The town has created an FAQ website <https://www.lincolntown.org/faq.aspx?TID=52> for the upcoming Special Town Meeting. Unfortunately, I hesitate to promote it, as it contains numerous misstatements, embellishments, and misleading claims related to the Nature Link project. Given that I’ve looked into this issue in considerable depth, I felt it would be helpful for residents to understand the shortcomings I’ve observed.
Regrettably, this is not the first time the town has adopted a strong stance on a warrant article and used its website as a de facto vehicle to promote a particular point of view. This kind of conduct is corrosive to our civic life, fostering—rightfully—distrust in our institutions. It is especially disappointing to see this happening while dedicated residents are volunteering substantial time and effort to improve our Town Meeting process through their service on the Town Meeting Study Committee. I’ve shared my concerns with some of them already: unless we can rebuild trust and adopt a more balanced approach to how we communicate town issues, meaningful improvement will remain elusive. David Cuetos 2. Is any town funding going to the housing developer? <https://www.lincolntown.org/faq.aspx?TID=52#> No! Town CPA funds will be used for land conservation, not housing. The developer will pay market value for the land for the neighborhood. As a side note, in 2025 the state is projected to provide a 20 - 25% match to our CPA funds. CPA funds are explicitly intended to fund in full or subsidize this type of project. These are existing funds and property taxes will not go up to fund the project. The reality is much more complicated. While it is true that Lincoln's taxpayer money won't be directed into the developer's bank account, it will compensate Farrington, who will in turn compensate the developer. Civico will be deeded ~2 acres of forested land that currently belongs to Farrington to build more housing. They will also receive title or easement (unclear) to place a septic tank and leaching fields in land currently owned by Farrington. This allows Civico to build materially more housing units than it would be possible if all their development had to be circumscribed to the Panetta land. Obviously none of this would be possible without the town providing $950k to compensate Farrington. Land to the right of the red line to be deeded from Farrington to Civico for incremental housing (septic land to be transferred not shown) 4. Is there a need for this type of housing in Lincoln? <https://www.lincolntown.org/faq.aspx?TID=52#> Yes! We are losing moderately sized homes in Lincoln to tear downs, decimating Lincoln’s smaller housing stock for families. It is a wild exaggeration to say that Lincoln’s housing stock is being decimated. In the last 24 months there have only been two housing teardowns in Lincoln, one of which was the Commons. That makes 12 Browning Lane the only true tear down in 2 years. This is information that was provided by the town’s building commissioner. The median property in Lincoln over the last 12 months sold for $1.1M, which is about the price of the 14 market-rate smaller houses in this project. Three will be considerably more expensive and three considerably cheaper. There is always some housing need in Lincoln, but there is nothing about this price point that is unusual in town. 5. 5. Why not build denser housing? <https://www.lincolntown.org/faq.aspx?TID=52#> The lot is very restricted due to wetlands. We need a diverse stock of housing in town, and while multi-family apartment units fill one type of need, this addresses the need for starter homes or downsizing opportunities. The lot could work perfectly fine for a multi-family development, in fact, almost all of the rezoning we did for HCA, which is multi-family, happened in much smaller lots. I would venture to say that the real reason for this type of housing is that it was more profitable for the developer. 9. 9. Why is this important to Farrington? <https://www.lincolntown.org/faq.aspx?TID=52#> This purchase agreement gives Farrington Nature Linc funding that allows them to continue their mission of bringing inner city children to experience nature on the Lincoln site. Importantly, it also gives them a long-desired opportunity to have access to their property off of Page Road in addition to the busy Route 2 driveway. Farrington can improve its Route 2 access through a streamlined approval process. Because their access is limited to a single residential outlet and serves no broader traffic purpose, it falls under Category I <https://www.mass.gov/doc/700-cmr-1300-approval-of-access-to-massachusetts-department-of-transportation-highways-and-other-property/download>—the lowest administrative threshold—according to the Department of Transportation’s Highway Department’s guidelines. The approval is a streamlined process that can be conducted electronically using the State’s online platform <https://shaps.massdot.state.ma.us/>. Massachusetts law <https://regulations.justia.com/states/massachusetts/700-cmr/title-700-cmr-13-00/section-13-03/#:~:text=(a)%20Category%20I%20Permits.,by%20the%20District%20Permits%20Engineer.> requires application reviews to be completed in no more than 40 business days and can be conducted electronically using the State’s platform. 2,500 permits are approved every year. During the site visit conducted at the Farrington property last week, its executive director informed the visitors that roughly twelve years ago Farrington conducted an investigation to estimate the cost of that Route 2 improvement. At the time, the projected cost was pegged at approximately $150,000, which adjusted for construction cost inflation is approximately $250,000 in today’s dollars. Farrington’s executive director admitted during the Planning Board meeting on 5/27 that no further exploration of this matter was conducted during these negotiations. This is important because the RLF had made the case in the past that the inclusion of the Panetta land in the deal was unavoidable, being the only possible solution to improve Farrington’s access. It was contradictory, but perhaps refreshing, to see its executive director talk about the desire to build housing as core to the deal on 5/23 (Video at 36:41 <https://shorturl.at/9fnzf>). In light of the evidence and these recent statements, it is hard to see the Panetta easement as being much more than a pretextual justification to develop the Panetta land. 10. Can we just conserve the land and not build the housing? <https://www.lincolntown.org/faq.aspx?TID=52#> No. This is a complex deal that balances the needs of multiple parties, and this is the moment when all the stakeholders have come together. As shown above, Farrington could have decided to improve its own road access and avoid the need for an easement from the Panettas. They could have been fully compensated by Lincoln, Cambridge and private donations. The decision to build housing was an explicit decision by the RLF and Farrington. 11. Will there be public access to the conservation land? <https://www.lincolntown.org/faq.aspx?TID=52#> Yes, a new public trail will be established through the Farrington site that will connect to Page Road and existing trails on the Osborne Farm property. The trail is only new in that it will be provided an official easement. The trail is already used by neighbors. The RLF is also grossly exaggerating the length of the trail. As you can see in my measurements below using the town’s GIS map, the trail is approximately 0.7 miles, less than half of the advertised 1.5 miles.
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