Belmont Office of Building & Planning - Buildout and Fiscal Impact Analysis

This page provides the documents associated with the buildout analysis and fiscal impact analysis for the Belmont Center Zoning Project. Each document will be listed below with a brief description. The buildout analysis was intended to determine what the potential buildout of each parcel in the overlay district could be in two scenarios: with and without potential density bonuses. This data was developed by consultant Able.City based on their zoning dimensional criteria. This would serve as feed data for the fiscal impact analysis tool which was developed by RKG Associates and modified by the Town. Please click on the document titles in BOLD below to access each document.

NOTE: Please see updated documents for the modified zoning below under Center Overlay Buildout Model. This updated information also provides information on the Center Gateway Overlay District.

• Buildout Memo - This memorandum provides the methodology and assumptions of the development of the buildout analysis with the filename Buildout Memo 08-20-2025.pdf and is a helpful guide when navigating the Build-Out Model provided below.
• Fiscal Impact Analysis Tool Memo - This is the memorandum developed by Finance Director/Asst. Town Administrator Jennifer Hewitt and Director of Planning and Building Christopher Ryan presented for the public on 8/11/2025 Select Board meeting. It provides a summary of the modifications made to the RKG original tool and a description of how School Aged Children multipliers were established. The filename is Belmont Center Draft Overlay FIA Memo.pdf.
• Fiscal Impact Model Tool - This is the modified RKG Fiscal Impact Analysis (FIA) tool. See below where each scenario was run using the tool and saved as a version.
• Center Overlay Buildout Model - This is the spreadsheet containing three (3) Tabs or Worksheets providing the buildout analysis information. Tab 1 (Full Buildout) contains all of the buildout analysis data and sums. Tab 2 (Summary) provides the sums and a breakout of the square footages at full and partial buildout (50% of full buildout as an assumption). Tab 3 (Scenarios) provides a fiscal impact analysis set of 12 scenario runs as depicted in the 8/11/2025 memo. The filename is Belmont Center Zoning - Build-Out Model with Scenarios 8-27-2025 Public.xlsx and this is a new version correcting errors.
  • Updated Buildout Model (11/20/2025) - Note that due to changes voted on by the Planning Board to the extents and zoning designations of some parcels of the BCOD District, the Buildout Analysis figures have changed. Please see the revised numbers and explanation in the link above.
  • Updated Scenario Template (11/20/2025) - Due to changes voted on by the Planning Board to the extents of the BCOD District, the values in the scenario tables for subtracting existing development have changed. The revised numbers are embedded in the table accesses at the link above.
• School Aged Children (SAC) Analysis Spreadsheet - As this data was of particular interest to the public, OPB staff conducted research on recently conducted fiscal impact analyses in the region extracting the SAC figures from each. Belmont's data was included in this simple summary table plus data from a recent Newton enrollment report (provided below). This document is entitled FIA_SACAnalysis.xlsx.
• Newton Enrollment Analysis Report - This is a 2024 report generated by the Newton Public Schools which included three methodologies for calculating school aged children from development. The Belmont SAC analysis utilized data from two of the three methods. The document is entitled Enrollment Analysis Report FY25.pdf.

This set of documents provides all of the data and analysis that the Town used to develop the fiscal impact scenarios. Please contact Christopher Ryan at cryan@belmont-ma.gov with any questions or feedback.

Older FIA Scenario Runs

• Scenario 1 - Partial Buildout w/ Base Zoning and RKG SAC
• Scenario 2 - Partial Buildout w/ Base Zoning and OPB SAC
• Scenario 4 - Partial Buildout w/ Bonus Zoning and RKG SAC
• Scenario 5 - Partial Buildout w/ Bonus Zoning and OPB SAC
• Scenario 7 - Full Buildout w/ Base Zoning and RKG SAC
• Scenario 8 - Full Buildout w/ Base Zoning and OPB SAC
• Scenario 10 - Full Buildout w/ Bonus Zoning and RKG SAC
• Scenario 11 - Full Buildout w/ Bonus Zoning and OPB SAC

Please note that scenarios 3, 6, 9, and 12 were removed at the request of the contributor. These runs are no longer relevant due to changes in zoning since August but are retained for reference as needed.