Officials mull revised Housing Choice Act guidelines

Lincoln now has a clearer idea of what it will have to do if it wants to comply with a state law that requires towns with public transportation stops to allow a significant amount of multifamily housing.

Lincoln was one of dozens of Massachusetts towns designated by the ​​Housing Choice Act (HCA) as an “MBTA community” by virtue of its commuter rail stop. The draft guidelines released earlier this year by the Department of Housing and Community Development would have required Lincoln to allow 750 units of multifamily housing within half a mile of the train station (15 units per acre over 50 acres) without requiring a special permit or zoning variance or amendment. Site plan review based on general design guidelines, traffic circulation, and screening would be allowed as long as those conditions do not make it “infeasible or impractical to proceed.”

As hoped, the revised guidelines allow some flexibility for towns that don’t have 50 acres of buildable land within the prescribed radius because of wetlands, obstructing physical features, or issues with water supply or Title V septic regulations. Based on that, Lincoln now has 42 or 43 acres of land that are subject to the rules, Paula Vaughn-MacKenzie said in a presentation to the Select Board and Planning Board last week.

A somewhat complicated formula under the new guidelines indicates that Lincoln would be required to allow either 692 or 563 units in one or more multifamily zones, depending on whether or not the Hanscom housing units are counted (an as-yet-unanswered question). The state is allowing MBTA communities to split the multifamily zone into two parcels, so part of the district could be in another part of town such as North Lincoln which already has denser housing (though at least 20% of the acreage must be within the half-mile MBTA radius). 

Other details:

• A municipality may establish sub-districts with different density requirements and limitations provided the district as a whole meets the requirement.
• Any development must comply with Title V septic and the state Wetlands Protection Act even if compliance means the development will be less dense than 15 units per acre.
• Developers must provide water and septic treatment for any approved units. 
• There may not be any age restrictions or limitations on the size of units, the number and size of bedrooms, or the number of occupants in a unit.

If the town eventually does not comply with the HCA, it will lose eligibility for three categories of state grant programs including MassWorks, a major infrastructure program that has provided million of dollars  to other area towns in recent years. Lincoln has never applied for money from this program, “but it is an amazing source of funding,” Vaughn-MacKenzie said. “That is something to be taken pretty seriously.” Among the possible future Lincoln targets for MassWords grants: stormwater improvements, Ballfield Road septic improvements (if needed) in support of a community center, water main replacements, and MBTA station upgrades.

More ominously, a town’s compliance with the HCA may “inform funding decisions” for other state sources, she added. Lincoln received about $570,000 in various types of state funding in 2021. The law will “have a significant impact on the town, whether we choose to comply or not,” Planning Board member Margaret Olson noted last winter.

The town must submit an action plan and timelines by Jan. 31, 2023 and be ready to apply for final compliance (e.g., with new zoning rules drawn up and ready for a town vote) by Dec. 31, 2024. A working group with members from relevant boards will be created to meet the first deadline and chart the process going forward.

Lincoln has already had many discussions about allowing dense housing and mixed-use development in South Lincoln, “and this is looking not inconsistent with what the town has already talked about,” Olson said last week. “It isn’t as onerous as it sounds. We don’t have to produce housing, just zoning.”

The town won’t need to rezone single-family neighborhoods to do this, but instead focus on areas that already have multifamily zoning, she added. “I don’t think we need to panic. I don’t know exactly what it is yet, but there is a path.”