the town must be in compliance with all state law, period. It doesn’t matter what the state funding is, it could jeopardize any grant. To me, that’s pretty frightening.”
Resident Alan Dresios congratulated the board for all the “unique” work it has done.
During discussion on the motion, Charvile noted that the law was enacted to address the housing shortage in the Commonwealth, “but it seems to me that somebody goofed up that towns like us are able to get away with using existing multi-family to check the box and meet the requirement. That seems like a big loophole and the fact that we are able to reduce the number so much and make the zone so small is pretty remarkable, so let’s jump on the loophole and take advantage of it.”