The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

land use

McLean Hospital abandons Bypass Road plans

The house at 22 Bypass Rd. (2016 photo) where McLean Hospital had hoped to house boys and men aged 15-21. The adjacent house at 16 Bypass Rd. can be seen at far left.

After years of litigation culminating in a go-ahead from the Supreme Judicial Court for a McLean Hospital facility in Lincoln, the hospital found another location for the services and has put the two Bypass Road properties on the market.

McLean, a psychiatric hospital in Belmont with several satellite locations, purchased two adjacent properties at 16 and 2 Bypass Road in 2016. The facility was intended as a locked residential site for teenage boys and young men being treated for borderline personality disorder using dialectical behavioral therapy to teach mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance.

McLean initially got a building permit from the town under the Dover Amendment, which exempts educational and religious facilities from many local zoning restrictions. Neighbors argued that the intended use was medical and not educational. After several appeals, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2019 that the McLean facility did in fact qualify as an educational facility.

But McLean has moved on since then. “For the program we planned to put in there, we found a much better site closer to the hospital, so that turned out to be a good move for us,” said Dr. Philip Levendusky, senior vice president for business development and communications, and director of McLean’s Psychology Department. The Arlington location, which is now in operation, “is a very attractive site and much larger than what we were looking at in Lincoln.”

The new Arlington location is a “free-standing piece of real estate” recently purchased by McLean and is not part of the hospital’s existing 3East campus in Arlington, Levendusky said.

In June 2016, McLean bought 16 Bypass Rd. for $1,024,500 and the larger home at 22 Bypass Rd. for $1,700,000, according to town land records. The hospital subsequently did an $83,000 kitchen renovation at 16 Bypass Rd. but never pulled any building permits for the other parcel. The properties are now listed for sale at $900,000 and $2.26 million, respectively.

Property sales in April 2021

195 Lincoln Rd. — Mitchell D. Schultz to Michael Share and Benjamin Mizell for $1,825,000 (April 8)

140 Lincoln Rd. — Colin Nissan to Salvatore S. Privitera Trust and Doris S. Privitera Trust for $432,000 (April 8)

9 Meadowbrook Rd. — Brian Rogers to Jonathan and Victoria Paly for $1,431,000 (April 15)

34 Farrar Rd. — Brenda Lee Molloy Trust to Michael Leip for $705,000 (April 16)

223 Sandy Pond Rd. — Charles Hadlock to Abjijit Sarkar and Debarati Bhattacharya for $1,200,000 (April 12)

19 Wheeler Rd. — John Dickinson to Christopher and Eileen Pattinson for $2,465,000 (April 28)

72 Birchwood Lane — Elinor White to Ann Odessey and Mark Sandman for $615,000 (April 28)

184 Bedford Rd. — Marcella E. Saunders trust to Benjamin Ivanchenko for $650,000 (April 30)

Property sales in February and March 2021

41B Indian Camp Lane — Ersan Seric to Alicia Googine for $325,298 (March 25)

3 Page Farm Rd. — Steven Wilcox to Monica Grewal and Jeffrey Ruberti for $1,798,000 (March 10)

22 Lincoln Rd. — Ronald McDougald to Lanping Yiu for $1,100,000 (March 5)

46 Todd Pond Rd. — Patricia Warner to Robert and Jill Hanna for $475,000 (March 4)

10 Hawk Hill Rd. — Jane Denholm to Jonathan Bock and Erin Rist for $1,100,000 (March 4)

80 Winter St. — Richard Tatlock to Kecin Worthington for $1,225,000 (March 2)

Two parcels including 145 Weston Rd. — Kevin Mundt Trust to Ruano Cuetos and Karla Gravis for $6,000,000 (February 8)

DeCordova hopes to add tent for special events

An aerial view of the current employee parking area (red arrow in top image) and a drawing of how the deCordova plans to reconfigure the area (click image to enlarge).

The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is proposing to reconfigure part of its parking area and walkway to create a new open space for special events.

What is now a two-way driveway between the lower visitor parking lot and the horseshoe-shaped upper employee parking area will become a one-way vehicle-only roadway to be used mainly for deliveries, said Kord Jablonski, the deCordova’s business director. The existing boardwalk will be replaced by a sidewalk and a handicapped-accessible ramp.

