192 Concord Road — Richard K. Lahnstein Trust to Sevgi Umur for $640,000 (March 2)
141 Chestnut Circle — Hopeton K. Kimball Trust to Timothy A. Taylor for $905,000 (March 19)
29D South Commons — Alan Goodrich to Melissa W. Liska for $610,000 (March 20)
45 Winter St. — Joshua Lamstein to Bouwien Smits and Cary Elliott for $2,705,000 (March 24)
Proposals for a “healing center” on Route 117 and a veterinary clinic associated with Minuteman High School are expected to come before the Zoning Board of Appeals on June 4 after both matters were continued from the board’s May 7 meeting.
Alison Zook is looking for permission to change the former Stonegate Gardens property from a nursery to Bodhi Healing, “a space for the mind, body and nervous system” without any exterior building modifications. The property is in a residential zone, which normally does not allow any commercial use, but zoning bylaw section 6.1 (page 6 in the bylaw) includes exceptions for commercial greenhouses as well as various other uses such as museums, libraries, and livestock farms excluding pigs. Also acceptable, but only as secondary accessory uses to those allowed in Section 6.1, are things like professional offices, studios, laboratories, and workshops under certain conditions, according to Section 6.1(h).
Under Section 6.2, the ZBA may grant a special permit for certain other uses such as hospitals, sanitariums, nursing homes, charitable institutions, community clubs or country clubs, raising dogs or pigs, private radio and television towers, and “any occupation which otherwise meets the requirements of Section 6.1(h) but which requires the parking of more than four motor vehicles on a regular basis or with respect to which more than one person other than the residents of the premises is engaged in the conduct of such occupation.”
However, at least some of the members of the ZBA, including chair David Summer, were initially unaware at the May 7 meeting that the Stonegate property is in a residential zone and thus subject to the various limits listed above. “‘I’m frankly shocked this is an R1 zone,” he said. “I don’t think those conditions [for a special permit] can be met.”
Though ZBA members were generally in favor of the Bodhi Center idea, they postponed a decision until they could consult with town counsel. “We need to do a little bit of research to see if there’s a path for this,” member David Stifter said.
Ally Specialty Veterinary Center was initially given the OK by Building Inspector M. Jon Metivier to operate in a building on Minuteman High School’s Mill Street property as an educational use allowed under the Dover Amendment. Business owner Michelle Custead has said that, although Ally is a for-profit business, it will also serve as an educational, hands-on clinical training site needed by Minuteman students studying veterinary sciences.
In April, Mill Street residents including Bob Domnitz, a former Planning Board member, appealed Metivier’s decision to the ZBA. In proposed Dover Amendment exceptions like this, the owner must show that the educational goal is “the primary or dominant purpose” of the proposed use, and this is not the case, according to the appeal.
(Editor’s note: this story was updated on April 16 to include the ZBA hearing date.)
Mill Street neighborhood residents have appealed a decision that allowed a veterinary clinic to open on the Minuteman High School property based on its planned educational use.
Ally Specialty Veterinary Center, now located on Bear Hill Road in Waltham, is leasing an unoccupied home at 16 Mill Street from Minuteman. The plan is to have the schools’ veterinary science students do clinical observation and training in the for-profit clinic. The Dover Amendment exempts religious and educational uses from some zoning requirements, including educational uses in a residential zone such as the one occupied by the high school and the intended clinic building.
Planning Board members asked pointed questions about how the property will be used at hearings on March 24 and April 14. Ally owner Michelle Custead assured them that her lawyers had OK’d the use and that Minuteman was eager to use her clinic to help educate its students rather than busing them to other locations off campus. Building Inspector M. Jon Metivier approved the use on March 18 with the proviso that the “educational component is maintained.”
But on April 10, Mill Street residents including Bob Domnitz, a former Planning Board member, appealed Metivier’s decision to the Zoning Board of Appeals. They cited the court case Regis College v. Town of Weston saying that projects allowed under the Dover Amendment must have a “bona fide goal” that is “educationally significant” and must also show that the educational goal is “the primary or dominant purpose” of the proposed use.
