Faced with demands for more Housing Choice Act rezoning options, the Select Board promoted the issue to a full warrant article at the Special Town Meeting on December 2 and promised to add a fifth option to the array.
Previously, officials had proposed a paper ballot on which residents ranked their choices among the options for complying with the HCA that could be completed and submitted any time during the meeting. Now, the ballots will be collected at a specific time and tallied, probably followed by one or more standing votes in a ranked-choice format that will proceed until one of the options wins a simple majority. That option will be put before residents at the Annual Town Meeting in March.
The four current options (C, D1, D2, and D3) as well as a summary of the voting procedure can be found in this slide deck from a November 13 multiboard meeting.
Staging the vote as a warrant article will allow “full debate on the floor of Town Meeting,” Town Administrator Tim Higgins said. However, amendments to the motion will not be permitted. “This is not the amendment place — you have a set [of choices], you vote, you move forward,” Select Board member Jennifer Glass said.
Fellow board member Kim Bodner invited the recently formed Lincoln Residents for Housing Alternatives (LRHA) to “show some leadership” and pick one or two options from the many they’ve suggested and formally submit to the Housing Choice Act Working Group (HCAWG), which will meet on November 21 to finalize the list for the December 2 vote. Residents are welcome to send specific suggestions to Glass at jglassselect@lincolntown.org or Director of Planning and Land Use Paula Vaughn-MacKenzie at vaughnp@lincolntown.org before noon on Monday, Nov. 20.
The five options will be spelled out in detail when a draft motion is written shortly before the Special Town Meeting. The new option will be checked for compliance with state HCA requirements before the vote.
Many comments and opinions
The three groups at the November 13 meeting (the Planning Board was also involved) spent more than three hours debating among themselves and listened to public comments from dozens of residents in person and on Zoom.
The LRHA has complained that the HCAWG has not adequately considered rezoning possibilities that would spread permitted-by-right multifamily housing more evenly among around town rather than concentrating them around Lincoln Station. As of November 14, the group’s website proposes five additional “E” options (down from 18 last week). But some residents and officials expressed discomfort at the group’s late-breaking opposition to the choices presented by the HCAWG and consultant Utile.
“What you have here is a group of people [on HCAWG] with a range of views who spent two years developing options and had multiple opportunities for town input. Now here we are at the last stage and we’re essentially saying to people who have not participated in the process until the very end that they can hijack it,” Planning Board member Gary Taylor said. “I encourage you to think about this” in the context of whether it might make people reluctant to do the time-consuming work of serving on groups like HCAWG in the future.
“The people who spoke up most recently should not outweigh the people who spoke up earlier or outweigh the effort the working group has done… but I think ‘hijack’ is a strong word,” Select Board member Jim Hutchinson said.
Trish O’Hagen said she felt “a little shaken as a resident” by the recent appearance and opposition of the LRHA. “I don’t know their guiding principles, but I have faith in this [HCAWG] group — I know who you are and have had the opportunity to vote. I want the same level of openness from the alternate group.”
“I have a lot of respect for [HCAWG] to do the research, survey public opinion and understand what’s required,” said Lis Herbert. “They’re capable of proposing what they think is best. If [other] people didn’t pay attention in the first place, does that mean they get to sidetrack the whole thing?”
The LRHA is also advocating an option that does not involve rezoning the Lincoln mall to allow multifamily housing above the commercial spaces — a provision included in all four current options. However, if a fifth option that excludes the mall wins out next month, the HCAWG plans to propose a separate rezoning amendment in March that would allow mixed-use redevelopment at the mall.
Another point of debate was whether or not to include a “none of the above” option in December. “We have to know now if there are a lot of people that don’t like any of these options,” Planning Board member Lynn DeLisi said, adding it would be a “big mistake” not to offer that choice.
Stalling tactics?
As in other recent meetings, some residents urged the town to delay the decision-making process, but others objected to letting it continue.
“Come on — does anybody wish we were still discussing the school?” Herbert said. “I think there’s a lot of hair-splitting in the numbers… I think they’re coming up with reasons to avoid what is really an important mandate from the state to just fix this [housing crisis problem. Whether people are comfortable with it or not, it’s the right thing to do.”
Putting more of the multifamily districts in North Lincoln will effectively result in far fewer units ever actually getting built in town because of ownership conditions in the two northern segments — an existing large office building in one, and a condo association in the other that would have to unanimously approve any new construction.
“I’m curious if [the LRHA] will play ball and provide something that’s actually in the spirit of providing homes for people… I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Staci Montori.
“I’m deeply saddened and disappointed by the divisiveness coming out of this, and insulted by hearing words like ‘hijack’ and ‘not paying attention’,” Richard Ohlsten responded. “We’re feeling railroaded and feeling our voices are not being heard. The idea that we’re a bunch of malcontents and are somehow anti-housing is not true.”
“In fact, we have pushed inclusivity,” said Sara Mattes, pointing to the many affordable housing options already created in town that have freed Lincoln from the threat of a 40B development for the time being. Affordable housing throughout town and multifamily housing at the mall in particular are important, but so is a minimum amount of retail space. If the HCA mall district is approved, “all of these are going to be out the window… and the next owner [of the mall] can come in and do as they will and basically squeeze most retail out.”
Before the Select Board (which has the final say about the Town Meeting warrant) unanimously voted to add the rezoning article, the other two boards took informal votes. The Planning Board agreed with the idea by a 3-1 vote with Taylor voting nay. HCAWG was also divided on the issue; six voted in favor, three voted against (Taylor, Rachel Drew, and Kathy Shepard), and three abstained.