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

land use

More details on Farrington/Panetta housing and conservation proposal

A sketch of what the starter homes might look like (click to enlarge). See the April 27 Lincoln Squirrel article for more project illustrations.

The Planning Board got more details this week on the Nature Link project proposed for Page Road/Route 2 land, including information on sizes and estimated prices of the homes.

The Rural Land Foundation is asking voters at a Special Town Meeting on June 25 to approve rezoning and funding measures that would allow the town to purchase 77 acres of land now owned by the Frank Panetta Jr. Trust and Farrington Memorial. Oriole Landing developer Civico, which is providing $3.3 million of the $6.4 million total land purchase cost, hopes to build 20 tightly clustered single-family condominium homes on some of the parcel, while most of the rest will become town-owned conservation land. Farrington Nature Linc would remain as is, though with a new access road from Page Road.

To make it happen, voters must approve a change to the existing North Lincoln Overlay District for the proposed housing and another to preserve the existing Gerard’s Farm Stand on Route 2, as well as a $950,000 appropriation from the town’s Community Preservation Act fund. Another $800,000 from the City of Cambridge and $1.35 million in private donations to the RLF will round out the total.

The three houses now on the Panetta land will be razed. In addition to 17 small starter homes ranging from 1,650 to 2,000 square feet, the development will include three 4,500-square-foot homes on the southeast corner of the site. Andrew Consigli of Civico estimated that the starter homes will sell for under $1 million while the three larger homes would fetch $1.5 million to $2 million. Three of the starter homes would be income-restricted.

Because it will be a condominium complex, owners will not be allowed to make substantial changes to their homes without consent of the entire condo homeowners’ association. The RLF will have right of first refusal if Farrington Memorial ever decides to sell their parcel, which will have deed restrictions so Farrington Nature Linc can continue to operate on part of the land and “make small additions to their footprint” in the future if desired, said Geoff McGean,  Executive Director of the RLF, which is distributing this brochure touting the project.

If all goes as planned, the deal will conserve the largest remaining parcel of undeveloped and unprotected land in Lincoln. “This is the result of many, many years of negotiation,” McGean told the Planning Board. “It’s a balance of benefits, and all parties involved have made some sacrifices. I can’t emphasize enough that this is a moment in time… it’s not going to be there next year.”

The decision to propose small starter homes rather than townhouses or multifamily housing was based on economics as well as the wishes of the Panettas, Consigli said. The development is modeled after the nascent 40Y state program, though the Lincoln proposal would allow houses larger than the $1,850-square-foot state maximum.

The Planning Board will hold a public hearing on June 10. Before that will be public information sessions and site walks as well as presentations to the Conservation Commission, Community Preservation Committee, and Housing Coalition.

Each house will have a two-car garage and a small private yard, and residents will have access to a common green. “It’s going to have a very communal feel,” said Jeremy Lake of Union Studio Architecture & Community Design, which designed the Riverwalk housing in West Concord.

Planning Board member Susan Hall Mygatt was concerned that preserving the commercial farm stand alongside the housing might constitute spot zoning. Director of Planning and Land Use Paula Vaughn-Mackenzie said town counsel was reviewing the issue.

Many attendees at the April 29 meeting expressed support for the proposal. Andrew Glass, chair of the Historical Commission, noted that his group approves about half a dozen teardowns each year, and most of them are small houses. “This will help replenish a form of housing stock in Lincoln that we have seen a great decimation of in the last several decades,” he said.

20-home development eyed for Panetta/Farrington land

A map showing the land that the town hopes to purchase (click to enlarge).

Lincoln could see 20 new homes near Route 2 along with dozens of acres of newly town-owned woods and wetlands if residents vote yes at a Special Town Meeting on June 25.

Seventeen of the 20 homes will be tightly clustered 1,850-square-foot “starter homes” on 14 acres of Page Road land currently owned by the Panetta family. The town proposes to buy a total of 77 acres from the Panettas and Farrington Memorial (which operates the nonprofit Farrington Nature Linc) for $6.4 million. Funds for the purchase would come from developer Consigli ($3.3 million), which built Oriole Landing, as well as $800,000 from the City of Cambridge, $950,000 from the Lincoln’s Community Preservation Act fund, and $1.35 million in private donations.

