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Community Preservation Committee Endorses Projects

Construction and Housing, Environment, Historic Preservation, May/June 2026, Newsletter, Open Space Comments Off

Apr 242026

Community Preservation Committee Endorses Projects

By Aaron Pikcilingis Each spring at Belmont’s Annual Town Meeting, Town Meeting members (TMM) consider projects recommended by the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) and vote whether to award each Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding. TMM may choose to either fund the project as recommended, reject the project, or reduce the funding. CPA funding requires both the recommendation of the CPC and Town Meeting, so TMMs may not elect to vote for different projects or substantially alter a proposed project, nor may they vote to provide more CPA funding to a given project than is recommended by the CPC. For FY2027, [READ MORE]

Belmont Joins the ADU Era

Construction and Housing, May/June 2026 Comments Off

Apr 242026

By Jeffrey North Belmont now allows small accessory apartments by right on most residential lots, putting it roughly in line with neighbors like Arlington and Lexington — but the number actually built so far remains very low. After years of debate, Belmont has joined the growing list of Massachusetts communities that allow “accessory dwelling units” (ADUs) on most residential lots. The town’s ADU bylaw, approved at the March 2025 Special Town Meeting, was crafted to comply with the state’s 2024 Affordable Homes Act, which requires communities to allow at least one small ADU by right where residential units are allowed. [READ MORE]

May/June 2026 BCF Newsletter

May/June 2026, Newsletter Comments Off

Apr 242026

In this issue: Harvard Study Offers Vision for Brighton Street The zoning is to be developed utilizing the same form-based code that Town Meeting adopted in March when it created new overlay zoning for Belmont Center. Read more. Belmont Joins the ADU Era Belmont now allows small accessory apartments by right on most residential lots, putting it roughly in line with neighbors like Arlington and Lexington — but the number actually built so far remains very low. Read more. Community Preservation Committee Endorses Projects For FY2027, Belmont’s CPA surcharge will generate about $1.8 million and the state match will [READ MORE]

Harvard Study Offers Vision for Brighton Street

May/June 2026 Comments Off

Apr 242026

Harvard Study Offers Vision for Brighton Street

By Jeffrey North and Vincent Stanton, Jr. On March 30, the Belmont Select Board, Planning Board and Office of Planning and Building, with support from consultants able.city, held a kickoff meeting at the Belmont Library for a proposed new overlay zoning of the Brighton Street business district. The zoning is to be developed utilizing the same form-based code that Town Meeting adopted in March when it created new overlay zoning for Belmont Center. Select Board chair Matt Taylor proposed a timeline with draft zoning in place by late spring, followed by additional public meetings and review, culminating in a Town [READ MORE]

Events March/April 2026

BCF Events, March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

Grow Native Massachusetts: 2 Evenings with Experts Unlocking the Mysteries of Native Plant Selection March 11 | 7:00–8:30 pm Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge Kim Eierman, author of The Pollinator Victory Garden, sorts out the mysteries and complexities of native plant selection including: Am I buying a genetic clone, and does it matter? Are dwarf nativars ecologically useful? Pros and cons of planting native seeds vs. live plants? Get the answers you need to make your native landscape both beautiful and eco-beneficial. FREE. Register at grownativemass.org/Our-Programs/calendar How to Grow a Better Bird Feeder April 16 | 7:00–8:30 pm First Parish [READ MORE]

Juncos Are Winter’s Dark-Eyed Favorites

March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

By Fred Bouchard Fresh snow is still banking up, the Pats showed up and got beat up in Santa Clara, Red Sox pitchers and catchers are catching up in palmy Fort Myers, and juncos—pecking millet and sunflower seed— are crowding up beneath my lilac-row feeder. Oh, uppy day! Braving an unprecedented zero-Fahrenheit stretch, juncos are hot this winter. Favorite winter visitors, juncos gray forms sharp-etched on snow-powder—stand apart from the usual suspects: dun House Sparrows, streaky-brown Song Sparrows, gray titmice. Arriving in dark, brisk flocks in October—their numbers annually fluctuate upwards with severe forecasts—these “little black jobs” cheerfully stand in [READ MORE]

