Falmouth's Mixed-Use Residential And Commercial Overlay District Now In Effect
After being approved by Town Meeting in November, the Mixed-Use Residential and Commercial Overlay District has been accepted as presented by the attorney general’s office and is officially in full effect.
Acting Town Planner Jed Cornock made the announcement at the planning board’s March 8 meeting, which was met with great enthusiasm from board members.
“It’s very exciting,” Mr. Cornock said. “I think the planning board, through their subcommittee, worked really hard to develop a bylaw that was as-of-right that didn’t have the type of oversight or review by the state agency. They’re trying to address locally the housing crisis that everyone talks about and everyone knows about. This bylaw, I think, goes a long way to do that, allowing the types of development that the town wants to see, especially in the downtown area with the mixed-use higher density residential.”
The overlay district is intended to increase density and affordable housing in town by allowing for mixed-use buildings with up to 20 dwelling units per acre in certain business zones, B-1, B-2, and Business Redevelopment. It was amended at Town Meeting to exclude business districts that are not on existing sewer lines, an effort to protect the sole-source aquifer and coastal ponds in the area.
“[It’s] basically downtown,” said Charlotte Harris, chairwoman of the planning board. “It’s all along Main Street downtown and then around the corner to Davis Straits and up to the split in the road where the school administration building is. It goes just beyond Trotting Park Road, just to that v-intersection. The biggest part of it is the malls that we’re used to all along Davis Straits… It includes a lot of lands now possible for housing, because what we’re really trying to do is increase the housing stock and make it as nearly affordable as possible so that it really would be what’s now being called workforce housing.”
The mixed-use residential and commercial overlay district originally started out as the planning board’s push for multifamily housing. The board realized, Ms. Harris said, that the best way to get multifamily housing and walkable neighborhoods was to allow for mixed-use and flexibility in dwelling unit number and size.
“The biggest change in it is the allowance of 20 dwelling units per acre,” Ms. Harris said. “It went from six to 20 and it’s allowed by right, [which] really means you don’t have to go before a bunch of boards and get all kinds of special permission bit by bit and fight over every inch of things. It’s your right to get the 20 dwelling units per acre in this zoning overlay district.”
As an overlay district, the implementation of this bylaw does not change the underlying zoning of any of the applicable zones; instead, it simply adds new permissions for developers looking to build in these districts, such as building up to 20 units by right.
The minimum lot size is small—10,000 square feet—which means that most of the lots along the area of interest will be eligible for mixed-use. So while developers are allowed to build up to 20 units per acre, they can and likely will choose to build smaller complexes, considering the small lot sizes available.
For example, Ms. Harris said, a small lot along Davis Straits could become a small-scale building with just eight to 12 dwelling units above retail or commercial space. Or, a single-story building on Main Street could be redeveloped to add upper floors containing dwelling units. Overall, it would be to the benefit of both the town and the developer to take advantage of the overlay district, Ms. Harris said.
The overlay district does require one parking space per dwelling unit and prohibits developers from building fewer than three units, an attempt to ensure that with the passing of this bylaw, Falmouth will be able to reach the 10 percent threshold for affordable housing units.
“I think the most important part is the affordability requirement,” Mr. Cornock said. “It’s an excellent move on the planning board’s [part] to confront the issue head-on.”
Year-round rentals are scarce and in high demand in Falmouth. With the passing of this bylaw, rentals for less than one year are prohibited, meaning any forthcoming rental dwelling units built in the overlay district will be designated as year-round housing. One-hundred percent of rental units must be eligible for inclusion on the town’s Subsidized Housing Inventory list, which will make it easier for the town to reach the 10 percent threshold. Twenty-five percent of rental units and 50 percent of ownership dwellings must be designated as affordable.
“If we can get enough developers to take us up on this and they build enough units, we will be at and over our 10 percent, which we hope [to do],” Ms. Harris said. “It’s really the density rules that have been in the way of developing these kinds of buildings. Most people don’t really want to see huge apartment buildings, certainly not tall apartment buildings or even big ones here in Falmouth. They picture the big apartment complexes they see driving up to Boston and go, ‘uh-uh, not here.’ So we’ve tried to get the greater density we want, but put a lid on it by saying only 20 units, no more than that, but also we have to follow the design guidelines.”
Design guidelines for developments were recently adopted by the planning board, and were developed after survey research determined the aesthetic that residents would prefer to see. The guidelines are not surprising in any way, Ms. Harris said. People like things that look like the Cape Cod they are used to—things like pitched roofs, gables, detailing, and shingling with white trim.
“It’s really so important that we’ll be able to extend the downtown character along Davis Straits,” Ms. Harris said. “[We can] change the landscaping, change the parking requirements, have the buildings come closer to the street, and put the parking beside or behind the new buildings. It would be just a much more attractive-looking area and it will house a lot of people.”