“To our knowledge, there is no documented agreement or contract between Ally and Minuteman that describes the parameters of their educational relationship,” the appeal says.
“Our onsite partnership with Ally Veterinary Specialty Center is not supplemental; it is foundational,” Minuteman Superintendent Heather Driscoll wrote in an April 6 letter to Metivier, outlining the clinical skills that students would need for future including certified veterinary assistants (CVAs).
“What makes this model uniquely effective is the daily integration of learning and application. Students are not limited to occasional clinical exposure; they are immersed in it every day,” Driscoll wrote. “Without consistent, onsite clinical access, students encounter significant gaps in both required CVA hours and demonstrated proficiency.”
The ZBA will hold a public hearing on the matter on Thursday, May 7 at 7:00pm.
Even if the ZBA decides that the business is permitted under the Dover Amendment, Ally should still have to abide by the town zoning bylaw’s parking regulations and submit plans showing how they will do so, the appeal argues.
The Dover Amendment was also at the core of a battle in Lincoln over whether a McLean Hospital facility should be allowed in a residential zone on Bypass Road. The hospital planned to house boys aged 15–21 in a large former private home to give them classroom training in dialectical behavior therapy, teaching them social and emotional skills including mindfulness, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and behavioral flexibility.
The use was originally permitted but then overturned by the ZBA. McLean sued the town, lost in land court but eventually prevailed in the Supreme Judicial Court in 2019, but the hospital never went ahead with its plans. In 2021, it found another location for the intended services and put its two Bypass Road properties on the market.
Minuteman High School veterinary students will be able to do their clinical education hours on campus once a new clinic, Ally Veterinary Specialty Center, opens on Mill Street.
The Planning Board will decide on Tuesday, April 14 on an application for a sign on the side of the building. Michelle Custead, owner of the business and a veterinary oncologist, first appeared on March 24 before board members, some of whom were initially surprised at the idea of having a for-profit clinic being sited on land owned by Minuteman, which is allowed to operate in a residential zone due to the Dover Amendment.
The clinic will operate in one of three houses at 10, 16 and 20 Mill St. on land owned by Minuteman that students at the school built as part of their education in building trades some years ago. One of the other two houses serves as the classroom teaching area for veterinary science students. The Ally clinic will become the place where they do their clinical hours as part of their education, Minuteman Superintendent Heather Driscoll (who was not at the March 24 meeting) told the Lincoln Squirrel.
Ally’s website says that it’s a “boutique veterinary specialty [that offers] a range of services including oncology, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and palliation.” Students will learn veterinary assistant skills such as taking vital signs, drawing blood, etc., and will also learn about anatomy using live animals, Driscoll said.
The veterinary science program was launched in 2021, two years after the new building was completed. In the lead-up to funding the construction, seven of the 16 towns who were originally part of the regional district dropped out, so the building was smaller than initially hoped, and there was no room for the program at the time. However, since there was job market demand for veterinary assistants, the school moved ahead, first locating the classroom portion in the main building and later in one of the houses.
“Right now we have to transport kids all over the place to a variety of [veterinary] hospitals and clinics, which is not the best scenario for educating these kids” in terms of getting their clinic experience, Driscoll said.
Although the topic of the hearing that began on March 24 was about the sign, the board started by asking questions about the use of the property, which had been approved by the building inspector.
“It’s a slippery slope, though I think you’re on the OK side of the slope,” board member Susan Hall Mygatt said.
“I think the legality of this use is certainly in the gray area,” said former Planning Board member Bob Domnitz, who lives at 21 Mill St. “I’m just surprised that you put that much effort into [renovating the building interior] with the final determination [of use] coming only a few days ago.”
“I guess this is naivete,” said Custead, adding that she had been working with officials at Minuteman and had a “team of lawyers” sign off on her plans.
Driscoll noted that Minuteman has operated for-profit businesses as on-campus training sites for its students in the past, including a day care center. The school’s agreement with another veterinary business “didn’t work out, and we’re always looking for business partners” where students can get practical experience or required clinical hours. Meanwhile, Custead was looking to relocate her clinic from Waltham and reached out to Minuteman to ask if they were still in need of a clinical partner, Driscoll said.
