Belmont’s Section 3A Rezoning Process Explained – Summary

By Doug Koplow

A longer version of this article is available.

Belmont is undergoing a significant rezoning process in response to the state’s MBTA Communities Act, commonly referred to as Section 3A. This law, passed in January 2021, aims to increase housing stock across 177 communities served by the MBTA, including Belmont. It mandates changes to local zoning requirements to allow for increased construction of multifamily housing. It sets quantitative targets for the number of housing units, acreage covered, density, and the minimum size of a rezoned area. Because Belmont is classified as a commuter rail community, we must meet the following requirements:

• The rezoning will allow for 1,632 multifamily units, equaling 15% of our current household total. Multifamily zoning is defined as three or more units per parcel. Each area of town zoned as 3A must allow at least 15 units/acre.
• Construction is “by right” and overrules most town zoning bylaws now in place.
• Fifty percent of the units must be located within a half mile of a commuter rail station (in Belmont, either Belmont Center or Waverley Square).
• At least 27 acres must be included in the 3A zoning. Any district designated as 3A must be a minimum of 5 contiguous acres; also, one district must be large enough to include at least 50% of the total acres zoned as 3A.
• Belmont must submit a 3A-compliant plan to the state by December 31, 2024.
• Section 3A is not an affordable housing initiative; affordability requirements above 10% must be preapproved by the state. Instead, it focuses on increasing housing production. The strategy adopted by the state is likely to favor larger developers.

In response to this mandate, Belmont established the MBTA Communities Advisory Committee to evaluate options and guide the rezoning process. The committee has seven members representing various town boards, commissions, and committees. It does not include abutters, even though the law could heavily impact that group.

The committee has faced numerous challenges. Significant technical problems with the state-provided (and mandatory) compliance model have complicated the town’s options review and compressed our response timeline. The first fully compliant model runs weren’t available to the committee until January 25, 2024.

Despite the scale of the zoning changes, statutory requirements for town passage of a 3A plan and state pre-review timelines mean Belmont’s near-final proposal must be delivered to the state on June 13, less than five months after that model became available. The Belmont Planning Board, which has assumed responsibility for completing the 3A planning process, may decide that the June 13 deadline is unrealistic and that more review time is needed. However, this response would result in either foregoing state pre-review (increasing the risk of problems later) or missing the state’s December 31 deadline for Belmont to have an approved 3A rezoning plan.

Additional challenges have included evolving state regulations, which require frequent review and coordination with state regulators, and widespread resident concerns about the potential impacts of new, larger multifamily buildings on existing residents and the “look and feel” of the town.

The committee has strived to balance the state’s requirements with the interests and concerns of Belmont residents. A critical tension has arisen between people advocating for meeting the minimum requirements set by the state and people pushing to exceed these requirements in order to achieve other social and community goals. The committee ultimately decided to aim for minimum compliance plus a 10% buffer to protect against potential state disqualification of parcels.

Other contentious issues included how to distribute the impact of rezoning across the town, protecting the town’s very limited commercial zoning and associated tax base, adequately protecting neighbors against the effects of new larger buildings with much smaller setbacks, and whether to reduce or maintain parking minimums. The current proposal protects most commercial areas and historical structures, places the largest buildings away from neighbors where possible, and reduces but does not eliminate parking minimums. Although 3A zoning includes multiple town districts, compliance with 3A rules requires a single large district located in Waverley.

The process has now been handed over to the Belmont Planning Board, which will continue to review and refine the rezoning plan. The town has hired Utile, an external contractor, to help refine building standards, develop massing images to illustrate potential impacts on neighbors, conduct an economic impact analysis, and draft the final zoning language.

In the coming months, the Planning Board will likely adjust building scales and setbacks where the impact on abutting homes is particularly large, address budget concerns that arise from the economic impact analysis, and continue to work with the state on pre-approval of crucial plan elements.

The Planning Board will hold public hearings on its proposals before presenting a final option to the Town Meeting for a vote, now scheduled for November.

Doug Koplow is a Precinct 6 Town Meeting member, a member of the Cushing Square Neighborhood Association, and a Solid Waste and Recycling Committee member.