Zoning Committee Unveils Draft Rewrite, Takes Public Input
The Stoneham Zoning Bylaw Review Committee held its first public engagement forum on a draft zoning rewrite, taking no vote but fielding sharp resident questions.
Zoning Bylaw Review Committee Community Engagement · Meeting of October 27, 2026
STONEHAM — The Stoneham Zoning Bylaw Review Committee held its first public engagement forum on a draft zoning rewrite, taking no vote but fielding sharp resident questions. Chair Tobin Shulman presented a plan cutting zoning districts from 21 to 12, adding a unified use table, and shifting site plan review from the Select Board to the Planning Board. Resident David Szabo warned that reclassified properties would lose "the same rights that you had before the new zoning code was enacted." Candy Maddox objected to a sober-living home expanding from eight to 32 beds under the state's Dover Amendment, while former Historical Commission Chair Dolly Wilson formally requested a demolition-delay bylaw, citing the near-total loss of the Tremont Street Shoemakers District.
Select Board member Raimi Parker said a bylaw fining owners of vacant commercial properties "just passed" at town meeting, and the Stoneham Municipal Housing Trust is weighing affordable senior housing but "doesn't have any money yet."
In the full story:
- Zoning Basics and the Scope of the Rewrite
- Mapping Commercial Growth and the Old-to-New Comparison
- Pre-Existing Non-Conforming Use and Property Rights
- Family Definition and Rooming-House Concerns
- Sober-Living Home Expansion and the Dover Amendment
- MOR District and a Business-Residential Hybrid Proposal
- Historic Preservation and a Proposed Demolition-Delay Bylaw
- Vacant Storefronts and Commercial Incentives
- Senior Housing Needs
- Skepticism on Commercial Potential and Broadway Zoning History
- Procedural Steps and Outcome
- Implications and What Is Next
- Who Was There
- Organizations And Documents Referenced
- The complete report: 2,370 words
Source: the Zoning Bylaw Review Committee Community Engagement meeting of October 27, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.
Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript.
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