The new HCA Option C includes the mall (in yellow) but not any parts of North Lincoln. The dotted circle indicates the required half-mile radius from the train station in which some multifamily housing must be allowed. Click image to enlarge.
Thanks to a change in state guidelines for complying with the Housing Choice Act, Lincoln now has the option of creating a single multifamily district around the train station without involving parts of North Lincoln — unless residents decide they want to rezone those areas.
Residents will see three rezoning options at the State of the Town (SOTT) meeting on Saturday, Sept. 30 starting at 10 a.m. The first two were formulated by the Housing Choice Act Working Group (HCAWG) and consultant Utile before the state’s change in August. Both include three subdistricts in South Lincoln (excluding the mall) as well as either (A) a Lincoln North mixed-use subdistrict or (B) a Battle Road Farm housing subdistrict.
Before August, towns couldn’t allow commercial development in a multifamily housing district as part of their plan to comply with the HCA. This meant that redeveloping the mall as a mixture of ground-floor commercial and housing on the second and third floors wouldn’t satisfy HCA’s multifamily housing requirements, and the mall would have to be rezoned separately in order to allow housing there.
Now the state says that towns can count multifamily housing units they allow in commercial areas. As a result, the two rezoning efforts (HCA compliance and redeveloping the mall) can be folded into a single Option C that includes four South Lincoln subdistricts and none in North Lincoln.
In Lincoln’s rezoned HCA or “3A” subdistricts (named after the relevant section of state law), multifamily housing at 15 units per acre for a total of at least 635 units must be allowed by right, without the need for a special permit or Town Meeting approval. That housing may not be age-restricted, and commercial uses can’t be required in those districts, though now they are allowed since the August change.
The new option met with general approval among officials and residents at a Planning and meeting on September 26 — to the point where some questioned why Options A and B were even still on the table. Given the recent change in HCA guidelines, the town should simply “take the win and go home” rather than add the complexity of offering two other rezoning options, said resident Vicky Diaduk.
“We felt it was worth having a discussion in town and getting people’s feedback to see if there was an overwhelming feeling about one or the other of the options,” Select Board member Jennifer Glass said. In conversations with Battle Road Farm residents, some were in favor of the idea of allowing a coffee shop or a few retail locations in their neighborhood, she noted. (However, as Diaduk pointed out, residents can propose rezoning those areas or any others in the future if they decide they want to.)
HCAWG will host a neighborhood conversation about the proposed HCA zoning options on Thursday, Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. in the Lincoln Woods Community Room (50 Wells Rd.). They have also posted an updated set of FAQs that address issues including the consequences of noncompliance with the HCA (go to the HCAWG page and scroll halfway down to “FAQs – updated September 17, 2023”).
At Saturday’s State of the Town meeting, officials will gather feedback about which of the three zoning options that residents prefer. On October 10, the Select Board, Planning Board, and HCAWG will formally select one option to submit to the state for preapproval in December. Residents must then vote on that rezoning proposal at the Annual Town Meeting in March. That vote requires a simple majority. In past years, zoning changes required a two-thirds majority to pass, but the state changed that requirement as part of the HCA. Affected towns have until December 2024 to have a new multifamily zoning plan in place.
The SOTT meeting will also include presentations and discussion on three other topics: the proposed community center, the town’s new Climate Action Plan, and the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Anti-Racism Action Plan.
Mall redevelopment
Any of the three rezoning proposals would allow the Rural Land Foundation, which owns the mall, to redevelop the main building (Donelan’s and the post office/restaurant building are not being considered as part of this). Civico (which built Oriole Landing) and town officials will work toward a mutually agreeable design; the RLF would then convey the property to the company via a sale or long-term lease. The RLF/Civico partnership is necessary because the town does not have the resources to do the project itself.
The town is also working with The Community Builders, which owns Lincoln Woods, to design an upgrade to the wastewater treatment plant that serves that housing and the mall. That upgrade will also allow development on the town-owned MBTA parking lot at the back of the mall. State grants — which will be mostly unavailable to the town if it doesn’t approve the new 3A zoning — are expected to offset some of the upgrade cost. Construction will be phased to accommodate the existing anchor tenants.
It’s too early in the process for Civico and the town to develop a concrete proposal, other than the general plan of putting two stories with about 50 housing units above the ground-floor retail portion of the mall. Planning Board member Ephraim Flint expressed concern that lack; “without it, you put the [rezoning] vote at risk,” he said. However, because there is already an interested developer, the mall project will likely come to pass in the next few years. Properties in the other districts would need to attract developers to actually result in more housing — a longer-term prospect, officials noted.