“It’s as if an angel fell from the sky,” she said. “We are very, very grateful.”
There’s enough parking space for employees during the day (Ally does not board animals overnight) as well as clients, Custead said. But Domnitz suggested that she file a site plan to assure the town that there won’t be overflow parking on the street.
When discussion finally turned to the sign, Custead explained that the unilluminated sign on the building will “give people confidence they’ve come to the right place” but that advertising per se was not the point, since clients will come to Ally almost exclusively through referrals from their regular veterinarian.
Custead told the board she would design the sign with whatever specifications they wanted. “We want to be a good neighbor,” she said.
Water main replacementBids for phase 2 of the Lincoln Road water main replacement project were opened earlier this month and the contract was awarded to N. Granese & Sons, Inc, with a low bid of $4.26 million. “After accounting for engineering costs and a 5% contingency, we project a remaining balance of approximately $237,000” in the project budget, DPW Superintendent Rick Nolli said.
Bedford Road between Five Corners and the well at the top of the hill will be closed at times for work to replace underground storm drains beginning on April 13 and finishing in June. During excavation for the phase 1 of the water main project, the town found that portions of the Bedford Road drainage system had deteriorated beyond repair. The $681,000 project (paid with state Chapter 90 funds) will replace the main drain line, side connections (laterals), catch basins, and manholes. See www.lincolnbigdig.com for updates.
A drawing of the Codman store project plans from October 2025. Click image to enlarge.
On March 24, the Select Board gave final approval for the project to expand and move the store at Codman Community Farms first detailed in October 2025. The $1.57 million project is being funded through a state grant and funds raised during the farm’s 50th anniversary as well as operating funds. Work is slated to begin soon and finish in November, when the large barn now housing the store will reopen for public events.
The Transportation Coalition has come up with preliminary designs for improvements To Ballfield Road for pedestrians and bicyclists as well as repaving that will start after the community center construction is complete next November. In the meantime, the group is recommending a three-week pilot closure of the “slip lane” used by drivers entering from the northeast to see if it improves safety. Working with bus drivers and the School Committee, police will monitor the area and document findings during the closure from April 27 to May 15. The project may be the topic at the March 2027 Annual Town Meeting, with work beginning that summer if all goes well.
While almost all of the site work is done, the “on” switch has yet to be flipped for the landfill solar array as the town waits for Eversource to complete the interconnection from Route 2A to Mill Street. Officials now hope the array will be online by early May.
The Planning Board endorsed the proposed Dark Skies zoning amendment by a 3–1 vote on March 24, with board member Gary Taylor casting the only “nay” vote.
The proposal would tighten controls on exterior lighting for new construction and substantially renovated buildings while not affecting current structures… mostly. While all existing lighting is grandfathered, meaning residents with noncomplying lights would not be forced to replace them, one section of the amendment language (section 13.5.2a) stipulates that “installation or replacement of exterior luminaires” (fixtures) must comply with the new bylaw.
This means that while a lightbulb of an existing fixture may be replaced with a new bulb of the same type (as long as it’s not brighter or bluer than before), any new fixture on an existing home must comply with the new rules on shielding, brightness, color temperature, “light trespass” (excessive light shining onto a neighbor’s property) and hours of operation (lights must be turned off at 10:00pm in most cases, or activate only with motion detectors).
This was the sticking point for Taylor “I’ve got serious concerns about this,” he said. “Anyone who replaces a light fixture anywhere in town [and having] to make it Dark Skies compliant raises all sorts of issues.”
Taylor also raise the issue of enforcement. “The building inspector doesn’t even work evenings so how is he going to be able to observe” an alleged violation?” he said. “That leaves it to someone ratting on their neighbor.”
If a homeowner replaces an outside lightbulb, “you’re not even going to know it’s the wrong one unless you go over and unscrew it,” board member Susan Hall Mygatt said, adding that encouraging compliance is more a matter of “neighbors talking to neighbors” than town officials.
Dark Skies Subcommittee Co-chair Sherry Haydock noted that there’s already a process in place: residents can submit a Request for Enforcement form, but “realistically, how many people are going to rat on their neighbor if you replace a light on your doorstep?”
