Throughout our six-week public comment period earlier this year, hundreds of people visited our web page, downloaded the zoning code, participated in our office hours or watched the video overview of our draft. We received over twenty of thoughtful, detailed suggestions and questions, which we reviewed with our Zoning Working Group.

You can review our full memo about the updates we made based on public feedback here.

To summarize, the biggest changes include:

• Updated floodplain overlay to remain compliant with the National Flood Insurance Program
• Removed the ZBA's ability to grant use variances
• Added criteria for special permits and site plan review
• Expanded applicability exclusions to “Land and structures owned by the City, or used by or on behalf of the City,” from “Municipal land, uses and structures”
• Other various tweaks (renaming districts, minor changes to use and dimensional tables)

There were also a variety of small map changes throughout the City. All of these, as well as the comments received, are detailed in the memo.

The next step will be for the City Council and Planning Board to schedule a public hearing to consider the adoption of the new zoning code. We hope to see this taken by the Council and Planning Board in late June 2025.

The Massachusetts Legislature recently passed a law that makes Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) allowed by-right in single-family housing districts, and the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities subsequently issued draft regulations providing further guidance. The new law will be in effect on February 2, 2025. You can read more about the changes in rules and the draft guidelines at Mass.gov.

Municipalities are allowed to adopt regulations governing ADUs in their communities, but there are limits. The Zoning Working Group - which is made up of representatives from the Planning, Law, Inspectional Services Departments, Planning Board, the Zoning Board of Appeals, EDIC/Lynn, the Mayor's Office, and City Council - has been working with a consultant team to create local rules that align with the regulations as proposed.

The Lynn City Council set down a public hearing to consider this proposed amendment for Tuesday, February 11. You can review the draft regulations here, or tune in for the public hearing to learn more.

About the MBTA Communities Act

In January 2021, the Massachusetts legislature passed the MBTA Communities Act, often referred to as Section 3A. The idea is that, if a community benefits from MBTA service, it must accommodate some level of multifamily development by right. Since passing, the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC) has released and refined specific regulations about how communities are expected to meet these requirements. You can read more about the regulations on the MBTA Communities website.

Compliance in Lynn

According to the regulations, Lynn is a Commuter Rail community and must be compliant by December 31, 2024. The City has achieved Interim Compliance by meeting all deadlines so far. We await to hear our final determination from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. Lynn intends to fully comply with the MBTA Communities Act.

Fortunately, the City has historically allowed by-right multifamily development near our Central Square Commuter Rail station. To be compliant, communities must submit a 3A District to the state that meets requirements for size, location, and density. In Lynn, we are proposing a 3A District made up of parcels in three different zoning districts:

• CBD: Allows Mixed-Use Street Level by right, which offers up to 10 stories of development with the ground floor being reserved for commercial uses. Because of the requirement for commercial uses in these by-right projects, this is considered a “Mixed-Use Development District” in the language of the 3A regulations, and can only contribute a small amount of units to our total requirements.
• R4 + R5: These districts allow Apartment Buildings by right up to 5 stories.

For Lynn, the creation of our 3A District is about describing to the state how we are compliant with the rules, NOT changing underlying zoning or creating a new zone. Whether or not a parcel is in the 3A District in no way changes what’s allowed on the parcel, or the process by which it is developed.

Lynn’s Proposed 3A District

Lynn needs a 3A district that allows 5,517 dwelling units by right. Based on EOHLC’s methodology, this proposed district allows 9,429 dwelling units.

One Change to the Zoning Code

In order for our proposed district to be compliant with 3A regulations, we need to make one edit to our zoning code. We need to strike footnote 18 on page 14 from the code: “Residential units with greater than two bedrooms shall be allowed in not more than ten (10%) percent of all residential dwellings in the CBD.”

This provision of our zoning code is not enforced, as the City does not track the number of bedrooms per dwelling unit in the CBD. 3A guidelines require that our 3A District not limit the number of bedrooms in order to ensure that communities are not precluding housing that could be suitable for families. However, the City does–and is still allowed to–incentivize fewer bedrooms per unit by requiring more parking for units with three or more bedrooms.

The City Council adopted this amendment on Tuesday, December 17, and City Staff submitted our request for a determination of compliance soon after. We await a determination from EOHLC at this time.