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

South Lincoln/HCA*

Mall redevelopment coming sooner than state-mandated rezoning

An illustration of what the mall building might look like if the area was rezoned to allow 25 units of housing per acre. This sketch shows a denser massing of 42 units per acre at the front of the subdistrict, which would be balanced by a lower concentration of housing in the rest. Donelan’s is in white at left rear.

Rezoning to comply with the Housing Choice Act may some day result in more multifamily housing in South Lincoln and perhaps other areas, if developers are interested — but change is probably coming much sooner to the mall. Civico, which designed and built Oriole Landing, is poised to redevelop the mall’s main building with more commercial space and housing — assuming a separate rezoning proposal is approved by voters.

In the second of two public forums on June 20, consultants recapped their June 6 presentation about rezoning options to comply with the HCA. The law will require Lincoln to allow at least 15 housing units per acre (for a total capacity of 635 units) on parcels of land totaling at least 42 acres, 20% of which must be within half a mile of the train station — click here to see the updated slide deck.

Running alongside the HCA work is a separate effort to rezone just the mall area with the goal of encouraging more commercial use while also adding housing above stores in the main building (the post office and restaurant buildings would not be affected). One of the HCA’s stipulations is that commercial use can’t be required in the rezoned areas, but the Rural Land Foundation (owners of the mall) and Civico are proposing a new subdistrict that would pave the way for a mixed-use buildout by right with improved commercial space and 25 multifamily housing units per acre. The subdistrict would include the commuter lot on the east side of the railroad tracks.

“We need to think holistically about this area,” Select Board Jennifer Glass said. “These two kind of work together — two ideas with one zoning package.” The two proposals — a preferred rezoning option selected from five viable HCA concepts, and the mall subdistrict — will be presented at the State of the Town meeting on September 30 and submitted to votes at Town Meeting in March 2024.

“Without a mall subdistrict, it’s highly unlikely we’ll be able to revitalize the mall in keeping with Lincoln’s values and rural character,” said Michelle Barnes, chair of the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust/RLF Board of Trustees. This effort would go beyond the HCA moves (which simply allow denser housing but do not require anyone to build them) because the RLF already has a development partner and a preliminary sketch of a project.

Civico, a developer that is “known to and trusted by the town,” went through the arduous Town Meeting approval process for Oriole Landing but has indicated that “they would not be willing to do so again,” Barnes said.

The mall project would actually allow Lincoln to respond more quickly to the area-wide housing crisis and the state’s push for more transit-oriented housing, she added. If all goes as planned, Civico and the town (which does not have the resources to redevelop the mall on its own) would collaborate on a project in keeping with the town’s character, with the sale of the mall contingent on such a design.

One stumbling block to redevelopment is the age and limited capacity of the wastewater treatment plant that services both the mall and Lincoln Woods. The plant is owned by TCB (The Community Builders, Inc.). Paula Vaughn-MacKenzie, Director of Planning and Land Use, said that the RLF is working with TCB on a plan for upgrading the plant, but the financial details are still unknown. However, the town already received $400,000 from the state in late 2021 to design an upgrade.

TCB and Civico are “both more than confident that they would be able to get a Massworks grant for the mall project as long as the town complies with the HCA,” Barnes said.

Massworks grants are often in the millions and could pay for more than half of the project, Vaughn-MacKenzie said. Even if the HCA weren’t in the picture, “the state would be thrilled [with the mall project]. It’s just the type of project they’d want to support,” Vaughn-MacKenzie said.

Town rezoning approval for a mall project funded by Civico and the state would be a big plus for Lincoln, which would broaden its tax base as well as improve housing and commercial options there, said Planning Board member Gary Taylor. “Right now everything seems to be aligned in trying to make this happen.”

Lexington is the first town to approve rezoning to comply with the HCA while also encouraging improved commercial use. The measure was the subject of articles in the Boston Globe and the New Yorker.

