Chelsea City Manager Fidel Maltez said the administration has launched a comprehensive master plan — referred to on-air as "Chelsea Pallante (Chelsea Onward)" — and identified housing, public safety tied to walkability and more open space as the community's top priorities.

"Chelsea has not had a master plan in 50 years," Maltez said on CCTV’s election-night broadcast, describing the plan as a roadmap the city expects to use for coordinating future work across departments. He said the plan is the product of community outreach and reflects widespread concern about housing availability and quality.

On housing, Maltez said residents asked the city to both produce more housing and improve the existing housing stock. He described steps the city will pursue to make permitting and enforcement easier and to focus production on affordable units targeted at young families. As an example of near-term development, Maltez pointed to a Broadway project at a former Salvation Army building next to McDonald’s. He said the building will be four stories and contain about 20 two‑bedroom condominiums marketed at an affordable price point — he mentioned a figure of about $250,000 as a planning estimate — and that construction of the second floor had just gone up at the time of the interview.

Maltez said the Broadway project’s first floor will remain city-owned and will be used as a Chelsea teen center. He said the city secured a state earmark during the most recent budget session and credited the state delegation with obtaining that funding; he said the earmark will support creation of a dedicated space for teens. "We are going to make that Chelsea's teen center," Maltez said.

Maltez also described education priorities and a cradle‑to‑career strategy. He praised Superintendent Dr. Ami Abeyta and noted the city is building partnerships with higher‑education institutions to create college‑application and support pathways for Chelsea students. "We need to have a supportive household … learning begins before school," he said, describing efforts to pair early‑childhood engagement with high‑school-to-career pathways, including partnerships he named with Harvard, Boston College and Boston University.

On youth services more broadly, Maltez said the city has an active youth commission and that teenagers repeatedly asked for a dedicated space just for youth. He linked the Broadway project and the earmark to that request and said the combined housing and teen‑center project would address both homeownership pathways and teen recreation and safety needs.

Maltez framed the master plan as a multi-year initiative intended to provide a single roadmap for parks, zoning and other city investments. He said staff will continue community conversations about where to build more housing, how to improve walkability and how to expand open space, and emphasized that residents should expect follow-up public outreach.