Setting the Record Straight
- mcc021557
- Jul 8, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 9, 2025
WEDNESDAY July 9, 2025 The Community Development Board will be hosting a hybrid meeting with continued public comment on the citywide NR/UR Zoning.
You can attend in person or on zoom. Please attend and speak for the record.
You can also submit your comments to the CDB board in advance: ocd@medford-ma.gov
Now on with the blog…
Another blog full of misinformation written by Matt Leming has been shared with us and we are working to unpack it.
I just don’t understand why they spend all of this time spreading misinformation and propaganda rather than studying what they are actually voting on and writing the zoning that they are purporting to want. Just be truthful. It seems easy. Then residents don’t have to do the labor of trying to dispel all of your misinformation and blatant untruths. We all have better things to do. So here we go…it's gonna be a long one, folks, Matt wrote a LOT of garbage here. Let’s start at the top…he spelled his name right, so point Matt.
Link to blog for those who want to verify or read all of the misinformation…we DEFINITELY can’t cover it all!
According to Matt: “Prop 2.5 squeezes city budgets by ensuring that they’re eaten by inflation over time, so without periodic overrides of Prop 2.5 or substantial expansion of a commercial tax base, we are hamstrung in our efforts to adequately serve residents.” Matt is worsening this by the zoning he is pushing and passing.
This zoning LOWERS the commercial to residential ratio. It adds housing over commercial use by a large margin, even in areas that should be commercially zoned by rezoning them for mixed use and prioritizing housing in all of them. Mixed use allows residential buildings with ZERO commercial by right. It also allows for “mixed use” to actually be just an “active ground floor” even if it is for resident use only. But one floor of commercial will not offset multiple floors of residential in even the same building.
Matt says “we need to start addressing our long-term housing crisis and tax base with the most powerful tool that the city has at its disposal to spur development: zoning laws. That is exactly what the City is doing right now.” Matt and the city council are focusing on the “housing crisis” which is harming our tax base by adding more residents in need of more services rather than commercial uses that can help us to support residents.
Yes. Developers only seek to develop on the parcels that they own. That will not change. They seek variances because they want the largest profit possible. You don’t make zoning more lax so more profit is easier to gain.
What is allowed by right on Salem St with the old zoning are apartment buildings up to 3 stories on lots of 10k square feet or larger with 1 ½ parking spaces per unit. What is allowed under the zoning that Matt championed and overrode Community Development suggestions are buildings from 3 (potentially 4 if UR2 is upzoned) stories to 6 stories with just apartments by right. They are allowed to have commercial on the first floor if they want (but it is not required).
Matt also intends to reduce or eliminate the parking minimums to meet the obligations of his Our Revolution Candidate Contract. It has nothing to do with capacity or community need/want, but everything to do with maintaining his membership to the Medford Our Revolution group. The project proposed last summer for Salem St can be built now with 80% lot coverage and double the height (they are just waiting to pull the permits until they see how few parking spaces they will be required to build). Matt is just lying here because he surely knows he voted to prioritize housing on Salem Street Corridor.
All of these "studies" called for more detailed feasibility studies; from existing conditions analysis to infrastructure needs and many, many more. None of these said to just rezone based on your opinions. NONE OF THEM! But that is exactly what Matt and his ilk have done. This cannot be stated enough! NONE OF THE STUDIES called for in the Comprehensive Plan, Housing Production Plan, Climate Action Plan nor the many Medford Square studies (many from decades ago) were conducted. NONE! They did the talking and not the working and studying. No matter how many blogs filled with misinformation Matt writes, he can’t point to any of the studies that the Comprehensive Plan calls for because they don’t exist!
He is then so bold as to put his uneducated opinions into a Q&A! WOW! The arrogance! Wow! How does he fit through the chambers doors. Dare we even look at more of his boring blog? Sorry, we must! Chin up! Excuse us if we pick and choose because YAWN!!!!!
Variances should NOT be routine. There is a high legal bar they should have to meet to be granted. But Matt Leming and Council have lowered the bar to special permits so that no legal bar will have to be met to override even this lax zoning. He just wants it to be easier for them to build. We want the zoning to make sense today too, but Matt didn’t want to conduct any studies, so it doesn’t.
As for Medford having difficulty attracting developers, we certainly have attracted our share of flippers and predatory speculative investors. Perhaps Matt is referencing transformative developers. I have news for you Matt, it isn't our zoning that keeps them away, but our reputation. IYKYK.
Many have said we need to grow our commercial base, but the zoning written by Matt and the city council will actually shrink our commercial base and explode our residential base which has a negative impact on the city budget as more residents need more services.
