My Take on Planning Board Meeting on January 23, 2024
By Laurie Gray

Here I am again for the next installment of “my take on the planning board meeting.”  My intention is to try to be succinct yet accurate, and also capture the debate aspect of the meeting, whether I personally agree with the resident comments or not.

Much of the conversation today focused on the village center (mall district)

• 45,000 square feet in the total parcel or 33% of the total floor footage (whichever is lower) is required to be commercial.  “Commercial” includes typical retail, a leasing office for the residential building, and gyms or common spaces for the residential building if the general public can join or rent out for a fee.  For reference, the current square footage of commercial space at the mall is somewhere in the ballpark of 45,000 (according to the RLF) to 55,000 square feet (according to the property cards).  

• The percentage retail can drop to any number (including no retail) by special permit (vote by 4 out of 5 of the PB members) if the owner/developer can show that the commercial space is not economically viable.  The PB can require that the owner/developer pay for an independent assessment of the economic viability.

• “Frontage” was changed to be the parts of buildings that face Lincoln road and the parts of the buildings facing the access road that are within 100 feet of Lincoln road.  At the last PB meeting “frontage” included the entire part of buildings facing the access road.  Since there is a 25 foot setback, the first 75 feet of the building facing the access road would be considered “frontage.”  The requirement is the same as last meeting:  60% commercial (typical retail, a leasing office, gyms/common spaces if available to the public), 20% street activating (gyms that are not available to the public, lobbies), 20% anything.  For reference, the current “frontage” on the access road is around 250 feet. A retail establishment on the corner could presumably count as frontage for both Lincoln Road and the access road.

• The definition of commercial was expanded to include bed and breakfast type establishments.

This draft was approved as a final draft to go to the public forums. Click here to read the approved final draft of the HCA Zoning Bylaws Amendment.

Public comments:

• A resident stated that we need to think about the worst case scenario under these bylaws, and make sure that we can live with that worst case scenario.  (my two cents–this was an interesting comment).

• A resident stated that we need to make sure the zoning is written not just for the RLF, who has said it will try hard to keep Donelan’s/retail, but for a future owner as well.

• A resident stated that the economic viability should be of the parcel as a whole, and not just the commercial space, as it was presented in the past that the profits from residential units could subsidize the commercial space.

• A resident stated it was wild that our bylaws could allow the percentage commercial to go all the way to 0% by special permit.

• A resident noted that a 3 story building near Lincoln Road would be a drastic change to the area.  Planning director noted that the corner of Lewis Street has a 3 story building.  The resident noted that that is a much narrower building.

• Several residents noted that these proposed apartments were not family friendly if they were 600 to 800 square feet. 

•  A resident noted that Lexington wrote into its bylaws that any development of more than 40 units have greenspace/play space to be more family-friendly.  This could be written into our bylaws.

• A resident noted that under these bylaws, in phase 1 of the RLF’s plans (which involve the Bank/something special building) there could be a significant reduction in retail from approx. 15,000 square feet currently to approx. 4000 square feet.

• A resident noted that it is going to be hard to vote in March without having more of a visual or concrete plan to look at.  She noted that the full buildout model presented by Utile had major problems as it included parking in what is supposed to be setbacks.

• A resident noted that two bylaw changes (the 45,000 square footage rule and the new definition of frontage, as above) appeared in this meeting seemingly out of the blue.  They were not discussed at the last meeting.  It seemed they were made to address a statement by the RLF at the last meeting that the bylaws did not fit their plans.