Rezoning ideas to comply with HCA and redevelop mall are aired

The five parcels proposed for multifamily rezoning (click to enlarge). Some combinations of four of them would satisfy HCA requirements.

Five parcels of land in Lincoln have been identified for possible multifamily rezoning to satisfy the state Housing Choice Act, according to a consultant hired to help the town comply with the law. In a separate effort, the Rural Land Foundation is also proposing to rezone the area occupied by the Mall at Lincoln Station to allow redevelopment of the mall along with multifamily housing.

The HCA and mall initiatives were both presented at a multiboard meeting led by the Housing Choice Act Working Group on June 6. There will be two public forums later this month where residents can get information and ask questions, and more detailed proposals will be presented at the State of the Town meeting in September in preparation for a vote at Town Meeting in March 2024.

The state law aims to encourage more transit-oriented zoning areas on land surrounding MBTA stops by mandating “by right” zoning of at least 15 units per acre across the district. Lincoln, which has two MBTA stops (the train station and bus stop), must allow a total of 635 units.

The timeline is tight because the HCA requires commuter-rail towns such as Lincoln to have a rezoning plan in place by 18 months from now. Plans must be presented prior to a townwide vote ahead of time to the state Department of Housing and Community Development, which (along with the Attorney General’s Office) must also sign off after voter approval at Town Meeting — all by December 2024.

Early proposals for rezoning parts of Lincoln have identified five candidate parcels, four of which together would allow enough multifamily units to satisfy the HCA. Three of the parcels are in South Lincoln near the train station; the others are in north Lincoln around Oriole Landing and the Lincoln North office complex. Four of the five possible subdistrict combinations would meet all the conditions.

“You have options as a town. This is a good place to be,” said Will Cohen of consulting firm Utile Design.

Towns aren’t required to create a single multifamily district; they may split it up into several nonadjacent subdistricts. However, the work to determine which areas would together meet state requirements is constrained by a complicated set of rules and formulas. For example, one of the subdistricts must account for at least half of the district’s total land area; all the land targeted must be developable (i.e., not conservation land or wetlands); and existing properties may not be divided into more than one new zone.

In Lincoln, the district must total at least 42 acres, and 20% of that land must be within half a mile of the commuter rail station. Some of it may also be around the bus stop at the corner of Hanscom Drive and Old Bedford Road. The working group focused on those areas as well as others that already have multifamily housing.

Additional wrinkles:

  • Since the HCA is aimed at residential zoning, commercial use cannot be required in a compliant district (though it may be allowed). This limits the ability to require mixed-use development in places like South Lincoln.
  • Lincoln now requires 15% of the units in multifamily developments to be income-restricted, but the HCA doesn’t have any requirements around affordability. In fact, if a town wants to have a zone mandate that more than 10% of the units are affordable, it must pay for an independent feasibility study that will demonstrate that that local requirement will not hurt the economic viability of a proposed project. Lincoln has already taken steps to have such a study done.

Lincoln and other towns can require developers to submit a site plan review and comply with reasonable design guidelines relating to traffic circulation, screening, lighting, etc., but “they can’t put out guidelines that make it impossible to do something,” Planning Board member Margaret Olson noted.

Finance Board member Andy asked if the state would pre-approve several rezoning proposals and allow voters to choose which one they preferred. “Lincoln has a history of getting state approval, [then] turning things down at Town Meeting and getting in a bind,” he said, referring to the school project that was pre-approved and partially funded by the state but was subsequently shot down at Town Meeting in 2012.

“That’s a great question that I don’t know the answer to,” Cohen said.

The HCAWG public forums will be on:

  • Friday, June 16 at 8 a.m. in person at the Town Hall
  • Tuesday, June 20 at 7 p.m. via Zoom — click here to register.

Redeveloping the mall

Along a parallel path in recent years, the Rural Land Foundation has been thinking about how to redevelop and revitalize the Mall at Lincoln Station to make it more attractive to commercial tenants and encourage multifamily housing. They propose to create a mall subdistrict that could accommodate 42 housing units above the building now housing the Bank of America and other stores (the portion with the post office and restaurant would not be affected).

