ORDER-2022-90 : Briefing on Draft Compliance Guidelines for Multi-family Districts Under Section 3A of the Zoning Act

Transcript (~26 min @ 17:48)

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▶ 17:43 Jen Grigoraitis: weeks so thank you so much chief for being here all right the next item before us is order 2022-90 briefing on draft compliance guidelines for multi-family districts under section 3a of the zoning act and i know we have denise gaffey and laurie massa here to speak with us

▶ 18:04 Jen Grigoraitis: tonight please join us i'm just going to get set up here and then just for a point of clarification for my colleagues this is an informational order so the only there's no action we're taking other

▶ 18:14 Denise Gaffey: than to place on file that is correct just to reinforce that there are no votes that are required we are required to provide a briefing to the council on these recent changes to the state zoning act and the regulations that the Department of Housing and Community Development has created to implement the regulation of the the new changes to the state zoning law and in order to be in compliance for

▶ 18:44 Denise Gaffey: this year the only box we need to check is to provide a briefing or just an information session on the guidelines which we didn't create but we hope to explain to our best of our abilities and then engage in a conversation with the council on and it's important for us to be in compliance this year because compliance allows us to apply for and be eligible for certain grant programs that we do count on and we intend to apply for it this year so that's the compliance piece is pretty important provide this this briefing and the other the other point I want to make is that before we get started is that this is it is about it is obviously this this was was created by the the legislature to promote housing production especially housing production around MBTA stations and they've classified as MBTA communities but the the law itself is really about zoning it doesn't mandate specific production it just mandates that the community and to be in compliance has the zoning in place that would allow for for that production and I think fortunately for Melrose not to give it all away early we've done a lot of we've done a lot of zoning around our transit locations over the last decade and a half and so we've feel pretty comfortable with our ability to comply with these requirements with perhaps a few few minor tweaks but all that said I'm gonna turn it over to Lori Lori's put together some slides that she's gonna walk us through and then we'll look forward to discussing it further

▶ 20:47 Speaker 8: okay so here's our agenda we'll talk a little bit about the legislation the draft guidelines that we need to look at the funding so the grant funding that we we want to continue to have access to Melrose's compliance with our first look at this and then the timeline and our next steps. So the legislation that we're talking about is part of the 2021 Economic Development Bill. And there are two pieces of the bill that deal with zoning. So the first was the housing choice zoning reform, which changes the threshold for the number of votes that are needed for zoning amendments special permits that are related to housing production and then the second one which we're talking about tonight is this multi-family zoning requirement for MBTA communities so both of these things are you know good planning policies and

▶ 21:45 Speaker 8: so building housing near near transit it's it's good housing climate and transportation policy. So Melrose is designated as a rapid transit community

▶ 22:04 Speaker 8: and that means that we have a subway either within the community or within a half a mile of our border so we fall into that second piece we have Oak Grove in Malden so we have the rapid transit community designation which is a higher threshold that we need to comply with so you can see the other designations here there's bus commuter rail and MBTA adjacent communities and overall there

▶ 22:37 Speaker 8: are 175 MBTA communities so the the law has it's actually pretty short and it includes the following requirements so the first one the city or town needs to have one district of reasonable size within that district you need to have

▶ 22:57 Speaker 8: multifamily housing permitted as of right with no age restrictions and it has to be housing that's suitable for children to be there so no kind of restricting school-age children. The minimum gross density in that district is 15 units per acre.

▶ 23:18 Speaker 9: And the district can't be more than a half mile from transit stations. And so within the guidelines, within the law,

▶ 23:31 Speaker 8: DHCD was named to create guidelines

▶ 23:36 Speaker 9: to determine compliance with the law.

▶ 23:38 Speaker 8: So kind of creating some more detailed criteria to comply with the list on the left. So within the guidelines, which at this point are just draft guidelines, the reasonable size was determined to be 50 total acres of land. And that land can be broken up

▶ 24:05 Speaker 8: into multiple areas, so there has to be one district that's at least 25 contiguous acres, and then there can be smaller areas, but none can be less than five acres. And the multifamily housing means that there needs to be three or more residential units allowed within a parcel. There can't be any age restrictions or bedroom limits in the zoning.