Belmont Creates Clean-Energy Corridor

Climate Change, March/April 2026, Solar Power Comments Off

Feb 202026

Sustainable infrastructure has fiscal, environmental benefits By Peter Dizikes Belmont is entering a new era of local energy production. Today, renewable energy capacity is becoming a normal component of our public buildings and even the town’s vehicle fleet because clean energy offers both fiscal savings and environmental benefits. Consider the flurry of recent building activity on lower Concord Avenue. Over the past five years, the town opened the new Belmont Public Library, the Belmont Sports Complex, Home of the Skip Viglirolo Rink, and the Belmont Middle and High School, all heavily powered by renewable energy. Together, these structures are turning [READ MORE]

Environmental Stewards: Emily Norton, CRWA

Climate Change, Environment, March/April 2026, Newsletter, Stormwater Comments Off

Feb 202026

Environmental Stewards: Emily Norton, CRWA

The Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA), founded in 1965, works to protect, restore, and enhance the Charles River and its surrounding communities. Through scientific monitoring, policy advocacy, and on-the-ground restoration, CRWA has helped transform the Charles from one of the nation’s most polluted rivers into a model of urban river recovery and climate resilience. The Belmont Citizens Forum spoke with Emily Norton, executive director of CRWA, about the organization’s watershed-wide initiatives, its community and policy partnerships, and her vision for the future of the Charles River. This interview has been edited for length and clarity: read the complete version at [READ MORE]

Profile in Belmont: Joe Arkinstall

March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

By Elissa Ely You open the door of The Wellington Tavern and are seated. Soon after, a man comes by to welcome you. His accent is richly British and he is winningly attentive. You find him familiar. Once the beloved co-owner of Stone Hearth Pizza, Joe Arkinstall is the manager here, now. Unless it’s Sunday morning, he will almost always find you. Sunday mornings are for family church. “It keeps the soul nice and clean,” he says. Restaurant management is a profession of perpetual motion: overseeing front-of-the-house cleanliness and appearance; overseeing back-of-the-house payroll, inventory, staff schedules, supplies; meeting with the [READ MORE]

Moderator Candidates Answer BCF Questions

March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

Each year, the Belmont Citizens Forum asks candidates for town-wide office questions about issues facing Belmont. This year, Adam Dash and Mike Crowley are running for town moderator. BCF The moderator has broad authority over Town Meeting. How do you define the moderator’s core responsibilities in Belmont, and what principles would guide your exercise of that responsibility, particularly in contentious debates? Adam Dash I have the experience and skills to carry out the three main functions of the town moderator: (i) run large hybrid meetings, (ii) render legal rulings, and (iii) make committee appointments. I have done all three things [READ MORE]

Letter to the Editor: March/April 2026

March/April 2026, Plants Comments Off

Feb 202026

To the editor; As the founder of Arlington MA Invasives ArMI, I read your recent post about the need to coordinate invasive plant management [“Opinion: Treat Invasive Plant Removal as a System,” BCF Newsletter, January/February 2026] with interest. You mention the need to work across jurisdictions. Absolutely! Yet there are systemic roadblocks to making that happen. It has been my experience that the slicing and dicing of “owners” of town lands can create significant hurdles to coordinating actions, even in contiguous town lands being stewarded by different departments, boards, or commissions as “owners.” Effective invasives control is complicated where private [READ MORE]

Select Board Candidate Answers BCF Questions

Board of Selectmen, March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

Select Board Candidate Answers BCF Questions

Each year, the Belmont Citizens Forum asks candidates for town-wide office questions about issues facing Belmont. As of this publication Carol Berberian is the sole candidate running for Select Board. If another candidate emerges, see BelmontCitizensForum.org for their answers. BCF How do you propose to address Belmont’s structural fiscal challenges, and what specific budget or revenue strategies would you champion as a Select Board member? Berberian Belmont can build on the work of the Multi-Year Budget Advisory Committee to strengthen its financial future through realistic long-term planning and spending decisions that align with sustainable revenue. I will work to expand [READ MORE]

Belmont Could Tax Land Differently

March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

By Max Colice Town Meeting changed Belmont’s zoning bylaws last year to allow new housing development and is considering more zoning changes to allow new commercial development, partly in an effort to increase property tax revenue. But simply changing the zoning doesn’t guarantee more development or higher property tax revenue. How else can Belmont encourage new housing construction and commercial development? One very old idea for encouraging development is the Land Value Tax. Instead of taxing both land and buildings like the current property tax, a Land Value Tax applies only to land, not to the buildings. Under a Land [READ MORE]

Opinion: What is a Town For?

