Yes to more housing in Belmont!

Belmont is ready to MOVE ON from the zoning decisions made fifty years ago or more to restrict housing. Important Town Meeting votes are coming up soon—here’s where to get more information!

TWO MAPS: The Planning Board and Select Board are putting two maps in front of Town Meeting for the MBTA Communities Act vote. The maps are similar—preserving the combined work of the Planning Board and the MBTA Communities Act Advisory Committee.

MAP ONE upzones “Lower Belmont” (the southeast corner of town) and allows more multifamily buildings with existing multifamily buildings. Because this map upzones an area that is already fairly built up, we believe it will lead to a lower amount of new housing. We believe this portion of the map complies more with the letter of the law than its spirit. It’s better than no zoning change, but we could do better.

MAP TWO replaces “Lower Belmont” with the “Purecoat Site” on Brighton Street. This will be an amendment in Town Meeting that would replace this portion of Map One, leaving the rest of it the same. This map creates a commercial-residential mixed use zone in an area now occupied by a company that does metal plating. This would allow for a larger amount of housing to be built on this site. We believe this map complies both with the letter and the spirit of the 3A law and will lead to more and better housing, as well as the cleanup of an industrial site.

FISCAL ANALYSIS: No matter how you cut it, adding residential value by adding more housing means more tax revenue for the town, leading to a positive fiscal impact even when accounting for increased town expenses for a bigger population. Here’s the analysis commissioned by the town which shows that with specific scenarios.

Want to know more? ALL THE MAPS! ALL THE REPORTS! ALL THE FAQs! can be found on the town’s website here.