▶ 24:30 Speaker 8: And then the guidelines also set this capacity that the zoning needs to allow for. So like Denise said, it's not saying you need to build this number of units, it's just saying you need to zone for this number of units. So for Melrose, that's 3,154 units, and the way that that's calculated

▶ 24:52 Speaker 9: is taking 25% of the total units in the city or town.

▶ 24:54 Speaker 8: So we didn't come up with that number. That was something that DHCD calculated, and it's based on the number of existing units in the city or town. And then taking the 25%, which, because we're a rapid transit community, we have to have 25% of the total units as the capacity for the zoning district to allow the creation of. And then at least half of the land within the half mile radius of the station is the kind of area that these zoning districts

▶ 25:39 Speaker 9: need to be within.

▶ 25:42 Speaker 8: So if we comply with these regulations, then we'll still be eligible for these grants. So the Mass Works Infrastructure Program grant, city uses and you know as denise mentioned we're planning to to use soon and in the past it's funded the essex and franklin street streetscape projects the housing choice initiative is another one uh mellerode was awarded this designation because of our our great zoning policy and production in the past so we have that designation through 2025 which allows us access to to the Housing Choice Grants. And this grant in the past has funded the capital grant for the Cherry Street Street Skate Project, which is in the picture here. And the last one, the Local Capital Projects Fund is a fund that money comes from gaming revenue.

▶ 26:49 Speaker 8: And most of that fund is distributed to local housing authorities.

▶ 26:56 Speaker 8: So we took a look at our zoning map

▶ 27:01 Speaker 8: and the circles here are the half mile radius from our communal stations and then from Oak Grove. So it covers quite a bit of Melrose. So we're really fortunate as we all know

▶ 27:13 Speaker 9: to have so many transit stops in the city. And so we can look at this, all of the area within these half mile radii to get compliance with this new law.

▶ 27:30 Speaker 9: So we took a close look at existing zoning districts

▶ 27:33 Speaker 8: and we think we're doing pretty well to comply.

▶ 27:35 Speaker 9: So if we take compliance into these three categories, the first one is the reasonable size requirement. So we have at least one zoning area

▶ 27:48 Speaker 8: that's at least 25 contiguous acres

▶ 27:50 Speaker 9: And we have multiple other areas to come up with that number, so we can check that box. They're all within a half mile of the stations, as we just saw on that zoning map. We meet the 25 gross units per acre, so we're set with that one. And within those existing zoning districts, they have the capacity for over 3,154 units. And then the second category there is as of right. So in Melrose, we use site plan approval for permitting all of our multifamily and mixed use developments and some commercial developments as well. But this is a buy right review the planning board has great control over design and things impacts that that neighbors care about

▶ 28:48 Speaker 8: and so this is a huge benefit here because we're already used to this way of permitting through

▶ 28:54 Speaker 9: the site plan approval process and so a lot of other cities and towns are going to have to have a big shift in the way that they permit developments like this but we're used to it here we have a good process and so um we you know we're all set there um and so there are some things in our zoning that require special permits but even with you know without considering those things um we we comply and the last one is suitable for children and no limits on age which we don't have, size of units. We do have a size minimum in our zoning district, so we may need to tweak that. This regulation is really trying to get at communities limiting larger units so that they don't have to have a lot of kids in the unit. So ours is kind of the opposite. We're setting a minimum, but we may still have to tweak that to comply. We don't have any regulations about number of bedrooms, size of bedrooms, and the number of occupants is here as a question because we do limit the number of unrelated people that make up a household, the definition of family in our zoning ordinance. So we may have to tweak that to comply.

▶ 30:20 Speaker 9: And so some of the questions that we still have And we put out to DHCD because they were seeking feedback on the draft guidelines as they create the final ones.

▶ 30:32 Speaker 8: So the first one there is the conclusion of a local historic district.

▶ 30:36 Speaker 9: So our downtown district is a local historic district and that does need the historic district approval,

▶ 30:50 Speaker 9: historic district commission approval to build within that district. So we're not sure if that area can be included or not within this bi-rate zoning district. If it is, then we'll have to kind of reevaluate.

