The week ahead: New Winter Street housing development coming to the Zoning Board

Although we’re still in the heat of the summer, there are a couple of meetings this week coming up from the city’s administrative boards to be aware of.

Zoning Board of Appeals

The ZBA is a five-person board charged with reviewing new and existing buildings that may violate the city’s zoning code. 

The board has the power to grant project-specific variances to the code, overrule judgements made by the building inspector and grant specific types of special permit, including the comprehensive residential permits outlined by Chapter 40B of the state’s general law. These permits allow developers to build in nonresidential areas if they provide sufficient affordable housing within their developments.

This Tuesday, the board is scheduled to hear the introduction of a new apartment building permit through Chapter 40B. The building, proposed by Greystar Development East LLC, would be located at 375 Totten Pond Road. Its six stories would contain 300 residential units, with at least 75 priced to be affordable for households making 80% of the area’s median income. 

More information on the development can be found in its comprehensive permit application on the Zoning Board page of the city’s website.

Other developments in the neighborhood at 245-265 Winter St. and 455 Totten Pond Road have received pushback from neighbors about traffic and local infrastructure capacity.

License Commission

The License Commission is a board of three members and a police liaison, responsible for granting and reviewing permits in Waltham for serving food and alcohol, for entertainment, and for some types of gaming machines.

The commission will meet this Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the public meeting room of the Clark Government Center at 119 School St.

Its agenda will be posted online on Monday on the Licensing Department page of the city’s website.