News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

(Editor’s note: Lang is a member of the Green Energy Committee but is speaking in his capacity as a private citizen.)

By Ed Lang

I am distressed when I think of how a “yes” vote for a community center and a “yes” for HCA rezoning of the mall will:

• Add hundreds of tons of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere, even though the new buildings would be net zero
• Add at least $21,640 in property tax for median Lincoln homeowners over the next 30 years
• Lose the chance for seniors to revitalize the existing mall with COA spaces for senior activities and private appointments within walking distance of grocery store, sandwich shop, walking trails and modest multifamily housing

Lincoln has done so much right over the years. I am encouraged that Lincoln has a long history of care for the environment, preserving the rural feel of the town with farming and undeveloped open space. Thanks to the 1955 establishment of the Rural Land Foundation (RLF), 40% of Lincoln is protected by conservation restrictions. Lincoln has also balanced conservation, open space and rural feeling with commitment to diversity and inclusion, adding 800 multi-family homes to the 1,200 single-family homes with mostly two-acre lots.

In the 21^st century, Lincoln has shown a commitment to sustainability. We became a Massachusetts Green Community and committed to an Energy Stretch Code with 20% municipal energy reduction in 2008. In 2013, the town offices were renovated and designed for a 55% reduction in energy use. In 2019, the school renovation design specified reduced energy use to EUI23, net zero and zero carbon. In 2022, Lincoln specified no new gas hookups and encouraged increased adoption of green electricity through community choice. In 2023, Lincoln’s Climate Action Plan recognized the importance of reducing emissions in municipal buildings, homes and cars.

Now I want to avoid adding the emissions that come along with new buildings. As a member of the Green Energy Committee for over a decade, I have helped the town focus on reducing energy use and emissions in town buildings. But emissions generated by the construction of new buildings — manufacturing, processing, transportation, and use of materials — dwarf operating emissions. These emissions are called embodied carbon, and they are vast and measurable.

Lincoln has an abundance of municipal and residential building stock. I suggest we renovate as many existing buildings as we can for the community center and apply HCA rezoning in a way that avoids demolition and rebuilding. As a town, we could use the same common sense we apply to our personal decisions.

• Repair and maintain buildings.
• Renovate, recycle, and consider adaptive reuse of buildings as we did with town offices.
• If a new building must be built, ensure that products with certified low (or negative!) embodied carbon are used in construction.
• Add high-density zoning where no existing multifamily units or key town locations could be targeted for by-right demolition.

We don’t need to build new at the school campus and the mall. The town can rent available spaces or contract for the use of venues, supporting town institutions.

I prefer taking time this year to carefully rethink our choices. That’s why I’m voting “no” twice on March 23.

“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.

By Lawrence Climo

I’m a retired psychiatrist. Sometimes I write. Many years ago, growing frustrated by the growing toxicity of civil discourse in our split nation, I wanted to find a way to stop it. Like everyone else, I complained but kept indulging it, but I also began gathering research material and playing with hypothetical ideas. I even began writing a book. Although my data and those ideas led nowhere, I kept trying. Eventually, out of ideas and frustrated, I gave up, and continued feeling sick about our nation. I continued seeing an illness here for which there was no treatment.

It was only after several years and downsizing and moving and making new friends that I had my breakthrough. Reflecting on America’s chronic split, I realized something I’d long ago pushed from my mind. Hadn’t I once been, myself, personally split? Yes, I had — in the military, when I refused to follow some orders and disobeyed others. From that awakening and those confessions, I realized I had overlooked and ignored something important. Instead of beginning with “us Americans now,” I should have begun with “me and America back then” and then followed where that led. What I had overlooked — that blind spot — was personal, but I knew that despite discomfort and confessions, the America issue was more important.

I fleshed out uncomfortable details of what my military behaviors back then had meant, not just how they made me feel. Dots connected. Memories were revisited that were not just personal and complicated; they were disconcerting and distressing as I had expected, but I also found an unexpected source of support. Reading a recently published book about ancient medicine and healing that was filled with Jewish commentary or midrash, I found that I was not so alone with my issues. Those ancients had their own ideas and some of them were tried and had effect, and it was in that literature that I found what I’d been looking for.

I re-wrote my book, gave it a name (From Toxic Civil Discourse To Saving a World: A Midrash-Guided Memoir of a Vietnam Vet), and found a publisher (Ktav Publishing House, Urim Publications). I’d finally tackled that wind. I’d finally found a treatment that provided the peace of mind I’d sought, along with an opportunity to share it. And what turned out to be the biggest surprise for me wasn’t that the solution (show respect for the other) was so simple and obvious. It was the rest of it. It was the fact that one needn’t feel that respect or even mean it. One had only to show it. Just show it. And, of course, our self-respect is the key.