“We though that looked pretty nice and in keeping with a town village center feel,” said Michelle Barnes, chair of the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust/RLF Board of Trustees, as she showed a rendering of one idea. “Greater density doesn’t have to look as scary as we might think.”

An artist’s rendering of one concept for how the mall might look after rezoning and redevelopment. Donelan’s is the white building at left rear.

As a commercial use, the mall area can’t be in the HCA district, as noted earlier. Instead, the town could rezone the mall to allow mixed use by right while also ensuring that commercial space is preserved.

A better quality of commercial space is crucial for the economic viability of the mall, which the trustees see as “an increasingly risky and hard-to-justify fiduciary obligation of the RLF,” Barnes said. However, without the opportunity for a developer to create a viable mixed-use project, the value of the mall will decline and the RLF will probably need to sell it (which it may have to do in any case).

RLF doesn’t have the capital to redevelop the mall by itself, so the group is working with CIVICO, which won approval for and built Oriole Landing before selling it in 2022. The RLF and CIVICO are conceptualizing a project with the idea that the mall would eventually be sold to the company, but contingent on an agreed-upon design “in keeping with the town’s ethos and values” that’s developed with input from residents and town leadership, Barnes said. To guarantee long-term financial viability for the project, a minimum of 25 housing units per acre built above the commercial spaces would be needed, she added.

Along with the HCA proposal, a mall rezoning measure will be presented at the State of the Town meeting on September 30 and at Town Meeting in March 2024.

Meeting, public forums to tackle town’s options under Housing Choice Act

The Housing Choice Act Working Group (HCAWG) has scheduled a virtual multi-board meeting and two public forums in June to discuss the town’s path towards compliance with the state housing law.

The goal of the Housing Choice Act is to create more transit-oriented zoning areas (meaning areas surrounding MBTA stops including Lincoln’s train station) where multifamily housing is allowed by right. Under the updated guidelines released last fall, Lincoln would be required to allow either 692 or 563 units in one or more multifamily zones, depending on whether or not the Hanscom housing units are counted. In March, HCAWG met with consultants from Utile Design to review how the state calculates developable land and to walk through an initial analysis of current zoning in Lincoln to begin identifying areas that might be logical places for rezoning. 

The meeting co-hosted by the Select Board and the Planning Board will be on Tuesday, June 6 at 7 p.m. Click here for the Zoom link. The public forums will be:

  • Friday, June 16 at 8 a.m. in person at the Town Hall
  • Tuesday, June 20 at 7 p.m. via Zoom — click here to register.

Proposed zoning changes will come up for votes in March

Lincolnites will have a chance to vote on two bylaw changes — one to South Lincoln commercial zoning and the other to accessory apartment rules — at the annual Town Meeting in March. The Planning Board presented the proposals on the second night of Lincoln’s State of the Town meeting on November 15. 

Surveys have shown “overwhelming support for enhancing commercial viability” in the South Lincoln village area, and the 2009 long-range plan called for a “vibrant” village center, “but we don’t think anyone would use the word vibrant to describe the area,” Planning Board Chair Robert Domnitz said. The Housing Choice Act will also require the town to allow denser housing within half a mile of the train station. And while residents and the board support mixed-use development, the current zoning rules make that difficult. Developers have been “discouraged by the complex procedures laid out in our zoning bylaw,” he said.

The village area currently includes two business zones: B1 (the mall plus a few properties south of Lincoln Road) and B2 (an area west of the tracks stretching from Doherty’s Garage to the Department of Public Works), but they have different emphases. B1 allows retail and professional business by right, but not residences. B2 allows single-family and limited multifamily housing by right, but most new business uses require a special permit from the Planning Board and a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals. Even then, the permit must be renewed periodically and can’t be transferred to a new owner when the property is sold.