Farrington Memorial will retain ownership of some of its land within its parcel that will be accessed (as will the new houses) from a roadway coming off Page Road, and Farrington Nature Linc will continue to operate as it now does (see the Lincoln Squirrel, April 17, 2015).

A sketch of where the homes would be placed.

To make it all happen, voters must two zoning measures by a two-thirds margin — a change to the existing North Lincoln Overlay District for the proposed housing and another to preserve the existing Gerard’s Farm Stand on Route 2 — plus the CPA funding for the conservation component of the project that would protect the land from development and eventually add 1.5 miles of new trails connecting to the Osborn Conservation area to the south.

The deal won’t go through unless the RLF can raise $1.35 million in donations by June 25. RLF Executive Director Geoff McGean acknowledged the tight timeline for fundraising and voter approval. “It’s a very complicated project with a lot of moving parts that somehow all come together at this brief moment in time, unfortunately,” he said.

The fundraising effort will include appeals to foundations, friends of conservation, and a townwide mailing. “Most of the time it’s individual Lincoln residents that step up, and we’re hopeful that residents will think this is a good project worth supporting,” McGean said.

The housing plan is modeled on the state’s nascent 40Y program, which offers a zoning tool for towns to approve “starter homes” of up to 1,850 square feet in districts that allow at least four starter homes per acre. However, though the law has been passed, the state has not yet released specific guidelines for towns and developers, so there will be no opportunity for state grants or other involvement, McGean said.

The RLF presented the proposal to the Select Board on April 14 and will make an informal presentation to the Planning Board on Tuesday, April 29.

The plan is similar in some respects to the town’s 2016 purchase of the Wang property on Bedford Road. That deal paved the way for a new home for the Birches School, a new town playing field, and several acres of conservation land.

Four-unit townhouse proposed for Lincoln Road

Front and rear views of the townhouse proposal.

A proposal for a four-unit multifamily townhouse near condos on Ridge Road will be the subject of a Planning Board public hearing on May 13.

The 2.1-acre parcel was formerly owned by the Teabo family (Prince Teabo died in 2018 and his wife Betty in 2022) that’s accessed by an existing private right of way running from Lincoln Road to Greenridge Lane. The land isn’t part of the recently rezoned Housing Choice Act area; it’s in the R-2 General Residence District, where townhouses are allowed by right with a site plan review by the Planning Board.

Applicant Fabio Andrade hopes to replace the single-family home on the property with a flat-roofed two-story structure covering 2,262 square feet with four two-bedroom units built over above-ground garage parking.

Proposal would clear-cut and replant several wooded acres

The three lots owned by the Plauts are outlined in blue (click to enlarge).

Editor’s note: This article was updated on March 19, 2025.

The owners of three lots on Old Winter Street totaling 8.5 wooded acres want to clear-cut about one-third of the land, regrade part of it for a driveway, and plant new native trees and shrubs.

The Planning Board held a hearing on the landscaping plan on March 11, which will be continued on March 25. The applicants, Timothy and Madeleine Plaut, are hoping to get approval for cutting down 137 mature trees, installing a driveway, and planting 268 new trees of varying sizes before going back to the board to seek approval for a single-family house in the southwestern area of the three-lot parcel.

The Plauts currently live in London and own several other properties around the world, though they hope to split their time between Lincoln and Europe once their new home is built, according to the narrative supplied by their landscape architect. They bought the properties in April 2024 from Thomas and Katherine DeNormandie.

The Plauts, who are in their late 60s, want to create a more diverse “three-layered woodland” by replacing some of the white pines and invasive species with local plantings, shrubs, ground cover, and pollinator meadows without a formal lawn area, modeling it after
Garden in the Woods in Framingham, said Jen Stephens of Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design.

