This article is the latest in a series of interviews with Belmont stakeholders about their vision for the future of Belmont. Jeffrey North conducted this interview. It has been edited for length and clarity. – Ed.
BCF
Congratulations on your recent rotation to the chair of the Select Board. Over the past year as a member of the Select Board, what are some positive steps or improvements in town governance you have seen? And what do you see as needing improvement?
Taylor
We have an excellent town, and we are a welcoming community. I hope you see what I see. We can take pride in knowing that Belmont is well-run considering its history, size, and available resources. I do not judge anyone who might miss details or take for granted some portion of what makes Belmont great.
From the outside, it may seem as though local government and community work “just happens” despite lean staffing and constrained budgets. Please take a moment to thank our staff and volunteering neighbors who make Belmont a better place.
Belmont is modernizing to be a dynamic and responsive local government. We are setting goals and accomplishing many of them. The Select Board crafted new committee charges to be focused and goal-oriented, including important work on a new Town Plan and multiyear budgeting. Departments are collaborating more and more effectively. For example, having a dedicated town-wide facilities department and a unified finance department has help us improve care for our buildings and move forward on tax relief for seniors
This has been so successful that you might not have noticed all the areas where we are leanly staffed. I could list nearly every department as examples. I’m particularly interested in staffing foundational departments and revenue growth, like IT, Engineering, and Planning and Building to name just a few.
The real risk of this success is taking it for granted and thinking everything is fine because the strain is less visible.. Efficiencies will not solve our structural problems without significantly diminishing services. With so much happening in parallel, the Select Board reinstated liaison roles to facilitate communication and coordination across numerous committees and projects.
We always pass balanced budgets. This year, we further reduced our reliance on one-time funds for recurring expenses. This makes our finances more sustainable but strains our leanly staffed departments just that much more. To maintain services as best we can and within our means, we are consolidating and reorganizing departments. These changes can be challenging, but they enable our staff to share expertise, enhance collaboration, and align responsibilities with the management structure. Our municipal and school departments worked together on the budget and several one-time projects. This partnership strengthens our community.
BCF
What steps do you believe we need to take in the short, medium, and long term to enhance the quality of life in Belmont and achieve a sound fiscal future that includes vibrant neighborhoods, excellent municipal services, and world-class schools?
Taylor
When I ran for Select Board, I talked a lot about wanting excellent schools AND an excellent town around those schools. A 95% residential tax base means taxes are high, AND budgets are constrained.
Our town’s long-entrenched structure of urban-adjacent, low-scale residential housing without a vibrant commercial base makes our revenue inadequate to support our desired quality of life. To reconcile revenue with services, we must bring effective proposals to Town Meeting that allow for commercial and mixed-use development, encourage people-first vibrancy, and help us advertise that we, Belmont, welcome our future opportunities.
In the short term, to maintain services for residents, we must continue to budget carefully and optimize our local government. We must also incentivize structure-changing new growth that helps revenue keep pace with expenses and would sustain more services. Every year of progress can reduce the frequency and size of override requests, and I believe, buy enough time to keep most services while we also work toward the bigger goal of a 10% commercial tax base.
We are a land-constrained town. The town cannot redevelop private property, nor can we force property owners to build what fits into our larger plan, policy, or community preference. So, we must urgently untangle a long history of “no”-based policies and shift to be “opportunity ready.” Imagine: what if we had been welcoming to lab space before our neighboring communities seized those opportunities? We must welcome by-right development, especially for mixed-use projects, which combine commercial space with residential housing. Mixed-use brings amenities close to residents who want them and allows customers to live near the small and medium-sized businesses that thrive when people live nearby.
In the medium term, we must reform parking and traffic. Parking Benefit Districts are the perfect tool to unlock vibrant, people-focused centers and neighborhoods, while preserving historic and green spaces. Benefit Districts take some or all the profit from parking revenues and invest it back into improving the neighborhood. Neighboring towns like Arlington reinvest hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to improve the streetscape and vibrancy in-and-around their businesses. These features benefit everyone.
