I know that town employees cannot respond via Lincoln Talk. But this needs a response somehow from the town. If true, this would be extremely concerning about the process and procedures.
> *Executive Summary:* > - I identified a series of mistakes in the Option C proposal submitted > to the State for compliance check. Option C as presented in the SOTT and > approved by the Boards for submission rezoned 70 acres of land. The model > that was sent to the State rezoned 88 acres, 18 acres more. After reviewing > with our consultant Utile, the mistakes were confirmed by our Director of > Planning. For reference, the State is asking us to rezone 42 acres. > - The model sent to the State states the maximum number of units that > can be built in Lincoln as a result of the rezoning is 1,679. The State is > asking for 635 units. > - The HCAWG’s decision to include so many parcels near wetlands is the > main reason for this very high number of units. > - Public land, for example the DPW, is unnecessarily included in our > option C proposal. This has the impact of lowering our gross density, which > is one of the State's requirements. > - Options C and D1-D3 create an incentive for massive redevelopment of > Lincoln Woods. This could be avoided with no impact to compliance. It seems > that the density denominator used for Lincoln Woods is wrong as well. > - Options D1-D3 presented last night rezone 60-75 acres and could also > lead to >1,000 units built. > - More foresight has been applied to the proposals our resident group > has prepared: the maximum number of units built is exactly the same as the > compliance requirement (~635). 7 of these proposals have more than 20% > units near Lincoln Station. > *Findings* > Following multiple requests by residents over the past week, the HCAWG > finally released the Option C submission to the public yesterday. The > details of the model were surprising: *about 18 more acres of land were > included in what was sent to the State than what was presented to the > public and approved by the Boards. A number of parcels along Lincoln Rd > that were never part of any district presented to the public were added to > our submitted proposal*. While the parcels do not provide credit towards > compliance, their inclusion would lead to up to ~325 incremental units > given the unit per acre cap. > I alerted the Director of Planning of the discrepancy. After she checked > with our consultant, Utile, I was informed that the inclusion of those > parcels had been a mistake. This revelation raises a few questions: > - *Are we submitting rezoning proposals to the State prepared by a third > party without reviewing them?* > - *Is there someone in the Administration or the HCAWG who has studied > the model and understands how it works?* > - *Who is driving the decisions about our district design? Utile or > appointed officials?* > The State uses a very basic model to calculate the maximum building > footprint of any parcel. First, any wetlands are excluded. Then, 20% of the > gross acreage is also taken out as “open land”. Finally, 45% of the > remainder is considered parking spaces – note the irony that we are > fantasizing about a car-free neighborhood and the State is assuming parking > space will take almost as much land as the buildings*. It is extremely > punitive to include parcels with a big wetland presence. Either Utile did > not communicate the message or our WG/staff did not digest it, as we could > not have come up with a more wetland-heavy district.* > Option C includes *over 40 acres of parcels for which we get no credit from > the State*, which we could drop from our proposal with no repercussions. We > are *unnecessarily including 6 acres of public land, even conservation > land, most of which is the DPW, which could have been left out > altogether.* Including > all that unnecessary public land lowers our gross density. It is important > to note that just because the State does not give us credit in modeling > does not mean that those parcels could not be developed at some future date > to the maximum number of units per acre they have been rezoned to, perhaps > in combination with other parcels. > There are more surprises. Option C would allow TCB, the owner of Lincoln > Woods, to build up to 403 units in that parcel. It is important to > understand that the maximum number of units per acre applies to all the > land in a parcel, not just the developable land. *TCB could in time evict > all tenants, tear down all of the 125 two-story semi-detached housing > units, and build one or more massive three-story buildings in their parcel > with a lot more units.* The fact that the affordability restriction for > Lincoln Woods ends in 2032 makes that possibility all the more real. This > threat can be avoided if the WG puts a cap of 7 or 8 units per acre rather > than 20. The Town gets absolutely no compliance benefit from having that > higher cap since it is only modeling 159 units. *Why are we rezoning > Lincoln Woods at 20 units per acre if we get no additional credit from > it?* It > is worth noting that the developable land in Lincoln Woods had been > presented as 7.0, last night it jumped to 7.6, but if we look at the model > submitted it only adds up to 6.2. It looks like either the number of units > calculated for Lincoln Wood or the gross density are wrong. > Putting it all together, we get an alarming vision of the potentialities of > the rezoning exercise. The table below is a screenshot from the model > submitted. *Up to 1,679 units could be built within 0.5 miles of Lincoln > Station*. That is 80% of the existing total number of units in Lincoln (ex. > Hanscom). I realize this is a worst-case scenario, by *why are we even > talking about this risk?* All of this can be avoided if a little bit more > thought is applied to the proposals. > [image: image.png] > *Proposals D1-D3 presented last night suffer from the same deficiencies. > All of them would enable up to well over 1,000 units built in Lincoln.* > *The proposals our group of concerned residents put together and have > presented to the WG, PB and SB do not have any of these problems. The > modeled capacity of our proposals, 7 of which have more than 20% of units > and land in Lincoln Station, exactly matches the maximum number of units > that could be built.* > David Cuetos > Weston Rd >
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