Well….this one was too easy…
…got something harder for us?
Ok… rebuttal directly from the Comprehensive Plan page 196
Read the plan, Matt,
this is getting hard to watch…
This does not explain the density proposed in Glenwood. They are being zoned at NR3 and have the most UR2 in the city but WITHOUT rapid transit. No time or discussion has been spent in any meeting on why this is happening here other than Alicia Hunt, the director of planning and permitting, saying that there is “developer pressure” here.
As an environmental justice area being rapidly gentrified by flippers now, houses routinely sell for lower than assessment values and are converted into $1M+ mega townhouses and the incoming zoning will allow for THREE mega townhouses plus TWO ADUs. Potentially FOUR stories in the UR2 zones with unlimited units allowed. These builds are moving forward (as flippers are already door knocking) and they rely on parking minimums being reduced or removed (removal is in the Our Revolution candidate contract if you recall). There is no validity to the idea that the MBTA will make buses or trains more reliable based on adding density.
But to answer the question, YES! This will add traffic!
This will NOT help with affordability! Yes! All of the new units will be luxury priced units. There are many incentives to gain extra floors including the fountain and bench combination that is back up to half a story each in the Mixed Use areas.
Has Matt been to Medford or just city hall? How does he not see the CONSTANT development that is happening here? A project for nearly 400 units just broke ground on the Fellsway or does he not go any further into the east side of the city than his condo that is practically touching city hall?
The zoning Matt and the city council wrote INCREASES lot coverage from 30-35% up to 40-60% in the neighborhoods and up to 80% in the Mixed-Use districts (with waivers of Green Score allowed to make more housing). This will result in LESS green space as the homes will be larger and then (hopefully) there will be driveways and parking to support the needs of the new larger project. Matt clearly doesn’t understand the zoning that he is passing along. He should ask more questions and stop giving false answers. This is embarrassing for him.
Historic homes are allowed to add the same density that any other house in the same zone can add. There is no requirement to do a historic conversion. They may take a bit longer, but they can be knocked down and the lot rebuilt on or they can be gutted to the studs or leave one wall intact and just build up to the lot coverage and heights allowed in that zone.
THREE of the FOUR elementary schools are already overcrowded. Allow the school committee to explain this to you in a video from their meeting on June 9, 2025.
The honest answer is that we don’t know if the infrastructure can handle the increases in density proposed in the neighborhoods because the city council didn’t bother to conduct the requisite studies. Matt is only referring to large projects paying into infrastructure upgrades needed. Smaller builds like those proposed in the neighborhoods won’t need any approvals or site plan review if they are under 6 units. So, this is a lie through misdirection and it's focusing on the wrong subject. The death by 1000 smaller units added to a neighborhood infrastructure cost will be borne by all residents.
There is no need for Matt to continuously insult any residents who activate to try and inform their neighbors just because he doesn’t agree with them. “Other times, however, people just make things up and spread inaccurate information, scaring their neighbors…”. We too are frustrated, Matt, when you spread misinformation and disparage your neighbors.
The correction that he offers is that there are no UR2 zones proposed for “single family only districts.” The average resident knows that they live in a majority single family neighborhood and that they will suddenly be zoned UR2 which allows an unlimited number of units. They are not held to the same standard as an elected official who should know this zoning and have made far fewer mistakes than Matt has in this blog alone.
Matt again spreads misinformation here when he claims that “dimensional requirements, performance standards, design guidelines as well as building code requirements – under any new zoning, most lots would be too small to hold more than 1-3 units per lot.” This is just wrong. The state required ADU must be allowed to be built bringing the minimum up to two right there. But again, if the zoning is supposed to increase density, why would the zoning be impossible to build? Is Matt just trying to get around saying that parking minimums are currently making the zoning impossible so that they will have to lower or remove them? One can’t be sure, but we know Matt is incorrect here.
OOOF. Glad to see that Matt is a fan of the blog. Hi, Matt! I hope you made it this far! We formerly did a blog fact checking Matt’s blog that linked to Kit’s blog and then we had to do a blog fact checking Kit’s blog. Why not change it when it is proven untrue? Because some will still think it is true; and the misinformation will continue to grow and spread.
You heard it here first, Matt Leming is still spreading misinformation in an effort to confuse the public. He has also sought to attack the new group that has come together to try and share what is happening with residents. It is callous and arrogant to insult residents who are sharing information to the best of their ability when you, Matt, are deliberately spreading misinformation to confuse the public and sway them in your direction as they will see your blog as some sort of expert document since you hold an elected office. Shame on you!
Comments