FRAMINGHAM - The City Council will continue its public hearing on compliance with the MBTA Communities Law this Monday, Nov. 4 starting at 7 pm. Residents can attend either in person in the Blumer Room of the Memorial Building, 150 Concord St., or on Zoom. More info in the Council’s posted public agenda.
The hearing as well as a discussion and vote on this issue are the only items on the agenda after last week’s hearing attracted more than 80 people on Zoom as well as many in person. That meeting, which included other topics, lasted over three hours.
The latest Planning Board plan calls for zoning to allow 552 units (15 units/acre) on around 37 acres of undeveloped land off Edgell Road and Water Street, and 81 units (also 15 units/acre) on the 5.4 acres in Saxonville at the old State Lumber property at the corner of Concord and School streets.
The City Council has final authority to decide how Framingham complies with the zoning requirements of the law. The state has set a Dec. 31 deadline for municipal compliance.
District 2 residents might be interested to know that some are talking about adding the Pinefield Shopping Center to the multi-family zoning needed for compliance. That doesn’t mean anything will actually be built but just that zoning would allow it. I wouldn’t have problems with that (and I live closer to that parcel than either of the others) as long as
- It would be mixed use so we wouldn’t lose neighborhood retail there.
- Density would be reasonable, not the ridiculous 30 units per acre the Planning Board had been talking about in Saxonville and Nobscot before that was revised to 15/acre
- Development wouldn’t be more than three or four stories
- There would be an effort to reduce private car use - one of the aims of the MBTA law along with building housing - with things like safe bike lanes from Pinefield to the start of the Cochituate Rail Trail, an MWRTA bus stop similar to what’s on Water St in Nobscot so people have somewhere to wait if it’s raining, and design that makes the retail attractive to walk to from Nicholas Road not just Water Street.
Background
The MBTA Communities Law requires cities and towns with commuter rail stations to zone for allowing a certaiin number of additional multi-family housing units by right based on a specific formula. (There are other requirements for places with subway and bus service as well as those which are adjacent to commuter rail stops). Forty percent of that zoning must be near the train station.
The Framingham Planning Board in August unexpectedly added parcels in Nobscot and Saxonville for dense multi-family zoning as part of the city’s compliance plan. Its process had started in March and was focused on other areas. The Planning Board then held one public hearing that involved the Nobscot and Saxonville parcels, at which the chair told attendees it was too late to consider adding different areas of the city.
Many residents expressed frustration that there appeared to be limited analysis of impact on traffic and other infrastructure in Nobscot before making such a significant late-date change. There was also considerably less time spent to seek resident input in those neighborhoods compared with other areas of the city.
The board’s proposal at the time called for 1,104 units in Nobscot and 162 in Saxonville but was revised after broad criticism.
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