The Planning Board is considering two options: dropping the special permit requirement for uses in the B2 zone that are allowed by right in B1, or somehow merging the two zones  to “create a more holistic vision of a village center,” Domnitz said. The overarching goal is to encourage mixed use with a higher residential density while preserving the character of the village center area.

A broader proposal to rezone the village area stirred up strong opposition in 2019, especially from residents living in condos and apartments on Ridge Road. In contrast this time, zoning in all the nearby residential areas “are outside the scope of our effort,” Domnitz said.

Accessory apartments

The second proposed zoning change would encourage more accessory apartments by streamlining the need for property owners to get approval from both the Planning Board of the ZBA if the proposed accessory apartment is part of the main dwelling. The building inspector would be empowered to approve any construction after ensuring plans conform to the existing rules on proportional size of the apartment, having a separate entrance and dedicated parking space, etc.

If the apartment is to be a separate building on the property, the applicant would still have to get a permit from the ZBA but can bypass the Planning Board. Owners could charge rent but could not “condo-ize” the accessory apartment; it would have to remain legally part of the primary residence.

Voters approved a previous set of changes to accessory apartment rules by razor-thin margins in 2021.

The goal for both measures is to “streamline regulations and procedures that provide no benefit to the town and needlessly burden property owners, Domnitz said.

Officials mull revised Housing Choice Act guidelines

Lincoln now has a clearer idea of what it will have to do if it wants to comply with a state law that requires towns with public transportation stops to allow a significant amount of multifamily housing.

Lincoln was one of dozens of Massachusetts towns designated by the ​​Housing Choice Act (HCA) as an “MBTA community” by virtue of its commuter rail stop. The draft guidelines released earlier this year by the Department of Housing and Community Development would have required Lincoln to allow 750 units of multifamily housing within half a mile of the train station (15 units per acre over 50 acres) without requiring a special permit or zoning variance or amendment. Site plan review based on general design guidelines, traffic circulation, and screening would be allowed as long as those conditions do not make it “infeasible or impractical to proceed.”

As hoped, the revised guidelines allow some flexibility for towns that don’t have 50 acres of buildable land within the prescribed radius because of wetlands, obstructing physical features, or issues with water supply or Title V septic regulations. Based on that, Lincoln now has 42 or 43 acres of land that are subject to the rules, Paula Vaughn-MacKenzie said in a presentation to the Select Board and Planning Board last week.

A somewhat complicated formula under the new guidelines indicates that Lincoln would be required to allow either 692 or 563 units in one or more multifamily zones, depending on whether or not the Hanscom housing units are counted (an as-yet-unanswered question). The state is allowing MBTA communities to split the multifamily zone into two parcels, so part of the district could be in another part of town such as North Lincoln which already has denser housing (though at least 20% of the acreage must be within the half-mile MBTA radius). 

Other details:

  • A municipality may establish sub-districts with different density requirements and limitations provided the district as a whole meets the requirement.
  • Any development must comply with Title V septic and the state Wetlands Protection Act even if compliance means the development will be less dense than 15 units per acre.
  • Developers must provide water and septic treatment for any approved units. 
  • There may not be any age restrictions or limitations on the size of units, the number and size of bedrooms, or the number of occupants in a unit.

If the town eventually does not comply with the HCA, it will lose eligibility for three categories of state grant programs including MassWorks, a major infrastructure program that has provided million of dollars  to other area towns in recent years. Lincoln has never applied for money from this program, “but it is an amazing source of funding,” Vaughn-MacKenzie said. “That is something to be taken pretty seriously.” Among the possible future Lincoln targets for MassWords grants: stormwater improvements, Ballfield Road septic improvements (if needed) in support of a community center, water main replacements, and MBTA station upgrades.

More ominously, a town’s compliance with the HCA may “inform funding decisions” for other state sources, she added. Lincoln received about $570,000 in various types of state funding in 2021. The law will “have a significant impact on the town, whether we choose to comply or not,” Planning Board member Margaret Olson noted last winter.