“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.

By Lynne Smith

Lincoln residents expressed a nonbinding preference for Housing Choice Act (HCA) Option C in December, but it’s not yet a done deal. Option C deserves a closer look before the final vote in March. The updated website of the Lincoln Residents for Housing Alternatives (LRHA) is a great way to learn more.

First, a bit of background if you haven’t been closely following the HCA debate. The Commonwealth is requiring Lincoln to rezone 42 acres for multifamily housing to help solve the state housing crisis. In the rezoned areas, developers can build, on a by-right basis with no Town Meeting vote, 635 units of apartment/condo complexes. Lincoln’s Planning Board is working with an official committee called the HCA Working Group (HCAWG) to deal with compliance.

There are many others in town who have been following the process although they were not appointed to or allowed to be part of HCAWG. They coalesced informally as the LRHA in October and November 2023 as a grassroots organization to develop more options for HCA compliance. Some in the group are fairly new to Lincoln and others have lived here for decades. Many live close to the area that will be most affected by the rezoning.  Others, like me, live farther away. We are all united in our desire to be careful what we do, especially in the center of town.

LRHA offered Option E as one of the alternatives presented by HCAWG at the December 2, 2023 Special Town Meeting, where it received 38% of the vote while Option C received 55%. Since then, the LRHA folks, who are good at economic analysis, in-depth research, number crunching, website design and creative thinking, have updated their website to make it clear that Option C requires a second look, especially because all the rezoning occurs within a half mile of the train station, our village center.

Voting against Option C does not mean Lincoln will not comply with the Housing Choice Act. Instead, it means we need to spend more time developing the options. Lincoln has until December 2024 to submit a rezoning design to the state.

As a supporter of Option E and the LRHA, I reviewed the analysis offered on the website and I recommend that everyone who cares about Lincoln do the same. Your vote at Town Meeting is up to you, but I think you will find the analysis raises interesting questions and suggests possibilities you may not have considered. Nerds will love the analysis and detail on the website. Non-nerds will love the beautiful Lincoln photos on the banner headings, the helpful information, and the illustration of potential rezoned development. Everyone will benefit from a close look at the issues surrounding Option C.  Here are highlights from my review.

HCA and Lincoln

This section lays out what the Housing Choice Act has asked Lincoln to do, compares Lincoln to other nearby towns, and includes maps of the areas zoned under Option C. The affected properties are listed in greater detail than shown on the town’s official website.  A section called Picture This includes an eye-opening visualization of what large apartment blocks on the mall, Codman Road, and Lewis Street could look like. Myths vs. Facts corrects some of the erroneous impressions that have resulted from discussions of this complex issue.

Topics of Interest

• The section on Taxes contains analysis of Lincoln’s cost per student and the potential tax increase if more than 100 children enter Lincoln’s primary and high school.
• Retail Presence discusses the risk to our commercial center and focuses on the plans offered by the Rural Land Foundation (RLF). This topic has been discussed at length in committee meetings and the RLF is modifying plans in response to concerns.
• Housing Costs addresses the affordability issue. We want to help solve the housing crisis but we don’t think hundreds of high-cost luxury condos or apartments will do that. The revised zoning bylaws give developers the option of reducing affordable unit quantities below even the HCA threshold of 10%.
• Parking and Circulation issues include descriptions of past studies and a request for new ones to gauge the impact of potential development. These analytical sections will excite many who know that the devil is in the details of the numbers.
• Neighborhood Perspectives describes the concerns of many who live in South Lincoln where Option C zoning is concentrated. We all need to hear these concerns.

Other information

• Open Questions — This is an open-ended list of questions raised by many who want to understand such things as parking, setbacks, and the Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI). Getting answers to these questions will help us understand the impact of what has been called a “zoning exercise.” It is an exercise now but could lead to legally binding decisions in the future.
• A Calendar of committee meetings offers a good reminder of upcoming Planning Board and HCAWG discussions.
• News includes summaries of meetings as well as Lincoln Squirrel and Lincoln Talk reprints.

The people behind the website are included in the LRHA Supporters list. I am proud to be named though I did not help create it. In my opinion, it is a highly professional response to the nuanced and complicated topic of HCA zoning and I hope you will take a look soon. Here is the LRHA homepage link.

Remember to come to Town Meeting on March 23 to vote on this important topic that will affect Lincoln for decades to come.

“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.