Mary Byrne
With state and internal deadlines looming, the Planning Board may be seeking additional money for consulting work needed to ensure the MBTA Communities zoning map is ready and compliant for Town Meeting vote this fall.
No decision regarding the potential request – originally estimated at $12,800 – was made at a Select Board meeting Monday night. Funding, which would ultimately require the approval of the board, would be used to pay Utile Architecture and Planning, the town’s consultant on the MBTA Communities zoning map. In recent months, the town has used Utile to check that its various iterations of the zoning map meet state compliance requirements.
Town officials, instead, opted to see what the Planning Board’s next steps were and if members would be amenable to using Select Board member Roy Epstein, who has the resources to run compliance checks, to minimize the funding request.
According to Planning Board Chair Taylor Yates, the outcome of a meeting on Thursday — which will include Epstein, two Planning Board members, and Town Planner Chris Ryan — will determine if and how much money will be required. The meeting was not expected to be public, as of Tuesday afternoon.
The MBTA Communities law was signed in 2021 by then-Gov. Charlie Baker, requires towns served by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), such as Belmont, to create at least one zoning district of reasonable size where multi-family housing is permitted and that meets other criteria, including:
- a minimum of 15 units per acre;
- located not more than a half mile from a commuter rail station, subway station, ferry terminal, or bus station;
- no age restrictions, and suitable for families with children.
Belmont is required to zone for at least 1,632 new housing units.
The town hopes to submit its map to the state Executive Office for Housing and Livable Communities for pre-compliance review by July 30. The final deadline for compliance is Dec. 31, 2024.
“We do not want to waste this opportunity for the teacher to review our homework before we submit it,” said Yates.
On Tuesday, the Planning Board agreed to have Yates and Vice Chair Carol Ann Berberian meet withEpstein and Town Planner Chris Ryan to finalize the map before sending it to Utile for a final check. If it clears those hurdles, it will be submitted an application to the state for a pre-compliance check.
On Monday, Town Administrator Patrice Garvin explained that initially, the now-disbanded MBTA Advisory Committee received a grant from the Massachusetts Area Planning Council.
“As the committee was wrapping up, the Planning Board was well-equipped to take the ball and start running with it,” she said. “We tried to carve out some money we found in the budget to give to the Planning Board … to [spend] using Utile to get us to a map we could present to Town Meeting. Unfortunately, some of those funds have been nearly exhausted.”
Of roughly $50,000, about $6,400 remains, she said. The Planning Board originally requested roughly $12,800 to fund about 80 hours of consulting work.
“When I was told the Planning Board was looking for additional funds, I was perplexed,” Garvin said. “It had been a short period of time and a large sum of money.”
She said the funds were allocated around April 1.
Garvin said the town has reached out to Utile to request accounting for how the dollars were spent.
“In terms of additional funds, I think we need the Planning Board to work with what Roy’s offering,” she said. “I don’t think giving additional money is implausible, but I think we can do things to make it less than it is.”
At Monday night’s meeting, Epstein noted, with a tone of frustration, that he had offered, on several occasions, to run compliance checks at no cost to the town.
“I have the compliance model completely set up. It’s a turnkey,” he said. “I can give you the result in any scenario within 10 minutes, [at] zero cost.”