The town must submit an action plan and timelines by Jan. 31, 2023 and be ready to apply for final compliance (e.g., with new zoning rules drawn up and ready for a town vote) by Dec. 31, 2024. A working group with members from relevant boards will be created to meet the first deadline and chart the process going forward.

Lincoln has already had many discussions about allowing dense housing and mixed-use development in South Lincoln, “and this is looking not inconsistent with what the town has already talked about,” Olson said last week. “It isn’t as onerous as it sounds. We don’t have to produce housing, just zoning.”

The town won’t need to rezone single-family neighborhoods to do this, but instead focus on areas that already have multifamily zoning, she added. “I don’t think we need to panic. I don’t know exactly what it is yet, but there is a path.”

My Turn: More affordable housing will not burden schools

The Lincoln School Committee wishes to make clear to the community that development of affordable family housing in Lincoln will not burden our schools. In fact, just the opposite is true. We welcome more students.

  • We have spaces open in our classrooms. Enrollment has been decreasing for more than a decade and is expected to continue to decrease in communities like ours, not due to increased attrition to private schools, but because of aging populations, declining birth rates, and the high cost of suburban housing.
  • Optimizing enrollment and increasing the diversity of students supports our best educational models. Grade-level middle school teams of subject-specialized teachers need an adequate cohort of students. Greater diversity in every classroom broadens all children’s educational experience.
  • Providing a greater variety of housing options will give the schools — and all town agencies — greater advantage in attracting faculty and staff who may want the opportunity to live in the community where they work.

Approved unanimously by the Lincoln School Committee, May 19, 2022.

John A. MacLachlan, chair
Tara Mitchell, vice chair
Adam Hogue
Kim Mack
Kim Rajdev
Susan Taylor
Laurel Wironen

“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.

Town officials marshal arguments against housing rules

In a response to the state’s new multifamily housing guidelines now being drafted, town officials will argue that the requirements are draconian and impracticable for Lincoln.

Lincoln was one of 42 Massachusetts towns designated by the ​​Housing Choice Act (HCA) as “MBTA communities” that will be required to allow 750 units of multifamily housing within half a mile of an MBTA stop (15 units per acre over 50 acres). Towns have until March 31 to give feedback to the state Department of Housing and Community Development. Those that don’t eventually comply risk losing millions in state grants.

Planning Board and SLPAC members met with the Select Board on February 28 to outline their objections to some of the law’s provisions. The most clear-cut issue is that Lincoln was designated as a “bus” rather than a “commuter rail” town. This wouldn’t change the number of multifamily units required, but towns that fall into the commuter rail category have one more year to implement zoning changes, with a deadline of December 31, 2024 rather than 2023.

The housing density required by the HCA would also have a huge impact. Adding 750 units would increase the town’s total number of housing units (excluding those on Hanscom Air Force Base) by 30%, which is “extremely burdensome” for Lincoln and other small towns when considering the effect on schools, public safety, water usage, and infrastructure, said Paula Vaughn-MacKenzie, Director of Planning and Land Use.

Officials from Lincoln and other towns would like to see more flexibility in the zoning requirements. They suggested that the state let Lincoln split the multifamily zones between two areas (those in proximity to the commuter rail station and the MBTA bus stop near Hanscom Field, for example), or rezone a larger piece of land at a lower density, such as 93 acres with eight units per acre. Basing the number of required units on a percentage rather than units per acre would make more sense, they said.

“No one wants to see a 10-story building in Lincoln center. It’s not a project that would fit within the aesthetics and methods of our town, and we are not alone in that belief,” Vaughn-MacKenzie said.

Meanwhile, the train station itself is not ADA-accessible and does not have a platform, shelters or seating, and the schedule and ticket prices do not encourage commuter use. “We have been asking for upgrades for years,” she said. “If you want all of these towns to build more housing near commuter rail stops, then you have to make the MBTA schedule and fares better serve the users.”