▶ 31:09 Speaker 9: The way that we calculated the unit capacity in zoning districts that don't have a lot area per dwelling unit requirement is something that seems reasonable and consistent with how other communities did that calculation but the final guidelines will probably have more detail on

▶ 31:29 Speaker 9: that and the same with calculating unit capacity and considering open space and parking requirements

▶ 31:36 Speaker 9: we may have to look at a closer lot by lot

▶ 31:42 Speaker 9: lot by lot calculation but generally our floor area ratios are pretty low and so those other regulations aren't going to shrink the building more than what we calculated here. And then I mentioned the definition of family and the unit minimum sizes and then obviously that the final guidelines will

▶ 32:08 Speaker 9: really dictate if we comply or not here. The timeline, so by May 2nd we need to submit a form with our initial calculations for compliance and then

▶ 32:20 Speaker 9: And then DHCD will be issuing the final guidelines. And then by the end of the year, we'll submit a determination of compliance.

▶ 32:28 Speaker 8: Or notify DHCD that we will be submitting an action plan.

▶ 32:34 Speaker 9: And then from there, we'll have a year from this December to put those zoning changes into place. And before then, so the next deadline is really March for where we need to submit an action plan for how we intend to comply. We'll receive feedback on that. And then, as I said, we have to adopt any zoning changes that are needed if they're needed by the end of 2023.

▶ 33:10 Speaker 9: And then at that point, if we haven't already done so, we'd submit a request for compliance And we'd be certified for 10 years.

▶ 33:18 Speaker 8: And then the last slide here is if anyone wanted to look

▶ 33:22 Speaker 8: at the details of the regulation. But it, you know, it is pretty brief.

▶ 33:25 Speaker 9: And then the guidelines go into more detail in exactly how you meet these requirements.

▶ 33:35 Denise Gaffey: Go back to the previous one. We'll just leave it there. So pretty much that is it. I mean, I do want to reiterate that if we find, you know, We are waiting for final guidance. The guidance was, this guidance that was submitted with this order and that we are working from is draft. And DHCD has spent a lot of time over the last several months rolling these guidelines out and providing a lot of information sessions and a lot of opportunities for communities to better understand them and also to weigh in with any concerns that they have. They issued a deadline at the end of March for comments and we know they're getting a lot of comments. So we expect that it's gonna be several months before they finalize the guidelines. And that will be the point at which we will be able to really dig in and just complete our analysis as to whether we comply. Again, we feel pretty comfortable with where the zoning is right now. If we are able to comply and we can document that by the end of this year, then there is no further action that we need to take. If there are some tweaks that we need to make, some zoning changes, say our definition of family does not comply with the standard that they set, we will have to change that in the zoning, which is a process, involve the council. And then that's the point at which we would give them an action plan to say these are the changes we need to make and we would have all of next year in order to complete those. It's December of 2023 before they're requiring compliance, strict compliance. And that will again just keep us in good standing with regard to the grants. So happy to take any questions. I know it's complex.

▶ 35:27 Jen Grigoraitis: Councilor Eccles and then I also saw Councilor Williams and Carm Chaney. Do you also have your hand up?

▶ 35:33 Jack Eccles: I'll just start by saying, I think the fact that we're already in compliance is kind of a pat on the back to you both in your department. we are um you know i mean we've been a community that i believe has been committed to housing production i will be interested to see about how we weigh in on the historic district commission because it isn't as of right and in the past two years they have rejected a transit oriented development project so i don't even know if that's necessarily in the spirit of the guidelines um one question i do have is if it's by special permit it's not if it requires special permit

▶ 36:09 Jack Eccles: it's not by right correct that's right cool um and then just we we need to have the capacity for that 3 100 units we don't have to commit to producing them right exactly they've just

▶ 36:19 Denise Gaffey: calculated that our zoning has to the zoning has to you know exactly provide for the capacity to create there's no limitations on on dwelling units per acre that kind of those different regulations there's no limitations that would prohibit that amount of you know production but we know a lot of the areas that we're going to be using to count for compliance have already been pretty fully redeveloped so we don't expect further development to happen there and no one's going to be out there testing us in a year or two or three as to whether we're reaching this 3,150 units it's really just all about the zoning well yep it was just in the news

▶ 37:00 Jack Eccles: today you know there's many communities who are actively speaking out against this so i'm very happy that that's not one of ours and that we're community committed to abiding by the spirit of

▶ 37:14 Speaker 4: these guidelines thanks thank you counselor williams thank you um about how many actual

▶ 37:19 Ryan Williams: units would we be uh short of that 3152 units or whatever say like at the end of this year just out

