Civico Development’s landscaping plan for Oriole Landing (click to enlarge).
Neighbors of the proposed Oriole Landing mixed-income housing development offered impassioned protests over the plan at a March 6 Planning Board public hearing that continues on Tuesday, March 20 at 7 p.m. in Town Hall.
If approved, the project would guarantee that Lincoln will have well more than the minimum 10 percent affordable housing units required to block a 40B housing development, which would be allowed to bypass many town zoning regulations. The first steps are “yes” votes at Town Meeting on March 24, one to approve the preliminary site plan and the other to make a zoning change to allow the development. The developer would the have to return for Planning Board approval of a final site plan incorporating traffic, parking, landscaping, drainage and septic, etc.
The existing 1870s Dexter C. Harris house on the property will be relocated to stand between two 30-unit residential buildings and serve as a garden house with a large unfinished space inside for gatherings or possible studio use, said Andrew Consigli of Civico Development.
Current plans call for 60 one- and two-bedroom units (25 percent of them affordable) ranging from 644 sure feet to 1,142 square feet in two three-story buildings. The company originally hoped to include 12 condominiums as well, but backed off due to community concerns, Consigli said.
The Garland Road/Deerhaven Road neighborhood stands to see significantly increased traffic during the morning rush hour, according to traffic engineers, who suggested that to minimize this impact, the town might prohibit a right turn from the development onto Mary’s Way in the morning, or make Mary’s Way one way westbound.
Seeking to allay fears that the development would cause a surge in school-age children, Lincoln Public Schools Administrator for Business and Finance Buck Creel explained that changes in class size happen every year when kindergarteners enter school or new families move into town. “We’re used to this phenomenon, these bulges moving through the boa constrictor,” he said. The development will not have any units larger than two bedrooms.
Creel also disputed the notion that mixed-income housing would be more likely to attract families with special-needs children whose more expensive education the town must pay for. The proportion of children from Lincoln Woods who require special education is the same as that for the rest of the town, and none are on out-of-district special-ed placements, he said.
Neighbors unhappy
Nonetheless, the development would mean more noise, heavy equipment and loss of open space in a part of town that has already seen construction of The Commons and its recent extension, as well as the Route 2 project. “All of these projects have impacted us on a daily basis for past 10 years,” said Cathy O’Brien of 3 Mary’s Way. “How would you feel if another developer came to your neighborhood knocking on your door and saying ‘Here’s another two years’?”
O’Brien also questioned why the town was “trying to steamroll this” in a quick time frame. “The town must be trying to exploit some sort of a loophole… there’s some shenanigans or someone is in somebody’s pocketbook,” she said.
In addition, the development is far larger than what’s needed to meet the affordable housing minimum, and the narrow roads and lack of roadside paths are not conducive to more housing in that area, O’Brien said. However, she strongly argued against making Mary’s Way one-way or a cul de sac.
The recently completed Route 2 project “granted us a gift” that resulted in residents on the south side of Route 2 finally being able to turn right or left onto the Mary’s Way access road rather than directly onto the highway. “You’ve given us a neighborhood,” she said. “For you today to take that away is absolutely ludicrous and unfair.”
Orchard Lane resident noted that the area between Crosby’s Corner and Bedford Road is about to get more traffic when the Birches School opens. “It just feel like one section of town for the past 50-plus years has been burdened,” she said.
The Housing Options Working Group was formed a year ago to try to find new affordable housing opportunities in Lincoln, but “it seems the town stopped looking once they saw Civico,” said Commons resident David Levington. “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is… it seems to me we’re acting too quickly.”
But BJ Sheff, a Housing Commission trustee, disputed that notion. “We have looked at every single parcel as it has come up [for sale] in town. This is not new, not coming out of left field,” she said. When the Oriole Landing property came on the market, “instantly we had developers saying they could do a 40B and get 160 or 200 units on it. This was something we had to run with when we finally saw it.” The town had in fact tried to buy the property itself but “couldn’t get anywhere,” she added.
Resident Sara Mattes also warned that “the town needs to indemnify itself against these projections” with the developer if the number of school-age children moving is is significantly higher than expected. “We don’t want to go into Town Meeting with these things unanswered.”
In addition to the continued public hearing, Civico will host three more public forums on Thursday, March 15 from 6:30–8:30 p.m. in the Lincoln Public Library; Friday, March 16 with the Council on Aging at 1 p.m. in Bemis Hall; and Thursday, March 22 from 4:30–8 p.m. in Bemis Hall.
Shall the town indemnify itself when someone buys a 4, 5 or 6 bedroom house less said household produces more children? Statistically, at least I am told and intuitively it makes sense, families with greater financial resources use significantly more special education resources.
I have also been told, and I cannot verify though I am certain someone can, when Lincoln Woods was being proposed 40 plus years ago there were those that were opposed to it because it is too close to the train and would attract too many people from Boston. Hmm, what did that mean?