City Council Opens Public Hearing on CB District Reductions

FRAMINGHAM - The City Council opened the public hearing to consider mapping reductions to the downtown Central Business (CB) district during their meeting on Tuesday, April 1, as local legislators continue to work to ensure that Framingham is compliant with the MBTA Communities Act.

Council members voted to publicly advertise boundary changes to the district, which was approved at town meeting a decade ago, back in February. The month prior, the CB area was approved by state officials as a suitable district for conditional compliance with the MBTA Communities Act, the state law which requires that each municipality with MBTA service must offer at least one multi-family housing district within its zoning by right; the law itself does not require that anything be built. Mayor Charlie Sisitsky submitted the CB district for consideration to meet the law’s requirements at the end of 2024.

With the conditional compliance secured, local officials have mulled potential reductions to the borders of the CB zone. Advocates for a change say a reduced downtown CB district would permit zoning for just the right amount of units to satisfy the law; the conditional approval from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities accounted for under 5,400 units, though Framingham has to provide zoning for just 4,355 units in order to be compliant with the MBTA Communities Act. District 1 City Councilor Christine Long said that a new map—along with recommendations on factors such as building heights—would provide zoning for 4,375 units in the CB area and bring the city into full compliance with the state mandate.

“This district was created as a by-right district to begin with, so there’s not a lot of changes,” Long explained during Tuesday’s meeting at the Memorial Building.

“The only changes would be reducing the size of the district and reverting back all of the properties that are currently in this and would be taken out to their original zoning.”

The proposed cuts to the CB district map primarily come from the south and the northwest of the downtown area. Through the current proposal, the border would be moved down from Beech Street and Lincoln Street down towards Procter Street, while limits along stretches like Avon Street, Gordon Street, and East Street would be brought closer to Waverly Street to the north.

Chair of the Framingham Economic Development and Industrial Corporation (EDIC) Doug Lawrence told councilors on Tuesday that local developers have hoped for the approval of “adequate building height and residential density” in order to drive economic growth in downtown Framingham. However, some members of the council such as Leslie White Harvey of District 8 expressed concerns about how overdevelopment could impact the area.

“I can tell you: the people who live (downtown)—I know the developers, some of them may live there—do not want to see tall buildings…It needs to match the neighborhood,” White Harvey said, “because we do have a neighborhood feel; even if it’s a downtown, it’s like an older downtown.”

Lawrence suggested providing guidelines within the city’s overall development vision in order to help regulate economic growth.

The public hearing regarding possible changes to the CB district is set to continue on May 6.