▶ 37:30 Denise Gaffey: curiosity i'm not sure i haven't really i haven't done that that kind of calculation yep i mean i

▶ 37:35 Ryan Williams: guess it would depend on how they define multi-family because in the housing production plan we were at 15 of the stock was buildings with you know more than x number of units not including two families and then there was another percent like ten percent was town homes and buildings with five to nine units or um kind of medium-sized buildings that would fit under that so it seems to me like we may already be pretty close but i wanted to ask uh with regard to housing production how is the um housing production plan implementation committee coming is there a timeline for that yet in terms of getting the committee that put the

▶ 38:15 Denise Gaffey: plan together into action to start implementing um not yet we were just we basically have just submitted or just in the process of packaging the plan up to send to dhcd for final approval we had to wait um for you all to approve the minutes they needed all these little technical things so we had to package that up and send it off to them and we're just waiting for that to

▶ 38:35 Ryan Williams: happen i know i know from talking to some of the members they're very eager to get started so the sooner the better yeah thank you counselor carm jd thank you for the presentation i just could you

▶ 38:44 Manjula Karamcheti: restate the two areas of which we didn't have the check marks on and just can you give a little more information in detail about those two sure yeah do you want to go back to that slide i think it

▶ 38:56 Denise Gaffey: was about the definition of family and the size of the units so in our zoning right now we have a zoning um a minimum size and it's actually uh it's pretty it's the minimum i think for a one bedroom is i want to say somewhere in the 400 square foot range so it's not big but But if the zoning seems to, the guidelines seem to suggest you can't have any type of minimums at all. So that is just something we might have to remove from the zoning. And that's just the size of the actual units. And then the one around occupants has to do with the way we define a family in our zoning. As I think no more than four unrelated.

▶ 39:53 Denise Gaffey: um so that's how we currently yes that's in our zoning now and we just don't know whether that's going to meet their their test or not but those are those were i would categorize as pretty minor changes if we needed to make them thank you very appreciated i just wanted to make sure i

▶ 40:09 Manjula Karamcheti: understood what those two things were and what currently we have and what we might need to change

▶ 40:21 Robb Stewart: to oh sure counselor stewart thank you thank you very much for being here tonight and uh for this presentation it's very very helpful um it feels as though they're just loosening the zoning

▶ 40:31 Robb Stewart: requirements that that that's what i read into this because if you know if we have a certain zone of minimum 350 square feet for a unit but they say no limit you know it can be 100 square you know they can live in the closet then that would expand basically what we had so we basically do a recount of what we have out there or it would apply mostly to new new starts or how does that impact existing only applies to

▶ 41:03 Denise Gaffey: anything you apply to anything moving forward right so I'll just new starts

▶ 41:09 Speaker 8: And that didn't come into play in our initial calculations. It didn't limit the number of units. That was based on other zoning dimensions. So in terms of, you know, the numbers are going to change because there will be final guidelines at that point.

▶ 41:34 Speaker 8: But it wouldn't change the numbers that we came up with in this initial review.

▶ 41:36 Robb Stewart: Okay. when there's no limits on number of occupants and that combined with no

▶ 41:48 Robb Stewart: limit on size that that could potentially mean you could have fairly dense living population it from what I can read into that is that is that

▶ 41:58 Speaker 8: accurate restrictions on unit sizes it's less than what we have in the zoning right now but there are health and safety you know okay the definition of

▶ 42:15 Speaker 8: family is I think it's it's a lot of communities have it the way that Melrose has it but I'm not sure that you know it should be written that way I think there's a lot of places that have questioned whether that you know it's

▶ 42:31 Speaker 8: And so we can take a closer look at that anyway.

▶ 42:37 Speaker 8: But it's something that, you know, if it is a problem, it can be enforced through other regulations.

▶ 42:42 Robb Stewart: Okay. It just, because it does bring to the forefront, again, the consideration of density and of cars, right, and parking. I mean, that's, because that's what everybody complains about. So just something to think about. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Madam Chair.

▶ 43:00 Speaker 4: Any other councillors with questions?

▶ 43:05 Speaker 6: Councillor Eccles. Motion to place on file.

▶ 43:08 Jen Grigoraitis: Second. We have a motion to place on file made by Councillor Eccles, seconded by President Sinella. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, thank you. This is placed on file. Thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. Lovely to see you both.