By Alice Waugh
Community facilities needs, the future of Lincoln Station, and the possibility of Lincoln getting its own electrical utility are the topics that will be discussed at the annual “State of the Town” meeting on Saturday, November 9 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Brooks Auditorium.
The meeting is not in the same format as the annual Town Meeting to vote on the annual budget and other town governance matters. “This is an opportunity to be less formal for a reason—to really try to divine people’s intentions… and help point us in the right direction [to see] what’s on your mind, what’s the priority list and how do we think about it,” Selectman Noah Eckhouse said at the September 26 Board of Selectman meeting.
Community facilities
First up for discussion is the Community Center Feasibility Study report issued last year, which looked at the facilities needs of the Parks and Recreation Department and the Council on Aging. The report noted problems with the spaces occupied by the two organizations and explored the notion of combining them in one community center type of location.
Lincoln Station
The Planning Board will then lead a discussion of the future commercial and residential development of the Lincoln Station area. The Lincoln Station Planning Committee, which was formed to look at opportunities and limitations for development at Lincoln Station as it relates to the town’s Comprehensive Plan adopted in 2009, hired a consultant to study the area and issued an interim report in April 2013. That report looked at about 70 acres at the junction of Lincoln Road and the MBTA railroad with a total of 32 properties with about 40 businesses and 250 housing units.
In its survey of Lincoln Station businesses and consumers, “Lincoln Station is not a thriving, profitable area,” the report says. Retail stores collectively generate about $7.7 million in sales, but residents who live within a mile of Lincoln Station generate demand for retail goods and services of over $40 million, according to the report. “On average, then, Lincoln Station ‘leaks’ as much as 80 percent of total consumer spending by nearby residents to commercial centers in other cities and towns. However, Lincoln’s population isn’t large enough to support more retail space and there is not enough off-site demand to make up the difference.”
The proximity of the commuter rail station doesn’t generate much foot traffic for the businesses, because the survey respondents who park and ride in Lincoln tended to be from outside communities like Wayland and Sudbury that are not served by the commuter rail. They reported that while they occasionally visit Donelan’s, they generally did not visit any other Lincoln Station businesses.
Asked what kind of stores they would like to see in Lincoln Station, shoppers who were surveyed identified a pharmacy and a hardware store, “yet it is not clear that they would actually shop in these stores,” the report said. Some respondents also said they would like to see:
- Independently owned and operated stores rather than not chain retailers
- A restaurant with “broader appeal and lower prices”
- Higher-end “niche retailing” such as a florist, bookstore, coffee shop, or boutique clothing store
Business owners said one of their biggest issues is “impediments created by the regulatory environment in Lincoln,” the report said. “Many owners reported difficulty in obtaining use permits to operate, cited lengthy processes for permits that should be relatively straightforward to obtain like signage, and several owners expressed frustration that there was a stronger interest in preservation than supporting local businesses from the town, even when they had the support of their neighbors and residents. This is not an insignificant issue in light of the fact that there are many commercial vacancies in Lincoln which create a depressed appearance, [and] traffic volumes are low and rents are high.”
The report also presented demographic information including the following:
- Lincoln experienced a slight population decline during the past decade, but over 20 years, the town’s population increased by about 560 people (12 percent). However, in the same 20-year period, the number of households in Lincoln rose by 17 percent, which is the second-highest household growth rate in the region, topped only by Sudbury at 21 percent.
- Some 40 percent of Lincoln’s existing households have moved into their current home since 2000. An additional 28 percent moved into their current home during the 1990s, so 69 percent of all households in Lincoln are relatively new to the town (or at least to their present home, assuming a few of these households may have moved from within Lincoln).
- The majority of new housing construction is in the form of multifamily or small-lot single family homes rather than higher-end single-family homes because of decreased access to jumbo mortgages following the recession and changes in householder ages and needs. For developers, high land costs means that higher-density housing, including affordable housing developed under Chapter 40B, is easier to finance and obtain zoning approval for. “There is ready demand for alternative housing styles in the region,” the report said.
Municipal utility
Also at the State of the Town meeting, there will be a brief presentation on the costs and benefits if Lincoln had its own electrical utility, perhaps joining Concord’s, which has existed for more than a century. Belmont and Wellesley also have municipally owned utilities.
“When you look at it without the price attached, there’s a lot of attractiveness” to the idea, although “price is obviously a big issue,” Selectman Chair Peter Braun said. The town would control its own destiny in the event of power outages due to storms and residents would have enhanced service and substantially smaller electric bills, but the town would have to buy equipment costing millions of dollars, hire line workers and tree trimmers, etc.
“It’s going to be measured in multiples of schools,” Eckhouse said, referring to the school construction project that would have cost the town $29 million. By state law, towns are not allowed to borrow over a period of more than 30 years, but special legislation could overcome that obstacle and allow the town to bond the large expense over several decades, since the utility would presumably have an unlimited life span.