“They very much see this as a legacy property and are anxious to get plantings underway,” she said.

The property owners hope to clear-cut, regrade and replant the area in darker green (click to enlarge).

“Philosophically, we’re pretty aligned with this project… it’s a better outcome than it could have been for the neighborhood,” said Justin Hopson, one of the abutters, noting that zoning rules allow a house on each of the three lots.

However, one aspect of the project met with opposition: the plan to install a permanent driveway from Old Winter Street rather than from Silver Hill Road, as the owners originally proposed. The latter idea was rejected by the Conservation Commission (ConCom) because a driveway, even if unpaved, is considered a “permanent structure” and is therefore prohibited in the wetlands just east of Silver Hill Road.

A permanent driveway from Old Winter Street won’t be a major problem for the neighborhood, but during landscaping, utilities, and house construction, “there will be a huge amount of disruption” to an area with four nearby homes with young families, said abutter Chris Murphy. It’s “insane” for the Conservation Commission to route construction traffic from Old Winter Street when a much shorter temporary construction driveway could be built coming off Silver Hill Road, he said. That strip of land could later be restored, Stephens suggested.

Planning Board Chair Margaret Olson asked Susan Hall Mygatt, a ConCom member who was at the board’s meeting, to get a sense of the commission’s willingness to change its regulations to allow the temporary access road, if in fact those rules “are forcing [the owners]  to do something that none us think is environmentally the right thing to do.” Stephens said she would try to get on the commission’s March 26 agenda for that purpose. The Planning Board might be able to give its landscaping plan approval contingent on ConCom’s permission to move the temporary driveway, Olson said.

My Turn: Proposed private-jet Hanscom expansion is a climate bomb in sheep’s clothing

By Alex Chatfield

Fellow Lincolnites: Don’t let Massport pull the wool over our eyes. The proposal for an immense private jet hangar facility at Hanscom Field is a climate bomb in sheep’s clothing that must be stopped. Hanscom Field civilian airport is owned and operated by Massport, and is distinct from Hanscom Air Force Base which focuses on research and development and has no airfield. 

Private jets are the most carbon-intensive form of travel per passenger, and frequently used for leisure and convenience. Expanding this form of travel in the midst of a climate crisis is indefensible. For this reason, Massport and prospective developers have packaged their enormous 522,000-square-foot, highly polluting proposal as a model of “sustainable aviation” to distract the public and policymakers.

A 5-minute CBS News segment on “How Airports are ‘Greenwashing’ their Reputations” reveals that when airports claim to be sustainable, they are referring solely to their green buildings and infrastructure, which comprise only 2% of the emissions generated at airports, while excluding aircraft emissions, which constitute the remaining 98%.

The CBS report further spotlights the hope and hype surrounding sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), which the prospective Hanscom developers enthusiastically tout, saying their new facility will promote SAFs. This claim is misleading on several counts. First, the word “promote” holds little weight since, as the CBS report discloses, the FAA prohibits airports or airport facilities from requiring a specific type of fuel. Second, by the Hanscom developers’ own admission, “the aviation industry projects use of alternative/clean-fuel aircraft (i.e., electric or SAF) to be approximately 10 percent of aircraft by 2030” (see the developers’ DEIR [Draft Environmental Impact Report], Section 3.1.3).

These points were reinforced by a January 8 webinar on SAFs attended by nearly 200 participants statewide. After examining several types of SAFs, independent analysts from MIT, the World Resources Institute, and the Institute for Policy Studies cautioned that while SAFs are technically feasible, it is not likely that they will be available at scale by 2050, the year that scientists say we must reach net zero to avert the worst impacts of climate change. 

Moreover, the trade-offs with SAF production at scale are daunting. Crop-based SAFs would sabotage food production by hijacking arable land for jet fuel. For example, to reach the current U.S. goal of 35 billion gallons of SAF in 2050 would require 114 million acres of corn—20 percent more than the current total land area of corn crops in the U.S. Meanwhile, synthetic SAFs for jets would put an enormous burden on the electric grid, competing with internet, AI, heat/AC, light and refrigeration.