In the long run, a 10% commercial tax base is a huge 10+ year goal. The past three Select Board elections have emphatically shown the broad base of voters insistent we follow through on what we have been discussing and studying for decades. You have been heard. Elizabeth Dionne’s highly successful year as Select Board chair has led to meaningful steps toward this goal. We are hiring expert staff, using modern tools, aligning departments to collaborate, and building a planning process that works. The benefits of this groundwork will compound and accelerate.
Reaching our goal would be incredible for Belmont. Communities that achieve at least a 10% commercial tax base can start to shift some of the property tax burden from residential properties to commercial properties. We will have positioned Belmont for multigenerational success and sustainability.
BCF
What inspired you to run for the Select Board, and how has your perspective on Belmont evolved since taking office?
Matt Taylor. Photo courtesy of Matt Taylor.
Taylor
I ran for Select Board because I love our community, our people, and being part of our team that is so much bigger than any one person or lifetime. Our community has made and will make some mistakes, but there is so much to be thankful for every day. I want every person to see the positives that I see and feel the gratitude I feel. While running, I connected with many neighbors in a genuine way that filled my heart. So many people chip in to make our community special in ways that are big and small, formal and informal.
I ran for Select Board by asking voters to endorse a huge, shared goal: achieving a 10% commercial tax base and, specifically, using mixed-use development to incentivize growth that sustains services for residents. I intend to help us follow through.
Before serving on the Select Board, I had less visibility into the legal and personnel discussions that often happen in executive sessions. These discussions may not seem newsworthy, but they are so vital for preserving our town and keeping everything running smoothly.
I ran to help us make progress on these large, structural challenges in a data-driven way. This urgent focus has not changed, and I expect it will take several years of consistent, practical reforms to unlock significant momentum. Revenue growth may come in bursts as opportunities arise, and property owners choose to invest. Yet the costs of inaction are obvious: diminishing services and larger, more frequent override requests.
BCF
How is the Select Board working to balance Belmont’s need for growth and development with the preservation of its historic and environmental character?
Taylor
As a land-constrained town, we must build up, not out. We must reform traffic and parking that constrict our business centers and bisect neighborhoods. Building up will balance growth with preservation, commercial development with housing, and services with affordability.
We love our historic character and green spaces. The Planning Board proposes zoning bylaws for Town Meeting to approve (or not). I doubt our Planning Board would propose rezoning historic sites or our natural, green spaces. And if they did, I believe Town Meeting would reject such a proposal.
BCF
What role do you believe community engagement and transparency should play in town governance, and how are you working to improve them?
Taylor
All our work happens in open meetings. Most often, there is too much information, and our challenge is explainability, not a lack of transparency. Your right to observe our work is important to me. This sometimes involves uncomfortable questions and discussions, and I view those moments as part of your right to representation and meaningful debate.
Through my campaign and the past year, I have learned that the broader base of our community wants officials, volunteers, and staff who listen and learn from public engagement without giving undue weight to how frequently or loudly someone makes their points. We all have standing in these town-wide goals and your perspective matters. Please continue to engage with the public process and help enrich our work. Please keep listening for the quiet, understated perspectives that might go unnoticed.
BCF
What’s one project or decision during your time on the Board that you feel especially proud of, and why?
Taylor
I love helping our Town Meeting be informed in their decisions about the future of our community. A core value of mine is to work as a communicator rather than a pundit, and as an explainer, not a campaigner. The 288 elected Town Meeting members are chosen by their respective precincts, but each of us takes an oath to serve all of Belmont and not some narrower perspective or part of town.
I’m also proud to be a voice in the room who deeply understands data modeling and the importance of having models that inform policymaking, rather than models that encode implicit policies. We must balance data availability with the quality of data that supports well-informed decision-making.
I learn so much from people who speak to me for the first time, stop me on my run to chat, or see me out and about in our community and share their perspectives. Informal access is just as important as formal access. Please say “hi” and tell me what is on your mind. Thank you for being my neighbor.
Matthew Taylor is chair of the Select Board, a Town Meeting member at-large, and a Belmont resident.
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