The Dark Skies proposal (click image to enlarge).
The aim is more to educate homeowners while concentrating enforcement efforts with the biggest offenders in terms of night lighting — large public and private buildings such as The Commons in Lincoln and the Department of Public Works, Haydock said. New multifamily housing is now permitted in some parts of town, “and if apartments come in, if we don’t pass this bylaw, they can leave their lights on all night long. As there’s more construction in town, we don’t want to see that.”
Resident Margaret Olson also objected to the proposal on two grounds. Rather than changing the zoning bylaw, the board should instead codify the rules into the site plan review process.
Secondly, sh said, “I don’t like the idea of having two classes of citizens — building vs. behavior. If 10:00 is important, it should apply to everyone… it does not feel right to me and does not feel like what Lincoln should be.”
Olson, the former chair of the Planning Board, lost her seat on the board in last year’s town election but is set to regain it next week because she is running unopposed for the seat of Craig Nicholson, who is not running for reelection.
Earlier this year, the subcommittee considered proposing a change to the town’s general bylaw rather than the zoning bylaw so the rules could be applied to existing buildings as well as new construction. But the Planning and Select Boards discouraged them from that approach, and Haydock admitted that there probably wasn’t enough voter support for such a move right now.
Approving the amendment would be “an opportunity to implement technology that makes the 10:00 [turn-off time] easy to achieve” with motion detectors and timers that won’t require future homeowners to actively turn off the lights each night,” board member Craig Nicholson said. “I don’t see it as a huge behavioral change.”
Over the course of the year, brand-new fixtures are not often installed in town, and Haydock reminded the board that existing noncompliant lightbulbs can be replaced with the same type. “This may apply to three buildings a year; this is not something that’s going to affect a lot of people,” she said.
Mygatt also disagreed with Olson’s site plan review idea since people who have already built their homes probably aren’t even aware of its stipulations. A bylaw change and the resulting efforts to spread the word means people “will be educated in a way they never will be by site plan review.”
At its March 23 meeting, the Select Board decided not to vote on whether to endorse the measure until the Planning Board acted the following night, though they scheduled a quick meeting right before the start of Town Meeting on Saturday to do so. The amendment has been endorsed by the Conservation Commission, Agricultural Commission, Historical Commission, Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, and Save Lincoln Wildlife.
Planning Board member Rob Ahlert as well as Mygatt and Nichlson voted to endorse the measure. Chair Lynn DeLisi was not at the meeting.
After much debate about whether a zoning bylaw can mandate behavior (specifically, requiring people to turn off outdoor lights after 10:00pm), the Dark Skies Subcommittee of the Planning Board finalized a draft of a bylaw amendment that would put more controls on outdoor lighting for new and substantially renovated buildings.
The board debated the matter at its March 10 meeting but postponed a vote on whether to endorse the measure until its next meeting on March 24. Residents will vote on the issue at Town Meeting on March 29.
The proposal is essentially identical to the March 4 version outlined in a March 8 Lincoln Squirrel article (“Dark Skies group tries again for limits on new outdoor lighting”) except for two added definitions and a wording change to make it clear that the requirement to turn off outside lights after 10:00pm applies only to lights at new or substantially renovated homes and not to new or replacement fixtures on existing homes.
The former condition would apply when exterior lighting after 10:00pm is not associated with an “active use,” meaning when lighting is required for ongoing or expected activity such as a planned arrival to a residence, unless otherwise approved by the Planning Board through site plan review or special permit.
The earlier time restriction would have applied to existing homes as well — something that Planning Board Co-chair Lynn DeLisi said she had a “philosophical objection” to. “I just don’t think this belongs in a zoning bylaw,” she said. However, the issue may come up again if the subcommittee proposes a future amendment to the town’s general bylaw, which does include behavior-based restrictions on things like use of gas-powered leaf blowers and noise in general.
Sherry Haydock, co-chair of the Dark Skies Subcommittee, said that the complaint they heard most often was “light trespass,” or bright lights shining onto someone’s property from a neighbor’s house.
