Woburn planning director outlines MBTA 3A overlay work, secures state consultant and grant

WOBURN — The Planning Board heard a detailed update April 23 from the city’s planning director on state-mandated changes tied to the MBTA 3A statute and the city’s next steps to create a transit-area overlay district.

“The city is required to adopt at minimum a 50 acre overlay district,” the planning director told the board, noting staff had secured technical assistance through a grant from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities and the consulting firm Horsley & Witten to draft an overlay zoning amendment. He said the draft zoning would be added as a new section 34 to the city zoning ordinance.

Why it matters: the MBTA 3A framework requires communities near transit to plan for non–age-restricted multifamily housing; compliance affects eligibility for certain state aid and grants. The director emphasized that the overlay can include buildable and unbuildable land but that wetlands and known Superfund sites would likely be excluded from acreage calculations.

On affordability and review: the director said the current state guidelines allow up to 20% of units in an overlay district to be designated as affordable by right (higher percentages may be sought via waiver), and that project-level appeals to the state remain possible. “If a developer says I can’t afford to provide 20%, they can appeal that percentage difference to HLC,” he said, referring to the state review process.

On infrastructure and access: board members pressed whether unit counts could be satisfied with unbuildable land; the director replied those lands are excluded under the guidelines. He also said that a major constraint is access to the commuter-rail station and pointed to a hypothetical pedestrian bridge as an expensive example of required infrastructure: “It started off at 10,000,000. The most recent estimates were 15,” he said, adding costs could climb further.

Next steps: staff will work with Horsley & Witten to refine the draft overlay and related zoning-table amendments in the coming weeks and return to the board for further review; the board and city council will both have to hold hearings before any adoption. The director said staff has met with two city aldermen and is planning public outreach and forums as the draft takes shape.

The board did not take formal action on the overlay at this meeting; the director asked the board whether they wanted him to go into more detail at the next meeting, leaving substantive edits and possible public hearings for a future agenda.