Staff will park in the visitors lot and the current staff lot will be “reimagined and reconceived” as an area with crushed stone or pavers in the  idle to accommodate a tent for special events in warm weather, Jablonski told the Select Board at their May 10 meeting. There will also be two new seating areas to take in views of Flint’s Pond. Those views have been enhanced by removal of some of the brush, in cooperation with the Conservation and Water Commissions, he noted.

Depending on the outcome of grant applications and town approvals, the work should begin in late September or early October, Jablonski said.

As with similar public-facing organizations, visitation dropped significantly as a result of the pandemic but has bounced back more recently, he told the board. Using timed ticketing, capacity limits and Covid-19 protocols, the sculpture park grounds reopened last May after a fairly brief shutdown, and the indoor museum galleries reopened in October. 

In the 12 months ending March 31, 2021, admissions were up by 86% over the previous year. The rise was even more striking for younger visitors; children’s admissions rose by 237% to 28,163, compared to 76,121 for adults (a 60% increase).

The integration of the deCordova with The Trustees of Reservations was completed in November 2019.

New survey seeks input on the future of South Lincoln

The current zoning in South Lincoln (left) and the changes that were proposed in 2019. Click image for larger version.

Residents are invited to fill out a new survey asking for thoughts on development at Lincoln Station.

For the last two years, the Planning Board has been considering changes to the zoning in South Lincoln in the area around the Mall at Lincoln Station and the commuter rail station. The goal is to encourage more diversity in housing in that area (especially with the advent of the Housing Choice Act) as well as commercial activity, services, and amenities in and around the mall. Some residents have expressed concern about the size of the area proposed for rezoning, the density and scale of permitted buildings, and the impact of development on traffic and Lincoln’s finances.

To give officials a clearer sense of public sentiment on these topics, please take the survey at tinyurl.com/villagecentersurvey. To request a paper survey, call 781-259-2610. The deadline to participate is June 30.

Background in the Lincoln Squirrel:

Accessory apartment issue results in razor-thin votes

For the second year in a row, Lincoln’s Annual Town Meeting in the Covid-19 era went off without a hitch under a tent in the Hartwell school parking lot. However, though as in any town meeting, there was some controversy — at one point resulting in 87-86 vote.

The subject of not one but two razor-thin votes was the town’s accessory apartment rules. The Planning Board asked residents on Saturday to approve several changes to the bylaw, which they outlined in video and Powerpoint presentations on April 27:

  1. Delete a section that requires the dwelling to be at least 10 years old, and remove the requirement that accessory apartments can increase the floor area of the original dwelling by no more than 10%.
  2. Add a cap on the number of accessory apartments equal to 5% of all residential units in town. This cap would not apply to affordable units, including those participating in the town’s Affordable Accessory Apartment program.
  3. Require accessory apartments leases to be for at least 30 days.

The Planning Board recommended the first change so that modestly sized homes could add a livable accessory apartment comprising more than 10% of the original floor area. The second change was intended to act as “insurance” to limit the impact on town services should the program prove highly popular. Board chair Margaret Olson noted that this can easily be revisited in the future.

But it was the third amendment that provoked the most discussion. The goal of the proposed 30-day rental minimum was to discourage homeowners from building accessory apartments for the sole purpose of renting them out to short-term tenants via Airbnb or similar services. Olson said she wasn’t aware of any cases in Lincoln that suggested the limit but “it has been an issue in other communities.”

Town Counsel Joel Bard pointed out that the 30-day rental minimum would apply only to accessory apartments and their associated principal dwellings, not to all rental units in Lincoln.

Sara Mattes proposed an amendment that would remove that proposed 30-day minimum. In the discussion that followed, John Carr said that fear of short-term rentals ”destroying the community” was moot. “This parade of one-day guests is the status quo… [the community] has already been destroyed and we didn’t notice.”

Eric Harris said the effective ban on Airbnb rentals was unfair to those who already hold permits for accessory apartments and favors those with single-family homes. Tom Sander also opposed the amendment, suggesting instead that the town limit the number of rentals per year for each accessory apartment owner.

The voice vote on the Mattes amendment was too close to call, and a standing vote resulted in a tally of 87 “no” votes vs. 86 “yes” votes. But the drama wasn’t over yet. Christoper Boit offered another amendment that would reduce the minimum rental period from 30 days to seven, which he said would allow more flexibility for short-term caregivers to come and go.