Concerns about greenwashing were echoed by area Select Board members and our state legislators at the January 28 virtual HATS meeting (Hanscom-Area Town Selectboards) with new Massport CEO Rich Davey.

Mark Sandeen, chair of HATS stated that, if the proposed private jet expansion were to go forward, the 75 or so additional private jets at the new facility would generate more emissions than all of the houses and cars in Lexington, Bedford, Concord and Lincoln combined. “You’re looking at a group of people here who dedicated decades of their lives to reducing the emissions of their towns, and to see one project wipe out any possibility of success… we don’t view that as small,” he said.

State Sen. Mike Barrett posited to Davey that “there is a sense in which you’re rolling out SAFs, I think, as a shield and in order to disarm us,” a point that Davey heatedly denied, referencing an SAF startup in Charlestown in his defense. To this, Barrett replied: “We have lots of startups in Massachusetts that hope someday to cure cancer, and we certainly want to encourage them to try. But none of us go out and encourage our kids to smoke cigarettes because the cure is going to come in their lifetimes.”

Christopher Eliot, chair of HFAC (Hanscom Field Advisory Commission, representing the four Hanscom-area towns) added that after studying SAFs in “excruciating detail,” he doesn’t believe they have technical merit: “Each new version solves one problem and creates two others… They’re either going to blow out agriculture or blow out the electrical system.” 

Speaking for many, Eliot shared this comment: “The only thing that’s acceptable to anybody… here is the status quo… there’s none who would have any tolerance for the expansion.” 

Eliot’s view is shared by more than 14,000 people across the Commonwealth that have signed a petition urging Gov. Healey to take all possible action to stop private jet expansion at Hanscom or anywhere because it is antithetical to Massachusetts’ efforts to rein in climate change.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Property sales in December 2024

140 Lincoln Rd. #117 — Cambridge Trust Co. Trust to Martin and Nancy Robb for $741,000 (December 27)

68 Conant Rd. — Patricia F. Horwitz Trust to Olivia Pennock and Bjorn Slate for $1,365,000 (December 27)

285 South Great Rd. — Charles Peters III to Matthew Zbawiony and Hathairat Sawaengsri for $950,000 (December 23)

0 South Great Rd. — Virginia Steele Wood Trust to Krisha Kandarpa for $550,000 (December 20)

22 Old Cambridge Turnpike — Nicholas Konstandakis to Nicholas and Monique Nikolaou for $1,800,000 (December 16)

22 Goose Pond Rd. — Beverly Tomasic Bowman Trust to Jon and Nicola Sillari for $1,830,210 (December 4)

181 South Great Rd. — Diana Abrashkin to William and Katelyn Maronn for $699,000 (December 4)

43 Greenridge Lane — Robert Wadsworth to Mary Toland for $580,000 (December 2)

Property sales in November 2024

140 Lincoln Rd. #217 — Marian E. Anderson Trust to Elaine Garnache for $568,830 (November 25)
 
243 Aspen Circle — G. Mitchell Eckel III Trust to Kelley Seelagy Trust and KS Trust for $817,000 (November 15)
 
10D North Commons — Wendy Jamieson to Mark Zielinski and Julia Pirvu for $770,000 (November 13)
 
77 Weston Rd. — John Peck to Benjamin Steele and Jane Zimmerman for $2,755,000 (November 12)
 
15 Hillside Rd. — Jonathan Wyman to Leah Rogoff and Jacob Mingolla for $1,450,000 (November 4)

Family to fund awards honoring Lincoln woman

The giving spirit is certainly in evidence at this time of year. A new town committee backed by a Lincoln family who wants to remain anonymous will award grants to charities every month to recognize women — and in an unrelated development, another family has donated a piece of property to the town for conservation purposes.