Another problem for Lincoln is that much of the land within the half-mile radius of the commuter rail stop is wetlands or land belonging to the Codman Estate and Mass Audubon, while most of the rest is already zoned for some level of commercial and multifamily housing.

The response letter will be signed by the chairs of the Select Board, the Planning Board, SLPAC and the Housing Commission. Many other towns feel the same way as Lincoln does about the new rules and may collaborate in responding to the DCHD. “I think there will be broad statewide support for advocating something different,” Town Manager Tim Higgins said.

Questions and pushback aired on multifamily housing guidelines

One thing is clear after a pair of informational sessions this week: by order of the state, some type of multifamily housing will be permitted by right in South Lincoln some day. Still to be determined is how dense that housing might be — and what will happen if it fails to comply with the new state rules.

The Housing Choice Act will “have a significant impact on the town, whether we choose to comply or not,” Planning Board Chair Margaret Olson said at a joint meeting with the Select Board on January 31. 

The Housing Choice Act asks that Lincoln and other designated MBTA communities amend their zoning to allow 750 units of multifamily units within half a mile of an MBTA stop or lose eligibility for three categories of state grants. Lincoln has not received grants from any of those programs (though other area towns have received millions from one of them in recent years), but a state official on Wednesday indicated that noncomplying towns would have lower priority for other state grants as well.

“All [state grant programs] are discretionary and oversubscribed,” said Mike Kennealy, Secretary of Housing and Economic Development, during a February 1 Zoom session with dozens of officials and residents from eastern Massachusetts towns. “We may want to fund more for communities that are trying to get housing done. There’s a lot of discretion about what gets funded and what doesn’t.”

  • Slides from the January 12 and February 1 state webinars
  • Slides from the January 31 Select Board/Planning Board/SLPAC meeting downloadable from this page 

Kennealy and two other state officials began the hourlong session by recapping their presentation at a January 12 webinar. They explained that the final rules will have more flexibility than the draft guidelines that were issued in early January.

For example, the 50 acres in the multifamily zone needn’t be contiguous, said Chris Kluchman, Deputy Director of the Community Services Division in the state Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). There will also be some flexibility for towns that don’t have 50 acres of buildable land within the prescribed radius because of wetlands, obstructing physical features, or issues with water supply or Title V septic regulations, though a future developer could be required to provide wastewater treatment facilities if necessary, she said.

One of the attendees at the February 1 session noted that more than 40 MBTA stations are not currently ADA-compliant and asked how that situation would be rectified for communities that are subject to the Housing Choice Act zoning rules. That event was co-hosted by MAGIC (Minuteman Advisory Group on Interlocal Coordination) and the MetroWest Regional Collaborative.

“We are working closely with the MBTA and MassDOT,” Kluchman said. “I’ll take that as a comment.”

Lincoln attendees raised another issue: the documents issued by the state show Lincoln as a bus community by virtue of having an MBTA bus stop at Hanscom Field. However, Lincoln obviously has an MBTA train station in South Lincoln as well, and the timelines for the two types of communities are different. Bus towns must submit a proposed action plan and timelines for studies by March 31, 2022 and have new zoning rules adopted by Dec. 31, 2023, whereas the deadlines are July 1, 2022 and Dec. 31, 2024 for commuter rail towns.

The state guidelines assign MBTA communities to one of four service categories from highest to lowest: subway or light rail, bus, commuter rail, and “adjacent” (meaning the town has no MBTA service but there’s a stop in a neighboring community within half a mile of the town border).

“If you’re within a half mile of the highest service category, that’s what category you’re in,” said Clark Ziegler, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, said at the MAGIC/MetroWest session.

“This is where our designation as a bus service community is a problem,” Olson said. With a Planning Department staff of two, “this is actually a very tight deadline for the town to come to an informed conclusion.”

Olson and the state officials reminded everyone that the new guidelines do not require actual housing construction. “It does not force anybody to do anything at all. It simply says that property owners have the right” to build multifamily housing without needing a special permit,” she said. “For actual housing, someone has to sell, someone has to buy, and someone has to build.”

