The Planning Board voted on June 9 to reorganize and rename the South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee (SLPIC), but not until after a lengthy debate about the makeup and responsibilities of panel’s new incarnation.
The board began discussing downsizing SLPIC last week in the wake of opposition to one of its initiatives. With the help of consultants, SLPIC’s Village Planning and Zoning subcommittee drew up proposed regulations that would rezone part of South Lincoln to allow more commercial and housing development and also allow the fate of some projects to be decided by the Planning Board rather than Town Meeting.
Originally the plan was going to be voted on at the Annual Town Meeting in March, but before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it was delayed until the fall . The plan has now been permanently shelved after numerous residents objected at a forum in February.
Last week, the board acknowledged that the 12-member SLPIC was unwieldy, sometimes failing to achieve a quorum even though it met infrequently. Meanwhile, it was difficult for residents to follow the work of the five-person Village Planning and Zoning subcommittee, whose plan was unveiled at a public forum in May 2019.
“It felt very much to residents that this work was pretty finalized, set in stone, and ready for a vote at March Town Meeting,” said Jessica Packineau, a Lincoln Road resident and an organizer of a coalition protesting the rezoning and approval process proposals.
The board agreed that the next iteration of SLPIC would be more transparent and do a better job of publicizing its meetings and ramping up outreach as the latest School Building Committee did after the failed 2012 Town Meeting vote.
At this week’s meeting, Planning Board member Lynn DeLisi initially said SLPIC should be disbanded entirely. “I just don’t see the purpose any more — it causes a lot of controversy,” she said. The full Planning Board, not SLPIC or one of its subcommittees, should be in charge of drafting rezoning proposals, she added.
But other board members objected to that idea, saying that it was too much work for the board (which meets every other week) to manage along with its regular duties of deciding on development applications. “We couldn’t have other things on our agenda, and we will all have to be meeting at least once a week and sometimes twice a week to get the work done,” chair Margaret Olson said.
“Devoting 98% of our time devoted to one part of the town doesn’t feel like it’s serving our mandate to address planning across Lincoln generally,” board member Rick Rundell said.
Eventually, members unanimously decided to keep the subcommittee but to rename it the South Lincoln Planning Advisory Committee (SLPAC). Other subcommittees of the former SLPIC can remain as well, depending on the willingness of their members to continue serving. Those teams will probably evolve in name and purview as well.
DeLisi argued that the new SLPAC should have seven or eight members rather than five, and that at least one member should be a resident of the area under rezoning discussion. But this also met with opposition.
“It’s very dicey trying to pick one person to represent South Lincoln [residents],” said board member Steve Gladstone. For reasons of accountability with voters, all the members should be people who are already elected officials, he added.
“Once you start going down the stakeholder path, you’re on a very slippery slope,” Olson agreed. South Lincoln residents include house and condo owners as well as renters, so “who do you leave out?”
The board last week was moving toward creating a five-person successor to SLPIC consisting of two members from the Planning Board, one from the Housing Commission, one Selectman, and perhaps a fifth member to be decided.
This week, DeLisi advocated a seven-member SPLAC with representatives from the Board of Health and the Conservation Commission as well as a resident, but the board voted down that idea 4-1. It subsequently voted by the same margin (with DeLisi voting “nay”) to go forward with the five-member plan, with the fifth coming from the Finance Committee.
Before the vote, former Planning Board member Bob Domnitz advocated postponing any decisions until after the June 15 election in which he, DeLisi, and Rundell and vying for two seats. “It would be nice if there was confidence that this [SLPAC reorganization] would still be a workable arrangement next week. I don’t think people necessarily have that confidence at this point,” he said. “Are you really sure you want to do this tonight?”
After the election, the board will write the charge for SLPAC and discuss which specific residents it will comprise.