“All these complaints are not going to be solved by this bylaw,” since the new rules would not apply to existing lighting, DeLisi remarked.
“That is true,” responded Haydock, acknowledging that “we can’t change those lights but we hope to change behavior through educational materials, public forums, mailings, and friendly letters” to owners of homes who are the subject of neighbor complaints. The caller from the subcommittee would explain the environmental harm done by excessively bright, misdirected, or all-night lighting. The hope is that those residents will voluntarily change to Dark Skies-compliant fixtures or at least install motion detectors or timers.
Some of that educational material is now available via the Dark Skies survey, which includes illustrations of bad lighting practices, lightbulb color temperatures, etc., and the group’s Jan. 12 Select Board presentation.
The Planning Board’s Dark Skies Subcommittee has drawn up amended zoning regulations for exterior lighting fixtures for new construction, and the issue will be on the agenda at two meetings this week: the Select Board on Monday, March 9, and a Planning Board public hearing on Tuesday, March 10 at 7:15pm.
The subcommittee has been trying since “dark skies” rules were first enacted in Lincoln in 2004 to update the regulations on outdoor lighting, which can be harmful to insects and wildlife (see their Jan. 12 Select Board presentation). An amendment proposed at Town Meeting in 2015 was hotly debated but ultimately went down to defeat. In 2025, the group drafted zoning and general bylaw amendments and initially got on the warrant for Town Meeting using citizens’ petitions but ultimately withdrew the items. This year, they had hoped to extend the rules to existing lighting but backed off at the suggestion of the Planning Board and Select Board.
“There’s often a misconception that this is making people have to makes changes in their current residence, and that is not the case,” said Sherry Haydock, co-chair of the subcommittee. If approved, the new rules will apply only to new and substantially renovated homes, though they will also apply to replacement fixtures (not just bulbs) on existing homes.
Members were also hoping to have new rules for streetlights and town-owned buildings, but those, too, will wait for another day. The two boards “really wanted us to do this in multiple stages,” Haydock said.
The 2004 bylaw says that outdoor lighting fixtures on new homes must be fully shielded light fixtures and have a color temperature of 3,000°K or below. The revisions that residents will vote on at Town Meeting on March 29 call for:
The proposed regulations would exempt:
The next step for the Dark Skies group will be working to manage lighting used on streetlights and public buildings. Streetlights have become more of a problem since 2012, when the town got a grant to update all of its streetlights with energy-efficient LED bulbs. However, the new bulbs are brighter than the old ones, and they were installed on many streetlights that weren’t working at the time.
Officials were unwilling to see new rules at this pot that would cost the town money needed to change public building lights and streetlights, though they agreed to hire a lighting consultant to examine this issue. Ideally, the town should “consider turning off the streetlights that don’t serve a purpose or seeing if they can dim them or change the color temperature, but that might need to be done of a street-by-street basis,” Haydock said.
The Dark Skies subcommittee has also published a summary document about the issue as well as an online survey to gauge residents’ knowledge about lighting rules and their feelings about restrictions. “We’re trying to ascertain is what is it people don’t know,” Haydock said. For example, “there’s no scientific data showing that leaving lights on improves security;” motion-activated lights are actually more effective, she said.
The group’s other immediate focus is education about “the importance of dark skies on the hope that people will voluntarily turn off their lights or lower the intensity,” Haydock said. there will also be a system in place where residents who feel that a neighbor’s outdoor lighting is excessive can contact a subcommittee member and have educational materials sent to the neighbor.
5 Birchwood Lane — Phyllis Gree to Malcolm W. and Elana Chandler for $735,000 (January 30)
12 Pine Ridge Road — Barlex LD LLC to 12 Pine Ridge LLC for $2,800,000 (January 30)
19 Conant Road — Dudley Hollow LLC to Rohan Hastie for $3,375,000 (January 29)
134 Chestnut Circle — Deborah Page to Eric Paul Roter for $799,000 (January 23)
152 South Great Road — Ellison Family Limited Partnership to Jeffrey David Ribens Trust and Linda Melius Rubens Trust for $1,300,000 (January 13)