Speaking as a private citizen, Finance Committee chair Andy Payne noted that neither limit would apply to short-term accessory apartment occupants who are not paying rent. Additionally, “short-term rentals do give a number of our fellow residents an option to make Lincoln more affordable for them than it would be otherwise.”

Again, a voice vote was too close to call. In the standing vote, the Boit amendment was approved by a 89-82 margin.

Tim Christenfeld then proposed yet another amendment: removing the 5% cap on the number of accessory apartments. “This seems to run against a lot of what we’re trying to accomplish” in terms of encouraging economic diversity in town, he said. A cap signifies that “we support moderate-income families in Lincoln, but not too many.”

The current proportion of accessory apartments in town (64) is about 2–2.5% of the total number of units, Olson said. New ones are being created at the rate of two to three per year, meaning Lincoln would reach the 5% cap in about 20 years.

Christenfeld’s amendment was defeated in a voice vote where roughly two-thirds of residents voted no.

Eric Harris argued that “policy should not be based on one vote” (the margin for the first amendment) and the matter should be brought back at a future Town Meeting, but the vote on the original motion (as amended to reduce the rental period minimum from 30 days to seven) passed with only a handful of residents voting no, easily clearing the required two-thirds majority.

Clark Gallery moving from mall to Lewis Street

The Clark Gallery was packing up on Thursday.

(Editor’s note: this story was updated on April 23 to include a comment from Christina Van Vleck.)

The Clark Gallery in the Mall at Lincoln Station is moving across Lincoln Road to the recently refurbished commercial space on the ground floor of 2 Lewis St. and may open in their new location as early as next week.

Geoff McGean, executive director of the Rural Land Foundation, which owns the mall, confirmed the move. The gallery was a tenant at will in its 1,400-square-foot space and will not be liable for any future lease payments.

The 2,300-square-foot space that the gallery will occupy includes a kitchenette and ADA-compliant bathrooms, according to the property’s website.

Van Vleck and her husband began renovating the upper floors of the distinctive Lewis Street property (also known as the 1870 Wyman Cook House) in late 2016 with the plan that their family would live there. Last year, they started renovating the retail space on the building’s east side adjacent to the railroad tracks after the MassDOT field office, travel agency, and barber shop left, and Lincoln Cleaners moved to 10 Lewis St. with an entrance abutting the tracks.

Clark Gallery owner Dana Salvo said he was in talks with the Lewis Street owners from very early in the renovation planning and wouldn’t have signed the 10-year lease unless he could occupy both units on the ground floor. “I don’t think they imagined one tenant” at the outset, “but it was good timing — when they knew they were going to have just one tenant, it really opened up what they could do with the space upstairs,” he said. “They’ve done such a good job with that building. They have a really good eye and a good vision.”

“We received a great deal of interest in the space,” Van Vleck said. “Given that septic constraints currently preclude any food service establishments, the gallery feels like a wonderful opportunity to welcome the community in to experience the newly renovated space and enjoy the beautiful artwork featured in the gallery’s collection.

The 1,375-square-foot commercial space on the second floor is occupied by a tech start-up run by a local Lincoln business owner, she said.

A Lincoln Road view of the renovated space.

The goal for the new Clark Gallery space is not necessarily to attract a higher volume of visitors, “but it just allows us to program a bit differently,” Salvo said. “Contemporary art is a really small niche — I don’t get a lot of foot traffic. People that come are intentional.”

One of the things he didn’t have before is the brick patio along Lincoln Road, which might accommodate outdoor seating and one or more Clark sculptures. Three of its sculptures are now on the lawn in front of the restaurant, he noted.

“I like being in Lincoln in a destination space and that’s not really changing. It’s not like I’m moving” out of town, said Salvo, noting that the gallery has been in the mall for about 30 years.

The RLF is looking for a new tenant for the Clark Gallery’s former mall space and “we’ll be focused initially on trying to find a retail tenant,” McGean said. “We continue to look at all options for improving the vibrancy of Lincoln Station.”

Clarification

The March 18 story headlined “Uncertainties surround new state multifamily housing law” stated that a new state law requires Lincoln and certain other towns to allow multifamily housing by right near MBTA stations. Towns that do not change their zoning bylaw are not subject to a penalty but they stand to lose access to certain state grants, which may or may not be fiscally feasible for the towns. The wording at the start of the article was thus changed to read “effectively requires.”

