At a meeting Tuesday night, the Planning Board discussed how to move forward with community engagement before the public hearing for the MBTA zoning article, which is scheduled for April 9.
In 2021, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a law requiring MBTA communities to have at least one zoning district set aside for multifamily housing as of right. Because Marblehead is located next to two municipalities with Commuter Rail stations, it is considered an MBTA-adjacent community and must adhere to the law.
The state has a December 2024 deadline for MBTA communities to comply with the law and the town will send its zoning proposal to Town Meeting in May. After holding multiple meetings and public forums, the town has identified three multifamily housing districts that would put Marblehead in compliance with the mandate.
The three districts include Tioga Way with a total acreage of 28.3, Pleasant Street with 20.2, and Broughton Road with 6.1, making for a total district acreage of 54.7 and 17.5 dwelling units per acre. That would put the town above the minimum requirements of 27 acres and 15 dwelling units per acre.
Under the zoning law, identifying multifamily housing districts does not mean the areas will be developed imminently.
At the Planning Board’s meeting Tuesday, Town Planner Rebecca Curran Cutting suggested that the board should hold focus groups in the zoning areas identified between now and the April 9 public hearing.
Board member Barton Hyte questioned if those focus groups would provide any additional benefit to the public forums that have already occurred.
“Is it really going to accomplish anything more than we’ve done if we have a focus group?” Hyte asked. “At this point, my thought is I’d sort of be nervous that they’d try and change what we did, that all of us worked hard on.”
Curran Cutting said that an alternative option would be to reach out to MBTA Communities Engagement Manager Lily Linke.
Later in the meeting, she also suggested that the public hearing should be made hybrid. Legal notices will be placed 14 days prior to the hearing.