Medford committee reviews draft neighborhood and urban residential zoning

The Medford City Council Planning and Permitting Committee on Feb. 12, 2025 reviewed a new draft of zoning ordinance updates (paper 20433) from Ennis Associates that would create five new residential subdistricts and recategorize parts of the city to better reflect building types, topography and transit access.

The proposal would divide residential areas into neighborhood residential (NR1, NR2, NR3) and urban residential (UR1, UR2) subdistricts, set a three‑story maximum for the residential subdistricts and map those categories over existing building types to identify where the rules would change. Consultants said the draft is intended to align zoning with the city’s Plan 2025 priorities and to concentrate greater density near transit and job centers.

Ennis Associates planner Paola Ramos Martinez said the team used “proximity to high frequent and efficient public transit, proximity to higher job density areas, lot sizes and topography, existing residential types, [and] transition between low and medium density areas” to place new subdistrict boundaries. She and Emily Ennis walked the committee through version changes; the third draft incorporates requests from earlier…