City Council irons out final language on West Waltham zoning districts

City Council’s Ordinances and Rules Committee has refined the requirements and language in a zoning amendment creating three new mixed-use residential neighborhoods in west Waltham.

At its meeting last Monday, the committee went through the amendment’s final language with representatives of BXP Inc. and 1265 Main Street LLC, the companies that proposed the new districts and own the land under discussion. The city’s Law Department also took part in the working session.

Representatives of the two companies said their proposals for the two sites could change, because their future plans for what and when to build depend on market conditions. 

Committee members tried to create flexibility in the zoning amendment while also introducing clauses to ensure the companies deliver on their promises to the city. Many of the proposed changes the committee considered came from the Law Department and were based on the recommendations of contractor CommunityScale, which the city hired to conduct an independent review of the three districts. 

For example, the new language acknowledges the two companies’ contributions to local infrastructure projects but doesn’t bind the city to how much those contributions will factor into mitigation for the municipal resources these new neighborhoods will require. 

It also allows the companies to keep minimal regulations on internal setbacks for maximal flexibility. Councilors accepted Law Department suggestions to set some minimal dimensional requirements on the three lots and compromised on a definition of building height that takes the lots’ significant slopes into account. 

BXP and 1265 Main St. had requested lowering the districts’ standard parking minimums, under the premise that commercial and residential developments on their properties would share some parking and therefore require less in total. The committee agreed to most of those parking reductions, with an exception for restaurants, which the companies agreed would require a larger amount of dedicated parking.

Committee members discussed ways to ensure the companies actually built mixed-use buildings that include residential housing — as was the stated purpose of this zoning change — while still allowing them to respond to market conditions by allowing them to build other parts of their plan first. They eventually arrived on a clause requiring the lands’ owners to explicitly justify any development proposal that does not include housing as part of the City Council special permit process.

The committee and BXP agreed to ban all retail construction among the lower density townhome area proposed for the north side of the Bay Colony site, based on previous neighborhood requests. 

Councilors also agreed to language allowing both companies to build lab spaces, including accessory manufacturing buildings Waltham doesn’t usually allow in commercial or business developments. Ward 9 Councilor Robert G. Logan said these regulations were outdated and didn’t reflect the low local impact of manufacturing processes for products such as medication prototypes.