At our last zoom meeting (10/24/23), Michelle Barnes and all of HCAWG said we need a vibrant village center and wanted to bring in a consultant to see what kind of commercial, retail business we can bring into the mall. I asked then who would be paying for the consultant and she said RLF. Last night, I was going to ask what HCAWG envision ‘a vibrant village center’ looks like. But instead I heard Michelle Barnes said we need less commercial at the mall. This is a 180 degrees turn around. So if what she said last night is true, then
1. Is the redevelopment of the mall simply means adding multi story condos there? 2. Why is the town working with the same developer Civico when there are so many complaints from residents of Oriole Landing of how poorly built the units are? 3. Civico is the developer who said he would not want to go through town meeting on the next project with the town. Is this one of the reasons why the mall is being developed under HCA? 4. Sarah Lippert asked at Nov 8 meeting three times why can’t the residents given an option that does not include the mall. Why did we not get an answer on that? 5. Why is HCAWG unwilling to work with a group of young residents who had made models, analyzed each parcels of land being considered, made website and video to educate the town but in the opinion of some HCAWG member that these residents are just playing around and they don’t know anything. 6. Is redeveloping the mall now means building three story expensive condos there with only 10% being affordable and that we have to pay out millions again to the developer to increase the % of affordable unit there? 7. Is the ‘vibrant village center’ means we have a high number of cars (170-209) cars assuming each unit has 2 cars) coming in and out of the mall since there will be a minimum of 85-100 units built there? 8. Many people urged HCAWGto go slowly with the change for once you put the large number of multi-family three story building there and should we experience traffic congestion and disruption of the wildlife corridor, it would be too late to turn the clock back. Is this the legacy that one wants to leave behind？ Again, we all recognize the hard work HCAWG put in and we appreciate that! I sincerely hope HCAWG will listen to the many voices at Nov8 ‘s meeting from new and young residents who are passionate about the welfare of the town to long time experienced residents who were also town leaders before that we should take our time to plan this out. We need to study each options with a fresh eye, not just numbers of units on the chart but what is the overall effect it has to the town. It is hypocritical, may I say, when many of those who live in their luxury homes with acres of land around them to advocate the options put forth in the name of affordable housing when they would never want to put their lovely accessory apartment into affordable housing! Thank you for the attention given to my questions and to my thoughts! We all have to leave this world some day and we want to leave our legacy behind that we have done our best to preserve the rural character of Lincoln and at the same time with more affordable units plan for others who are less fortunate than we are to be living in this town with so much green space and wildlife! Peace! Susanna S Giles Road -- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to Lincoln@lincolntalk.org. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln.
