How much warning should a Chelsea resident get before a building goes up next door? State law says the direct neighbors, the people across the street, and anyone whose property touches a neighbor’s within 300 feet get a letter in the mail. Council President Roberto Jimenez-Rivera thinks that is not enough for a city as dense as this one, and on September 14 he brought the question to the council’s Housing and Community Development subcommittee. The City Manager told him the state is moving the other way.
Why now
The committee report, in Monday’s council packet, says Jimenez-Rivera’s order “arose from concerns raised by residents about the notification process related to Boston Provisions/Wulf’s Fish, as well as concerns about a project taking place very close to his own home.” He argued that “given how geographically dense Chelsea is,” the city “should strengthen abutter notification requirements beyond what State Law requires.” The meeting ran from 6:04 to 6:51 p.m. on September 14, before the regular council session. Councillors Deron Hines, who chaired as vice chair, and Calvin Brown were the committee members present; Todd Taylor, Lisa Santagate, Leo Robinson and Jimenez-Rivera also attended.
How it works now
William Cecio, the city’s director of permitting and land use planning, walked through the current practice. When a petition is filed, planning staff draw a map of every property the law covers and mail notices to the names and addresses on file with the Assessor’s Office. Legal notices for the hearing run twice in a local newspaper and are posted on the city bulletin board and website. Two details in his account matter. Chelsea does the mailing itself, “while other cities require the petitioners themselves to send notifications,” because the city wants it done correctly. And the letters go to property owners, not tenants. In a city where roughly three of every four households rent, most of the people who live within 300 feet of a project never receive the notice.
The City Manager’s view
City Manager Fidel Maltez, according to the report, “expressed the view that the State is moving in the opposite direction, allowing for notifications by email and loosening restrictions on notifications.” He called the current process “complex and time-consuming,” and said it “is designed to slow the development process down.” The report records that as his argument, not as a position the committee adopted.
The ideas on the table
Committee members suggested four changes: certified mail, so the city has proof the notice arrived; a requirement that owners post notices inside their buildings so tenants see them; signs on the development site itself giving the hearing date and time; and cutting the radius from 300 feet to 150. The report does not say who proposed which, and the last one is the odd one out, since a smaller radius means fewer notices, not more. A sign on the lot, by contrast, reaches everyone who walks past, owner or tenant, and is the practice in a number of Massachusetts communities.
The committee made no recommendation. It asked Maltez, Cecio and City Solicitor Cheryl Watson-Fisher to look at what the city can do “while also ensuring compliance with State Law,” and continued the item until the administration reports back. There is no date for that.
What the law allows
The 300-foot rule comes from the state zoning act, which sets the minimum list of “parties in interest” for a zoning hearing. Nothing in it prevents a city from notifying more people or by more means; the question is cost and staff time, which is presumably the process Maltez was describing. Whether Chelsea can require a private owner to post a notice inside a building, or a developer to put a sign on a lot, is the kind of question the city solicitor was asked to answer.
The order sits alongside two others the council adopted the same night: Robinson’s call for a Housing subcommittee meeting on Broadway, and his request that the administration find out why, by his count, 67 apartments in the city are sitting vacant. All three go to the same committee. Its chair, Norieliz DeJesus, was absent on September 14; she signs the report as chair along with Hines and Brown.