Multifamily housing will take years if not decades to appear in the affected towns. “Zoning is a long-term play; it’s not like flipping a switch,” Kluchman said.

Even so, given the burden that hundreds more residents will eventually place on schools, the town water supply and other services, “it might be cheaper to pay for stuff ourselves” and forego state grants in order to avoid state-mandated housing densities, resident Sara Mattes mused.

“We need to organize with other small towns to speak with a single voice about the inequity of how this legislation is drafted for small towns,” said Gary Taylor, chair of the South Lincoln Planning and Advisory Committee, said at the Select Board/Planning Board meeting.

“As a town, we have to figure out what our strongest message is,” Select Board member Jennifer Glass said. But given the fact that Lincoln has already been exploring how to allow more commercial and residential development in South Lincoln, “it’s also an opportunity for us to really stretch our thinking about what does this mean and how can we do some thoughtful planning. Sometimes the best thinking is when you’re kind of pushed to have to do it.”

When all is said and done, “it might not be 750 [units], but there will be a number that the state expects and a number we should probably expect of ourselves,” said Select Board member J.D. Dwyer.

Officials from MBTA communities are required to submit an online form by May 2 that asks for town information and verifies that the draft guidelines have been presented to their Select Board. Other stakeholders and residents may also offer feedback via this comment form by March 31

Not complying with multifamily housing requirement could risk millions in potential state grants

(Editor’s note: This article includes a correction to the map supplied to the Lincoln Squirrel that appeared with the January 9 story headlined “New rules ask town to permit 750 housing units in South Lincoln.” The original map misidentified the amount of land that would be subject to multifamily zoning under the new state rules; it has been corrected in that story and also appears below.)

The red circle shows land within a half-mile radius of the Lincoln commuter rail station. Wetlands and buffers are indicated in shades of blue, conservation land is in green, and the beige area in the southwest quadrant is the Mass Audubon Society. The town would have to allow 750 units of multifamily housing within that area to comply with the Housing Choice Act. (Map courtesy of Margaret Olson; click to enlarge.)

Lincoln has not received grants from any of the three state funds for which it may lose eligibility under new state zoning rules, but it stands to lose out on significant amounts of money that one of the funds has already bestowed on other area towns.

The Housing Choice Act requires towns that are designated as MBTA communities to change their zoning to allow multifamily housing with a half-mile of MBTA stops or lose eligibility for grants from the Housing Choice Initiative, the Local Capital Projects Fund, or the MassWorks Infrastructure Program. The act asks Lincoln to zone 50 acres within that radius of the MBTA commuter rail station at 15 units per acre. While the town technically has enough land to comply, “the problem is that the South Lincoln overlay district doesn’t have enough buildable land for 750 units,” Planning Board Chair Margaret Olson said.

Lincoln has never applied for a grant from any of the three specified funds, though it has received funding in the past from other state programs including Green Communities, Complete Streets, a variety of regional planning grants, and most recently $400,000 under the Rural and Small Towns Grant Program for engineering and design of expanded capacity and longevity of the Lincoln Woods wastewater treatment plant, according to Town Administrator Tim Higgins. 

The MassWorks program is the largest grant program for infrastructure improvements, and unlike most other programs, it does not have minimum or maximum award amounts. The following nearby towns have recently received MassWorks funds:

  • Acton  — $2.75 million in 2020 for affordable housing infrastructure improvements 
  • Harvard — $1 million in 2020 for road safety and drainage improvements
  • Marlborough — $2 million in 2019 for improvements to Lincoln Street in support of a $25 million mixed-use development 
  • Wayland — $2.2 million in 2020 to upgrade its wastewater treatment facility and connect it to the 218-unit Alta River’s Edge housing development at 490 Boston Post Rd. 

