Consultants present revised 3A compliance proposal to Town Planning Board

By Adam Swift

RKG Consultants presented a revised plan for potential compliance with the MBTA 3A Communities Act at a meeting last week with the Planning Board.

The proposal would create overlay districts in the Seal Harbor and Governor’s Park areas which already contain more dwelling units than would be required under the 3A overlay district.

In addition, the town would be able to leverage 221 units in the Central Business District to help offset the 3A requirements as a mixed-use offset.

The MBTA 3A zoning requires Winthrop to create zoning for 882 multi-family units as an MBTA adjacent community and submit that plan to the state by the end of the year.

Eric Halvorsen of RKG Consultants said the latest scenario presented to the planning board takes a potential overlay district on Shirley Avenue that was discussed in June off the table.

“What we have done since that last meeting is we took a look at keeping Seal Harbor and Governor’s Park, in terms of boundaries, they are exactly the same as we presented last time,” said Halvorsen. “But there were some comments from planning board members about taking a look at the Shirley Avenue district with the district boundaries themselves, as well as the potential to reduce the minimum lot size in the zoning to see if we could bring some additional parcels into compliance and generate some unit capacity at Shirley Avenue.”

However, Halvorsen said a 3A requirement that one of the zoning districts be at least 50 percent of the total 3A districts made it make more sense to cut down to the Seal Harbor and Governor’s Park districts.

Those two districts total 27.6 acres, with the Governor’s Park district meeting the 50 percent of contiguous acreage requirement under 3A.

Halvorsen said the total unit count for the 3A overlay district in the two districts would be 674 units, a little over the 661 required when the CBD offset is accounted for.

“This allows us to get over the 882, because we are leveraging the Central Business District as our offset district with 221 units,” he said. “With these two districts, it looks like we have at least a compliance scenario.”

In both areas, the units under the overlay district are below what are currently on the sites.

In the Seal Harbor district, there are currently 394 existing units, Halvorsen said.

“The model capacity is actually less than what is on the ground there today,” he said.

What that means, Halvorsen said, is that if every unit was wiped off the map in the district, or if the owner wanted to rebuild, they would have the choice to either follow the base zoning already in place on the land and go through a special permit process, or they could go through the less restrictive 3A overlay district and technically build fewer units than are there today.

“The same is true for Governor’s Park,” said Halvorsen. “Today, there are 393 existing units, and here, the model capacity is 341. Again, 51 units under what already exists on the ground.”

The scenario presented by RKG would leverage the Central Business District as well as meet the state requirements of providing at least 12 acres of 3A zoning with at least 50 percent of it being contiguous acreage, Halvorsen said.

Previously, planning board members had asked if an overlay district in those areas would affect existing condominium documents for the properties. Halvorsen said he did not believe there would be any impact on existing condo documents.

The overlay districts and the use of the CBD as an offset district would require some minor zoning changes, he added.

In the CBD, Halvorsen said the state would require that town remove the special permit requirement for the fee in lieu of parking in the district.

There would also be deviations from the base zoning in terms of lot area per dwelling in each district, lowering it from 2,500 square feet to 1,900 square feet in Governor’s Park and from 2,000 square feet to 1,600 square feet.

“We tried our best to mimic the dimensional requirements, the parking requirements, the heights, and everything as they exist in those areas,” Halvorsen said.

The changes in the square footage per dwelling unit would only be put into place in the overlay district, and not affect the base zoning, he said.

“In both cases, the unit density that we are projecting from the model is less than what is on the ground today by 50 to 60 units,” he said.

Planning Board Chair Christopher Boyce asked if there could be an increase in density if a developer were able to come in and subdivide the land in the proposed overlay districts.

Halvorsen said he didn’t see how the number of units under 3A could change, even if someone were to come in and subdivide the parcels.

When RKG Consultants comes back to meet with the planning board in August, Halvorsen said the board should decide if they want to see Seal Harbor and Governor’s Park moving forward as two separate overlay districts, or one 3A overlay district.

There were also questions from the planning board regarding the impact the overlay districts would have on open space, climate resiliency, and other issues.

“You’ll still be able to do site plan review under this, so it is not like the town and the planning board have to relinquish all control, you just can’t have as much scrutiny as you would with a special permit,” said Halvorsen. “You could still set up standards in site plan review, you just have to make sure that you are not putting up major barriers.”

Boyce said the goal of the work from the consultant is to present an option that is the least impactful to the town while keeping Winthrop’s existing zoning in place.

During the public comment portion of last week’s meeting, Boyce was asked about the planning board’s role in the 3A process.

“Our goal as planning professionals is to say that if we are going to comply without penalties, what would our preferred recommendation be,” Boyce said. “Our intention is to make a recommendation.”

Once the planning board makes a recommendation, Boyce said it would then be up to the town council to approve or deny the recommendation.

Boyce also read a letter from the Historical Commission stating that the commission was unanimous in its desire for the planning board and the town council not to move forward with any 3A zoning.

Several residents also spoke out against 3A at last week’s meeting, several stating that 3A is a way for the state to force unwanted development and higher unit counts on the town.

Celeste Ribeiro Hewitt asked if the proposal presented by RKG could be considered paper compliance, and if it was, if the plan would pass muster at the state level.

“Yes, this is paper compliance, but there is a lot of gray area in the regulations and the law, and I think this will pass,” said Halvorsen.