By STEVE FREKER
MALDEN — City Councilors cited Malden’s rapidly-growing population in deciding to extend and expand a city moratorium on residential construction.
“We have to address this issue directly. Our population as a city is growing at a rapid rate and everyone has to be aware of it,” said Ward 6 Councilor Neil Kinnon.
Kinnon and fellow Council Ordinance Committee members will ask their council colleagues to extend the moratorium through Dec. 31. Kinnon and Councilor-at-large Craig Spadafora, the committee’s chairman, said the extension will allow time to conduct a population growth survey and develop growth projections.
The committee recommendations have already undergone Planning Board review.
It was Kinnon who proposed the one-year residential construction moratorium passed by voters in November 2015 and put into effect in January 2016.
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The moratorium prohibited construction of any residential building with five or more housing units in the city, except in sections of the downtown designated as Residential Overlay Districts and also the Rowe’s Quarry site.
In previous votes, councilors extended the original five-plus unit residential construction moratorium from January 2017 through June of this year. Councilors during the last few months discussed an additional moratorium with their concerns converging on municipal resources, including infrastructural components and traffic volumes, being strained by Malden’s population growth.
Under Spadafora’s direction, committee members will detail their recommendations in a report to the full council. Committee members are not stopping at a moratorium extension when it comes to their close review of population and residential construction needs in Malden.
They are in favor of a proposal to restrict the height of future residential units to three stories. Spadafora and Kinnon noted there are other proposed changes to residential and other construction in the city “in the works.”