If eligible, Higgins said Lincoln could conceivably apply for future MassWorks funds to support projects including stormwater improvements that will be required to meet new federal and state requirements, septic system improvements to support whatever South Lincoln redevelopment vision the voters decide to support; Ballfield Road septic improvements (if needed) in support of a community center; water main replacements; MBTA station upgrades; and potentially roadway and roadside path improvements.

Under current state regulations, if Lincoln maintained its current zoning, it would not appear to make the town ineligible for money from Chapter 90, Complete Streets, and a number of other grant programs, Higgins said. (The Chapter 90 program provides funding each year to municipalities for capital improvements to local public roads (usually resurfacing); Lincoln is slated to receive $266,000 in fiscal 2022 from this source.)

The bigger question, Higgins noted,  “is whether the town believes its vision is in reasonable alignment with the goals and criteria of the state’s [Housing Choice] program. If the town determines that the density and other requirements of the Housing Choice Act are out of alignment with town values and makes the decision to forego participation in MassWorks, we will need to find alternative funding sources to create/upgrade necessary infrastructure.”

State officials explain draft guidelines for multifamily housing

State housing officials made the case for multifamily zoning in MBTA communities and explained the draft compliance guidelines during a January 12 webinar.

New zoning rules require MBTA communities to allow multifamily housing of a given density in an area within half a mile of an MBTA station or bus stop, or face loss of eligibility for some state grants. For Lincoln, the requirement would be 750 multifamily units (the minimum number for all MBTA communities). The changes are part of a $262 million economic development bond bill passed in January 2021. 

That bill has several other provisions and funding allocations that aim to alleviate the housing shortage in Massachusetts, which has among the highest and fastest-growing housing costs in the nation, said Michael Kennealy, Housing and Economic Development Secretary. Although the population has risen steadily, only half the building permits statewide were issued from 1990 to 2020 as in the preceding 30-year period, he noted.

“This has placed an incredible burden on our households and families all over the state” and is making Massachusetts less competitive with other “innovation economy” states, Kennealy said. The new law “is simply good climate policy, good transit policy, good housing policy, and good local economic development policy.”

Gov. Baker has said his administration will take a “thoughtful approach in developing compliance criteria” and that those criteria will “recognize that a multifamily district that is reasonable in one city or town may not be reasonable in another,” said Chris Kluchman, Deputy Director of the Community Services Division of the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

The officials emphasized that the law is unrelated to Chapter 40B, which allows developers to bypass local zoning in communities that do not meet the state minimum for affordable housing stock. It is also not a production mandate; “the actual unit production will depend on many factors,” Kluchman said.

Clark Ziegler, Executive Director at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, showed a slide with photos of “real-world examples of attractive multifamily housing,” including developments in Sudbury and Lexington (see slide deck below). “We need to show local residents that multifamily is not what they often fear, and that it can be knit into the fabric of any community to create vibrant neighborhoods,” he said.

Lincoln and other towns currently require a two-thirds majority at Town Meeting to approve changes to their zoning rules. The economic development bill reduces the voting approval threshold for approving certain zoning bylaw amendments (including creation of the multifamily district) and special permits to a simple majority. Nonetheless, the state realizes that “that can be a big lift,” so officials are offering technical assistance as well as grant programs for low- and moderate-income housing near public transit to help communities comply,” Ziegler said.

To be eligible for this year’s round of grants, towns must submit an online form by May 2. The public comment period for the draft guidelines closes on March 31. Once the final guidelines are established, MBTA communities must establish a compliant zoning district by 2023 or become ineligible for grants from the Housing Choice Initiative, the Local Capital Projects Fund, or the MassWorks infrastructure program.

The 750-unit mandate for Lincoln is “infeasible” and “jaw-dropping,” Planning Board Chair Margaret Olson said last week. After the webinar, she commented, “The most interesting part of that webinar is that the emphasis is on the zoning, not on what is feasible nor on housing production. That has some interesting implications that we will have to think about.”

Here are some of the slides from the January 2 webinar hosted by the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development (click on a slide to see larger versions and forward/back buttons):