In its first year, the Women Positively Impacting Lincoln Lives program, known as WILL, will honor “women who have lived or worked in Lincoln and whose contributions have benefited the town of Lincoln, the local area, or society at large,” said Select Board Chair Kim Bodnar. The group will seek nominations of “women of today” and will award 12 monthly grants of $2,500 to the organization of the winning nominee’s choice. Once a year, it will also select women from history who have had an impact on Lincoln and award $2,500 in her name. 

The family initially offered to appoint and run the committee to spare the town the administrative work that accompanies an official committee. But the Select Board ultimately decided that such a group should be operated by the town under its usual procedures, even though it’s administering private funds, much as the Lincoln Scholarship Committee does.

The identity of the philanthropic family is still a mystery, but that may change at some point. “The donor family would like to remain anonymous but recognize that it might be challenging should they participate in the committee’s meetings, which are subject to the requirements of Open Meeting Law,” Bodnar said. 

The parcel abutting Trapelo Road and the Cambridge Water Dept. land that will be known as “Le Champ du Maroni.”

New town-owned parcel

The parcel of vacant land being donated to the town is on the south side of Trapelo Road abutting the Cambridge Water Department’s land abutting the reservoir (see map at right). It’s one of two adjoining parcels that were once owned by the parents of Kevin Maroni (the second lot abutting Huckleberry Hill includes a home and has been sold). The lot will be left in a natural state as a memorial to his parents and will eventually bear a sign marking it as “Le Champ du Maroni,” said Conservation Director Michele Grzenda. 

Updates to outdoor lighting rules mulled

Examples of permitted and unacceptable outdoor lighting from 2015. The yellow dots indicates the position of the lightbulb.

At the December 7 State of the Town meeting, the Dark Skies Committee will give an update on its work to update rules on outdoor lighting to reflect changes in technology since they were last amended in 2016.

Artificial light at night keeps away wildlife (thus reducing their habitat), kills insects, and interferes with nocturnal breeding cycles and bird migration, said Louise Bergeron, head of the Planning Board subcommittee, in a presentation at the November 18 Select Board meeting.

Current zoning rules require permanent lighting to be installed or shielded to “prevent direct light or glare from the light source from interfering with the vision of motorists or pedestrians” or illuminating neighboring properties, and exterior lamps to have a color temperature of 3,000K or below. Lights must also be no more than 900 lumens (a measure of brightness). Color temperature refers to the color of the light — the lower the temperature, the more orange it appears, whereas higher-temperature numbers indicate bluer light.

Outdoor lighting was the topic of heated debate at Town Meeting in 2015, when voters rejected some rule changes.

In recent years, LED lights — which tend to have a cooler color temperature than incandescent lights — have become commonplace, and people are often tempted to buy the brightest outdoor lights they can, Bergeron said. Her group is also studying ideas such as allowing only activated lights in certain circumstances, and asking or requiring owners of larger buildings to turn off outdoor lights that currently shine all night, such as those in parking lots, schools, churches, and the Water Department.

Town officials can grant exceptions if warranted, and the public safety will continue to be exempt.

“This is a lot about education,” Select Board member Jennifer Glass said. “You’re going to get the best result when you educate people, because we don’t have the capacity to go around policing everyone.”

Construction at The Commons to begin in early 2025

An illustration showing proposed new construction in yellow and new walking paths are shown in bright green. Click image to enlarge.

The owners of The Commons in Lincoln won approval for their planned expansion earlier this month, though the exact construction schedule is still unclear.

The Planning Board gave its thumbs-up on November 12 after the close of public hearings, concluding a process that began in February 2023. Residents of the senior living community objected to the original plan for 47 new independent living units, so The Commons returned with scaled-down plan for 23 units, and voters approved a zoning amendment to allows the project in December 2023. More recently, owners updated the plans for landscaping and the location of new parking spaces.

At the hearing in September, representatives for The Commons said that construction would begin with the additions to the main building. Cottages will be on their own timeframe and isolated with fencing as separate construction sites. sites

“We are excited to get started in Q1 of 2025 and will be happy to share more phasing details after our financing on the project has closed,” Rey LeBlanc, executive director of The Commons, told the Squirrel last week.