OPINION: Belmont is Walking a Tightrope

By Michael Widmer

“We’re being taxed out of our homes.” “Belmont’s special character is disappearing.” “The town is at a crossroads.”

In one variation or another, these are consistent refrains from residents who are worried about their future in Belmont. While no two individuals share the precisely the same concerns, it’s fair to group them into three broad, interlocking categories:

• The escalating property tax burden from the combination of the 2024 operating override and three large capital projects—high school/middle school, library, and rink.
• The fear that pressures for additional housing and commercial development will overwhelm the town, exacerbate traffic, strain the schools, police, fire, and other services, and harm small businesses—all attractive features of the town for decades.
• A consequence of the first two is the fear that Belmont will lose its small-town character, with long-time residents moving out and the town becoming increasingly populated by two-income families who move here for the schools and prime location but have scarce time or interest in contributing to the community.

What’s real and what’s not? Let’s break it into pieces.

Over the next decade, Belmont is sure to see more housing and commercial development. The pressures to produce affordable housing in the Greater Boston area are enormous. State legislation is spurring action in cities and towns, and Belmont Town Meeting recently approved two state initiatives—MBTA 3A zoning and accessory dwelling units (ADUs).

There is widespread agreement that Belmont needs more housing for people starting out and for seniors who downsize, as well as more affordable housing in general. At the same time, there is a growing cry for more commercial development in the hopes of shifting some of the tax burden away from residents.

If development is a certainty, it will be up to the Planning Board, Select Board, and Town Meeting to do it in a way that enhances, and doesn’t compromise, Belmont’s character. The Bradford in Cushing Square—constructed slowly over many years, curtailing above-ground parking, and driving out many small businesses—is an example of what not to do.

A key element of the town’s strategy to reduce or suppress growth in residential property taxes is to promote commercial development. Several town leaders have proposed shifting the town’s total assessed value from approximately 95% residential property and 5% commercial/industrial/personal (CIP) today to 90% residential and 10% CIP at some point in the future.

While a laudable target, is this goal realistic? The short answer is no.

Let’s look at the numbers. In April 2024, the town contracted with RKG Associates to conduct a fiscal analysis of different hypothetical development scenarios that could potentially materialize in Belmont over the next 10 or more years.

What would it take to achieve a 90/10 split? The consultants concluded that reaching this goal would require more than doubling the current commercial valuation (from $527 million in FY24 to $1,192 million in the future). That translates into 1.9 million square feet of new commercial development compared to 1.2 million square feet that exists today.

The study puts these numbers into sharp perspective. The additional 1.9 million square feet is equivalent to adding one building the size of Boston’s former Hancock Tower at 200 Clarendon Street. Obviously this is unrealistic.

To understand the impact of commercial and housing development on Belmont’s budget, the study examined four different town-wide development scenarios—full build, mid-range, low range, and low range plus MBTA 3A rezoning.

Strikingly, the mid-range scenario, which would require the town to upgrade its development efforts, would produce only marginal new revenues—between $840,000 and $1,650,000 annually depending on how many school-age children occupy the new developments. Even the full-build scenario, highly unlikely, would only produce between $1.7 million and $3.3 million in net new annual revenues. The lower scenarios would barely break even or result in a loss.

Furthermore, it would take many years to achieve even these small gains, so the annual contribution would be tiny.

These are estimates, of course, but they are just as likely to overstate revenues as understate them. Regardless, the inescapable conclusion is that commercial and residential development, while helpful, will have only a small impact on the town’s budget or the tax burden borne by residents. Increased tax revenues of $1,650,000 (the high end of the mid-range scenario) is only 1% of the town’s FY25 budget of $161 million, and it would be even a smaller percentage by the time the development was completed.

To underscore this point, the RKG study calculated the impact on CIP values from each of the four development scenarios, all falling well below the 10% goal. In the full build, the CIP reached approximately 6.5%; in the mid-range scenario, 5.7%; and in the two low range scenarios, barely above 5%, where we are today.

What does this sobering analysis mean for the future of Belmont?

First, it surely does not mean that we should back off reasonable and well-thought-out commercial and housing development. Such development can strengthen the long-term future of our town, improving our business centers and providing badly needed housing while helping town finances on the margins. And every additional dollar raised by commercial development is a dollar not imposed on our residents.

But it clearly means that we cannot build our way out of our fiscal straits. Commercial development will not provide significant relief from our high residential property taxes, and Belmont will continue to struggle with a financial squeeze into the indefinite future.

As an aside, this will put great pressure on the town’s political leaders with constituents clamoring for property tax relief but with no easy solutions. Yes, we need commercial development, but we must be realistic about its impact on our finances.

What then are Belmont and our leaders to do?

The only realistic answer is to hold down the rate of growth of spending. With the successful $8.4 million override last year, the town has a strategy to stretch out the proceeds over three years and turn to the voters for a smaller override in April 2027. That is part of a long-term strategy to control spending and ask our residents for more modest overrides every three years or so.

The problem, of course, is that residents are “taxed out,” and the chances of a successful override vote two years from now are problematic.

Where does the town need to turn to control spending? To the schools, of course, since they consume a lion’s share of Belmont’s budget and their spending has grown most rapidly over the past decades.

Belmont has always been deeply committed to its schools, which, with our location and small town character, are the town’s greatest assets.

That commitment to the schools is reflected in the numbers. The schools’ share of Belmont’s overall budget has grown steadily over the years, from less than half of the total budget in the 1980s to approximately two-thirds today. From FY14 to FY25, the schools grew 90% and municipal services only 24%. Belmont’s proposed FY26 budget continues this trend with schools growing 5.6% and municipal services 2.5%.

Over the years, several factors have contributed to the increase in school spending, including growing enrollments, increased high school course offerings, and soaring expenditures for special education.

Nevertheless, this trend of recent decades cannot be sustained indefinitely, even with periodic overrides, and certainly not if the overrides fail. And of course, if overrides are approved, that will put even more pressure on beleaguered taxpayers.

One small piece of good news: Belmont’s school enrollment is forecast to decline marginally in the next decade—by 171 students or 3.9% from 2023-24 through 2028-29, and another 34 students or 0.8% through 2033–34. However, the town’s efforts to expand housing options may bring in more school children than anticipated. To complicate matters further, teacher contracts are expiring this June, and in negotiations for a new contract, the union seems insensitive to the town’s financial realities.

As Belmont faces an uncertain future, there are two overriding conclusions:

Town leaders should pursue sensible economic development that preserves the character of Belmont, but with the understanding that this will only help our finances on the margins. Town leaders should not overpromise the benefits of development, and residents need to dampen their expectations of what is possible.

School leaders will need to hold down the rate of spending growth. The 5.6% growth in the FY26 budget is a commendable reduction from prior years, no small feat, but even that rate of growth is not sustainable over the next decade. Also, over the years, many important municipal needs have been sacrificed to the schools. One recent example is the elimination of six positions in the Department of Public Works since 2022.

Looking to the future, the town is walking a tightrope in seeking to preserve the quality of our schools while not adding appreciably to our residents’ tax burden. This will require an open dialogue from our leaders and some measure of patience and understanding from our residents, including parents. Our pride in Belmont may sometimes be over the top, but we are a community with special qualities that are surely worth preserving.

Michael Widmer was the town moderator for 17 years, Warrant Committee member (15 years including three as chair), and president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan, public policy research organization (23 years).