SAUGUS — The town’s plans to come into compliance with the state’s MBTA Communities law, which requires cities and towns with rapid transit access or adjacency to transit to implement a zoning district allowing multi-family housing by right, remain shrouded in secrecy, with little public communication from Town Manager Scott Crabtree’s office.
Crabtree said the town has hired an outside consultant to help craft a plan to comply with the regulation but, otherwise, has failed to provide details about what exactly a new zoning district in town would look like and when a public process would begin. The law requires that new zoning districts to permit a minimum gross density of 15 units per acre to be within a half-mile of a commuter rail station, subway station, ferry terminal, or bus station, have no age restrictions, and be suitable for families with children.
The most significant update about the process came when former Precinct 2 Town Meeting member Joe Vecchione appeared before the Board of Selectmen last month. Then, Crabtree said officials were analyzing the existing zoning in town and hoped to get some credit from the state for work it had already done.
“We’re building apartments, who are we building the apartments for?” Crabtree said, adding that he believed many residents were not going to move into the new construction. And, Saugus is expecting more than 4,000 units of new housing to come online in the coming years, a result of a development boom along Route 1 that has sparked concerns from residents about overdevelopment.
That feeling is clearly impacting how the town approaches compliance, with Crabtree saying town officials were trying to figure out how to comply without having a major impact on residents.
Adding housing can change the character of a community in a hurry, he said.
With the MBTA Communities law, the state is trying to “turn everybody into Lynn or Revere or Malden with the housing,” Crabtree said. “It can change a whole community.”
But, just because Saugus zones for more multi-family housing, there’s no guarantee more will actually be constructed. The state law does not mandate housing construction, only the zoning to permit easier building.
Selectman Michael Serino, an outspoken opponent of some recent developments in town and the author of new zoning bylaws to further restrict development, suggested Route 1 would be the most logical place for a new zoning district to go. He added that he had repeatedly written to the MBTA to encourage the agency to add additional bus stops along the highway, including at Essex Landing, but had not heard from them.
Crabtree expressed frustration with the state’s effort to mandate communities to zone for more housing.
“The reality is that we’re bearing the burden of trying to solve a national and state policy issue,” he said. “They’re really trying to impose to have the impact on communities.”
When a plan is finalized, Crabtree said it would be rolled out to the public. He acknowledged the possibility that the work may extend beyond the annual Town Meeting in May, which would require the selectmen to call a Special Town Meeting to get the new regulations across the line before the Dec. 31 deadline.
Still, town officials may run into an uphill battle at Town Meetings, which have expressed a largely anti-development attitude in recent years. Any zoning articles would have to clear the 50-member body before they could be enacted, and articles that do not pass can not be brought back to the floor of Town Meeting for two years — meaning if the plan finalized by Crabtree and other officials is voted down — Saugus could be without critical state funds for some time.
Vecchione, a residential architect and former Planning Board member, noted that the mandate from the state would not simply go away like other Town Meeting articles that get defeated.
“It’s going to be a battle,” he said.