Uncertainties surround new state multifamily housing law

A new state law effectively requires Lincoln and other MBTA communities to allow denser housing around their train stations, but it will be many months before the state clarifies the law and explains exactly what’s required, Town Counsel Joel Bard said at a March 17 Planning Board/SLPAC meeting on the topic.

State zoning law as revised by the Housing Choice Act says MBTA communities must have a least one district of “reasonable size” within a half-mile of the MBTA stop that permits multifamily housing by right. “Multifamily housing” is defined as a minimum of 15 units per acre, “subject to any further limitations” imposed by the Wetlands Protection Act and Title V, which outlines requirements around septic systems.

For the time being, all communities are considered to be in compliance with the Act, Bard said. Eventually, MBTA communities that do not comply will not be eligible for grant funding from the Housing Choice Initiative, the Local Capital Projects Fund, or the MassWorks infrastructure program. Town officials will gather information about how much funding Lincoln has received from these programs in recent years.

In its preliminary guidance about the new law, the state Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) does not define terms such as “reasonable size” of the zoning district, or whether development proposals can be denied if they don’t also meet every wetlands and septic requirement. “There will be a discussion of what is a zone of ‘reasonable size’ in a very small town” that’s more rural than Somerville but more densely populated than Deerfield, for example, said Bard, whose law firm published this update on the legislation last month.

Lincoln Woods has 125 units on 17 acres of land for a density of about 7.5 units per acre. Oriole Landing has about 10 units per acre.

“Lincoln should get credit for allowing density near [the train station] over the years — so ‘reasonable size’ might be smaller for Lincoln than other communities that have done very little,” Bard said.

The existence of Lincoln Woods wouldn’t let Lincoln off the hook in any case. The town would still have to change its zoning to allow future developments of that type by right, rather than by special permit and Town Meeting approval.

Well before the Housing Choice Act was passed, the Planning Board and its South Lincoln Planning and Advisory Committee (SLPAC) were working on rezoning proposals that would encourage more housing and mixed-use development in South Lincoln with the goal of creating a more vibrant village center for residents and businesses. Board chair Margaret Olson wondered how that work could proceed with the new uncertainties.

“I wouldn’t let this slow down your process,” Bard said, adding that it would be several months at least before state authorities give clearer guidance in implementing the new law. He suggested that when the Planning Board was ready, it could send a draft of its proposal to the DHCD for an advisory opinion.

Another unresolved question involves mixed-use development in which a single structure contains both housing and commercial space. “If the residential component is by right, but the commercial component is not, what prevents the town from effectively preventing the development based on aspects of the commercial development?” asked Michelle Barnes, chair of the RLF/Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, which hopes to redevelop the mall.

“Good question,” Bard replied.

Until further state guidance is forthcoming, all communities are considered to be in compliance with the Act, Bard said. Eventually, MBTA communities that do not comply will not be eligible for grant funding from the Housing Choice Initiative, the Local Capital Projects Fund, or the MassWorks infrastructure program. Town officials will gather information about how much funding Lincoln has received from these programs in recent years.

In 2018, the state allocated $500,000 for designing improvements to Lincoln’s MBTA station but never released the money. The fate of that funding is now more uncertain than ever. Meanwhile, the MBTA is cutting service everywhere after taking a financial hit from the Covid-19 pandemic, and it’s unclear what the long-term future holds for Lincoln’s train service.

Because many people may continue to work from home even after the pandemic is over, “use of the commuter rail may change dramatically… this whole notion of being an ‘MBTA community’ is kind of up in the air,” observed resident Sara Mattes.

Property sales in January 2021

4 Oak Meadow Rd. — Petter Brumme to Michael and Victoria Landers for $1,200,000 (January 29)

14 Moccasin Hill — Christoph Kaufmann to Nancy and Gregory Fincke for $1,220,000 (January 25)

83 Page Road — Michael Kolowich to Jennifer and Joseph Kolchinsky for $3,250,000 (January 19)

134 Chestnut Circle — Zackary Barron to Deborah Page for $535,000 (January 20)

15 Greenridge Lane — Johnny Pho to Lisa Marcaurelle Patterson for $539,000 (January 15)

25 Oak Meadow Road — Joseph Uretsky to Farhana and Javed Riaz for $1,149,000 (January 14)