Dear friends and neighbors,
Monday’s vote for Planning Board is significant, and we the undersigned, 48 of your Lincoln neighbors, offer the following perspective.
Over the past year, we became aware of a sweeping and profound zoning change taking shape in the Planning Board’s advisory committee (SLPIC). The proposal was designed to smooth the way for developers to move large-scale development projects directly through the Planning Board. We are but a few of the over 200 families who live within what would have been the new “South Lincoln Village Zone,” joined here by impacted neighbors and other allied residents. Our neighborhood is currently a mix of single-family and multi-family homes, condos, and apartments that are both owned and rented, and it’s about five times as dense as the rest of town.
We challenged the proposed zoning bylaw because it permitted four-story buildings with 20 units per acre, built right to their lot lines. The new zone would have covered roughly 30 acres and paved the way for hundreds of new condos and/or apartments to our small, congested neighborhood without requiring project approval by Town Meeting. For example, they modeled a net potential gain of 271 units over only four of the 27 properties within the new zone.
Through organizing, collaborating, raising our voices, and attending many Planning Board and SLPIC meetings, we gained some insight into the three candidates for Planning Board. We invite you to join us in voting for Bob Domnitz and Lynn DeLisi. Lynn is the only current member of the Planning Board who voiced her opposition to this ill-conceived and harmful proposal. Being the lone voice over many months was no doubt tiring and isolating, but Lynn has persisted in elevating our concerns over the impact on our diverse neighborhood.
Bob Domnitz seeks to keep ultimate approval authority for these kinds of major development projects — i.e. a housing development twice as dense as Oriole Landing — with the town, not the Planning Board. He has seen many consequential development projects succeed by working with town boards and then earning town support. He has served on the Planning Board before, and we hope you will join us in bringing his experience and his fresh perspective to the important decisions facing the Planning Board in the coming years.
The Planning Board is reframing SLPIC and revising the zoning proposal. We hope that they will continue to respect the concerns of those members of our community most impacted by major zoning changes in South Lincoln. We all hope for thriving local businesses, community space, optimized commuter rail use, and decreased carbon emissions. Let’s task our Planning Board with also preserving the affordable housing options we currently have and maintaining the appropriately scaled development we treasure.
Signed, your South Lincoln Neighbors who live within the “South Lincoln Village Zone”:
John Dorr
Bayhas Kana and Sara Postlethwait
Yaman Kana
Kim Leigh-Manuell
Mark Levinson
Jason and Jessica Packineau
Veena Ramani and Adam Stark
Mary Rosenfeld
Sarah Schuller
Michael Welch
Signed, families living in close proximity to the proposed “South Lincoln Village Zone”:
Mark Ahern
Diana Bercel
Liz Burton
Vanessa Cartwright
James and Bonnie Echmalian
Denise and Eric Gieseke
Iris Hoxha
Katrin Kriz
Ada Lee and John Po
Isabel Lee
June Matthews
Thomas Moran
Catherine Moritz
Constance and Richard Ohlsten
Lisa Parker
William Schiano
Melissa Shea
Lisa Slater
Signed, Lincoln residents who join with our South Lincoln neighbors on this issue:
Jamie Banks
Pauline Curtiss
Christopher Dale
Erica Gonella and Shakil Aslam
Jane Herlacher
Maria O’Brien Hylton
Liz Lieblich
Julie Lynch
Caroline and Mark Nordstrom
Barbara Peskin
Jeannine Taylor
”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.