🏘️Positions

I very much support Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), allowing a homeowner to create an additional unit out of their existing structures or in new structures on their property.  This provides affordable housing in a distributed manner throughout town.  There will be provision for 1200 sq ft Accessory Apartments AND the new state mandated 900 sq ft Accessory Dwelling Units "by right".  We are required to remove the cap on the number of units however given the limited production of these units over the past 5 years in Lincoln, we are not a high risk of being overrun by this type of housing.

I believe our town should dedicate more financial resources to establish a baseline on key metrics (e.g. wait times, queue lengths) on all of major cut-through roads and then use predictive modeling to determine the likely impact of any new development on any of our major roads.  We should not settle for the basic traffic study that a developer does which focuses solely on the impact to the specific road where the parcel is.  For those that live on our major roads or major road adjacent, I ask you to join me to demand both baseline studies and more thorough impact studies for any new development, lowering speed limits on our major roads and requesting stricter enforcement of those speed limits .  If you live in a subdivision or side street, I ask that you be sensitive to those that live on our major cut-through roads.

The MBTA Communities Act is a law that was passed by our Commonwealth with bi-partisan support and we as a town have agreed to a specific design which re-zones parcels in broad swaths all around Lincoln Station.  Remember, only 20% of the units were required to be near Lincoln station according to the law. I believe, had we taken more time, we could have come up with a better, more creative plan that would have prioritized our current residents while still supporting modest growth to help ease the housing crisis.  I would be interested in making modifications to our plan that still meets the law's requirements however better balances the needs of our current residents with the needs of future residents.  I recognize that this would take time, perhaps 2-3 years to be re-planned.   Again, the town would have to be willing to commit some limited budget to these activities.

The so-called "snob-zoning". I believe these were put in place in the 1950s primarily to protect Lincoln against suburban sprawl and to protect our farmland.   Along with our conservation land and our schools, I believe this feeling of openness is what attracted most of us to Lincoln in the first place.   However, I would like to study reducing this minimum in some new zone(s) to encourage limited townhouse development (e.g. 4-5 units per acre).  I believe townhouses (e.g. Farrar Pond Village) are a style we should encourage over condominium style buildings (e.g. Oriole Landing).