At its June 17, 2025, meeting, the Housing Coalition (Affordable Housing Trust,
Housing Commission, and Lincoln Foundation) voted unanimously to endorse the
Panetta/Farrington ("Nature Link") project.
Increasing the availability of a diverse range of housing is the critical
mission of the Coalition, and we believe the Nature Link proposal is a good
balance of housing, land conservation, and public trail access. The project
would be the town's most significant addition to our housing stock since Oriole
Landing was approved in 2018. It represents the values of Lincoln and follows
a successful model that has been used many times over the past century:
Preserve important pieces of land, create public access, and thoughtfully build
housing to meet the needs of current and future community members.
Nature Link will give residents an option for mobility within the town and
help, in small part, to relieve the housing gridlock in Lincoln and the region.
This project will provide 17 newly constructed units of smaller detached homes
that are, for Lincoln, more moderately priced. Based on FY25 numbers, just
under 16% of single family homes in Lincoln are assessed at or below $1M.
According to the discussion at the Board of Assessors' most recent meeting,
with annual adjustments, that percentage will drop in FY26 to about 10 - 13%.
Adding 17 new moderately priced homes will have an appreciable impact on the
diversity of Lincoln's housing stock. And, notably, these units could not be
torn down and rebuilt as large houses as happens with other homes in this price
range in Lincoln.
One question raised by community members is whether we should use Affordable
Housing Trust (AHT) funds to increase the number of income restricted units
that are currently proposed. The AHT discussed this possibility and agreed
that funds should not be used at this time for the following reasons:
* Value for investment: The AHT currently has about $1.6M in available
funding, most of which has been set aside from Community Preservation Act
funds. For many years, the Trust's policy direction has been to ensure the
maximum number of Affordable units are created for the investment made. For
the Nature Link project, it would require approximately $650K per unit to turn
a market rate home into one that is available to buyers at 80% of Area Median
Income (AMI). And, unlike rental-unit projects such as Oriole Landing,
increasing from 15% to 25% of units designated as income-restricted does not
allow us to count all of the units on our Subsidized Housing Inventory.
* Ownership Model: The Panetta/Farrington project will be detached homes
with a condo model that charges monthly fees and will require shared expenses
for large future capital costs such as road and septic maintenance.
The income restricted units will have proportionally lower condo fees, which
increases the fees for the market rate units. If you buy down more units, you
increase costs for the remaining units, which risks moving them out of the
moderate price range.
* What if the Town bought the units and rented them out? The Town would
need to buy the units at market rate and would then be responsible for their
share of upkeep in the future.
* Housing Production Plan: The Housing Commission is about to embark on
renewing the town's Housing Production Plan. The purpose of the Plan is to
take stock of our current availability of income-restricted housing and to work
with the Lincoln community to identify future opportunities to build housing
should property become available. The Coalition believes Trust funds should be
guided by an updated Plan.
==============================================
Peggy Elder
Administrative Assistant
to the Select Board &
Town Administrator
Town of Lincoln
T Direct 781-259-2601
D Email [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
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