To the editor:
I am one of the many neighbors who are challenging McLean’s right to locate a treatment center on Bypass Road. Carol Kochmann’s overwrought defense of McLean Hospital’s attempt to establish a psychiatric treatment facility in a residentially zoned neighborhood completely misses the point of the community’s objections and concerns (“Feeling ‘shame’ for Lincoln,” Lincoln Squirrel, July 2, 2016).
No one in the Bypass Road neighborhood disagrees with the fact that McLean is a preeminent medical institution, with the resources and expertise necessary to treat adolescent males afflicted with borderline personality disorder. Nor does anyone dispute that McLean was instrumental in helping a member of Ms. Kochmann’s family overcome crippling anxiety and depression.
What I object to is the fact that our town’s zoning bylaw prohibits the placement of psychiatric treatment facilities in residentially zoned areas and McLean is attempting to circumvent these bylaws by mischaracterizing the nature of its facility. Notwithstanding Ms. Kochmann’s barbed critique of our motivations, I see nothing shameful in reminding the town’s boards and employees of their legal obligation to administer Lincoln’s zoning bylaw fairly and with due regard for the people who live here.
My disagreement with McLean is not about the good work that they do, but rather the rules and laws that determine where they can do it. Our zoning bylaw strictly limits the types of uses and structures that can be located in a residential district. The state statute known as the Dover Amendment allows nonprofit educational institutions an exemption from local zoning bylaws if, and only if, the proposed use is “educationally significant” and education is “the primary or dominant purpose for which the land or structures are to be used.” McLean is proposing to place in the middle of an established residential neighborhood a locked psychiatric ward where adolescent males will be administered intensive “dialectical behavior therapy” as well as “psycho-pharmaceutical treatment.”
Again, without questioning the laudable nature of this activity, the primary purpose of this use is clearly medical treatment, not education, and therefore not eligible under Lincoln’s bylaws to be sited in our residential neighborhood. If this same facility were located at McLean’s Belmont campus. there would be no question but that this use were medical or therapeutic, not educational. It is only when McLean wants to locate its new facility in a residential neighborhood that it engages in semantic fiction and characterizes the purpose of its treatment facility as primarily educational.
Finally, while Ms. Kochmann’s opinions appear to be squarely based on her daughter’s positive experience at McLean, she fails to realize that what is being proposed for the Bypass Road neighborhood is a fundamentally different program than what benefitted her daughter. McLean acknowledges that this is the first time they will attempt to treat adolescent males suffering from borderline personality disorders (BPD) in a residential setting. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, BPD is “characterized by impulsive and reckless behavior” with “high rates of co-occurring disorders including self-harm, suicidal behaviors and completed suicides.”
The facility will be fully locked, “for our safety” we are told, and no patient will be allowed outside without supervision. It is plain to see why such a program requires the security of an on-campus setting and is wholly inappropriate in a residential neighborhood. Under these circumstances, my concerns about McLean’s treatment facility are neither irrational nor selfish, and I would hope that Lincolnites like Ms. Kochmann would make an effort to understand the nature and complexities of the neighborhood’s opposition before pronouncing otherwise.
Sincerely,
Jay S. Gregory
46 Bypass Rd.
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