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Belmont adopts housing‑choices text amendment adding cottage courts and courtyard buildings
Summary
Belmont City Council unanimously adopted TA 2023.01 to add two new multifamily building forms — cottage courts and courtyard buildings (5–12 units, 2 stories) — and agreed to require council review through special‑use permit or conditional zoning in many cases to retain local discretion.
Belmont City Council unanimously approved a text amendment (TA 2023.01) on Nov. 17 to expand the city’s land‑development code to include two new multifamily forms: cottage courts and courtyard buildings. The planning board had previously recommended the amendment and staff presented refinements based on interdepartmental feedback.
Planning Director Tiffany Pharaoh described the two new forms: cottage courts are clusters of five to 12 small detached, cottage‑style units arranged around a shared green; courtyard buildings are attached units (also capped at 12 units and two stories) that face a central courtyard instead of interior corridors. Both forms use rear parking or garages and are intended to provide lower‑scale multifamily options that fit Belmont’s existing character.
Staff and the planning board emphasized a cautious, discretionary path for introducing the forms: many locations where the forms would be new are proposed to proceed only via special‑use permit (SUP) or conditional zoning, depending on lot size and whether the project triggers a traffic impact analysis or other thresholds. Tiffany Pharaoh said the special‑use permit route preserves council oversight and allows staff and council to negotiate conditions (for example, materials or site compatibility) given recent state limits on design regulation for very small buildings.
Councilmembers raised questions about unit caps, thresholds that trigger conditional review, and whether the new forms would be subject to existing multifamily requirements in Chapter 6; staff confirmed both forms would be limited to 5–12 units per structure, would be subject to multifamily standards in Chapter 6, and that the city could require SUP/conditional review based on lot size and trip thresholds.
After brief public‑hearing procedures (no new public comments specific to the amendment were made at this meeting), council voted to adopt TA 2023.01 as modified to require special‑use permit or conditional zoning review consistent with the thresholds discussed. The planning board’s unanimous recommendation and staff coordination with fire, stormwater and utilities were noted as part of the record.
What’s next: the new building forms are now in the code where specified; projects using these forms will be reviewed under the updated rules, and larger proposals will be required to go through conditional zoning so the council can set site‑specific conditions where appropriate.
