MALDEN – The Malden Planning Board dumped a bit of pre-Christmas coal in the stockings of some Malden City Councilors when they shot down nearly all of Council’s proposed restrictions on height and land size of residential developments, a plan a year and a half in the making.
The Planning Board’s rejection of adopting zoning ordinances which addressed size limitations was backed by both Mayor Gary Christenson and Malden Redevelopment Authority (MRA) officials.
Specifically, the City Council bid included a proposal to limit any residential construction to six stories in height in the central business district and only three stories in other parts of the city. The zoning ordinance change requests were hammered out by members of the Council over the course of committee and full meetings held over the past 18 months.
The Planning Board members also voted down another Council proposal that would have shifted the power to grant special permits for various building ventures from the Planning Board directly to the City Council.
The lone zoning ordinance change the members did support was an increase in the minimum square footage required for individual units from 500 to 750 square feet. Still, this was an adjustment to the original Council request which sought to double the minimum size from 500 to 1,000 square feet.
The votes came at the much-anticipated final Planning Board meeting of the year. It culminated a lengthy stretch of time where the issue of the future of the city’s overall development lay in question. New, multi-unit residential development in Malden has essentially been on hold for the past 18 months since the institution of residential construction moratorium in April 2016 by the Council.
One of the chief architects of that moratorium and a leading proponent of the proposed zoning ordinance restrictions package while in office, former Councilor Neil Kinnon, appeared as a private citizen and gave an impassioned presentation in support of the zoning changes, citing results of a growth management survey for Malden taken from residents. “We have seen residential development being the primary focus here for too long,” Kinnon said. “The city needs to focus on commercial and industrial development.”
Ward 5 Councilor Barbara Murphy, who was Council President when the moratorium was first put in place, echoed Kinnon’s sentiments, citing the survey where she and Kinnon said 86 percent of Malden residents “wanted limits of residential development” and “preserving open space” was also a chief concern.
City Councilor at large-elect Steve Winslow, who will be sworn into his first term next Tuesday, said he would like to see more senior living housing in Malden due to the city’s changing demographics and that limiting the stories’ height of building would “limit our options.”
MRA Chief Planner Kevin Hunter also spoke out against the zoning change proposal, saying a six-story maximum restriction would “not account for modern construction practices” and also would put future ‘Smart growth’ plans, which rely heavily on mixed-use development (residential and commercial/industrial), in jeopardy.