Construction and Housing, March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

By Meg Muckenhoupt This issue contains an article by respected Belmont residents arguing that a proposed overlay district in Belmont Center will lead to a net loss to the town. Those calculations are at odds with the numbers produced by the Warrant Committee, which predict an annual net increase in town revenue between $127,000 and $857,00 (see bit.ly/BCF-Overlay-Fiscal). Which numbers you believe are more credible depends on your assumptions—chiefly assumptions about school enrollment. Children cost towns money. They’re expensive to educate, they like to play in parks that are expensive to maintain, and they increase the need for traffic enforcement [READ MORE]

March/April 2026 BCF Newsletter

March/April 2026, Newsletter Comments Off

Feb 202026

Read the March/April 2026 BCF Newsletter In this issue: Analysis: New Revenue from Overlay Doubtful The Select Board has repeatedly claimed that the Belmont Center Overlay proposal will help address the town’s high property taxes and provide additional funding for our schools. Read more. Belmont Center Zoning: More Information The analyses by the Office of Planning and Building(OPB) are very different from the figures published in this newsletter, and there is far more information available about the Project than can fit in the BCF’s print Newsletter. Read more. Opinion: What is a Town For? Most towns could balance their budgets [READ MORE]

Will Anything Get Built?

March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

By Vincent Stanton, Jr. The real estate developer focus group convened by Office of Planning and Building Director Chris Ryan in early-mid 2025 provided important, if disappointing, feedback on the economic feasibility of building in Belmont Center (see “Developer perspectives: condensed and edited transcript”). The transcript of that meeting is full of daunting assessments of the current market for commercial real estate. 20% to 30% vacancy rates for office space in Boston and Cambridge. (In January 2026, subsequent to the focus group, OZK Bank wrote off $72 million of its investment in renovated office space in the former Sullivan Courthouse [READ MORE]

Developer Perspectives: Condensed and Edited Transcript

March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

Last spring, Belmont Office of Planning and Building Director Chris Ryan interviewed a group of 11 local real estate professionals with diverse backgrounds: some specializing in affordable housing, or mixed commercial-residential projects, or hotel/commercial, others from real estate investment firms. The goal of the session was to assess the level of interest in a rezoned Belmont Center with a potentially two-to-three time greater density than currently allowed, and to solicit advice on how to make the project attractive. (Note that the scale of allowable buildings has been reduced in most areas since this meeting.) The meeting transcript is 20 pages. [READ MORE]

Belmont Center Landlord Perspectives

March/April 2026 Comments Off

Feb 202026

By Vincent Stanton, Jr. The Newsletter contacted four Belmont Center landlords with questions about their perspective on the proposed rezoning measures, and whether and how the new zoning, if adopted by Town Meeting, might influence their plans. Scott Tellier, principal at Tellier Properties which owns 31-43 Leonard Street in Belmont Center (Irresistables, Santander Bank, Brueggers Bagels, Union Pharmacy), as well as 375 and 385 Concord Avenue in the proposed Center Gateway Overlay, and Kevin Foley, principal at Locatelli Properties which owns 49-89 Leonard Street, the largest parcel in Belmont Center (Butternut Bakehouse, Champions, Lagree Lab, Brooksy’s, Revolve, Westcott Mercantile, Patou [READ MORE]

What the Select Board Said on the Overlay

March/April 2026, Newsletter Comments Off

Feb 202026

By Vincent Stanton, Jr. and Michael Widmer The Select Board (SB) discussed the Belmont Center rezoning articles at its January 26, 2026 meeting (link to video; discussion starts at 2:42:15), and again on February 9 (link to video; discussion starts at 1:58:30). Select Board members rebutted many widely expressed public criticisms. (Of course the three SB members have distinct views about the rezoning, and many of the views summarized below were expressed by only one or two SB members, but they are largely in agreement about the big questions.) What follows is author Stanton’s interpretation of SB members’ statements on [READ MORE]

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