A rushed, broken, and confusing process

How Article 34 MBTA proposal was passed on Town Meeting

Note: Members on Town Meeting, Planning Board, Select Board and School Committee are our neighbors who volunteer their time to serve Lexington. 

This page is about the process the town went through in 2023 and lessons learned. We are in this together and respect each other's work and opinions. 

Many residents were unaware of the consequential zoning change. Town Meeting Members and the public were not given critical information or adequate time before the 4/12/2023 vote. 

1) No notification to abutters or residents town-wide for this consequential zoning change

If you were not aware of the MBTA zoning change proposal, you are not alone. Notification was only sent to property owners in the MBTA districts of 253 acres.


Abutters to the overlay districts were not notified because it is not required when there is no actual construction project being proposed. "Propose zoning not construction" was in multiple Planning Board presentations.


Town Meeting Members’ request for abutter notification and town-wide notification for the consequential zoning change was rejected.

2) Parcels continued to be added until a month before the Town Meeting was to commence 

The Planning Board presentation states that there had been “24 public meetings and presentations”. HOWEVER, what the public was presented in those meetings was a fast moving target. The proposed acreage continued to expand during the 6 months since October 2022 when the work to draft the 2023 proposal started:


From 50 acres to 82 acres to 170 acres (12/14/2022) back to 140 acres (1/6/2023) and then to 253 acres (3/14/2023). Parcels continued to be changed through the three public hearings between 2/1/2023 and 2/15/2023. 


3) The number of acreage was mentioned three times in earlier presentations but disappeared in subsequent presentations. The next time the total acreage appeared was 3/14/2023, 6 days before the Town Meeting was to commence.

Residents were concerned with the hundreds of parcels being chosen (shown on map images), the increased heights, minimized setbacks… some asked about the total acreage, the question was dodged and not answered.


Subtotal of each of the districts was only provided in some of the earlier presentations. Grand total or subtotal were not included in any of the presentations during the three public hearings in February. Residents asked and they were not given an answer. 


A grand total acreage was disclosed for the first time in the final presentation for the Town Meeting vote on 3/14/2023, days before the Town Meeting to commence (3/20/2023). Subtotal of each district was not included in this final presentation. 


The published list of hundreds of parcels in the MBTA zones is in PDF format and does not include acreage. Town Meeting Members who wanted to understand the zoning change scrambled to get the data.


4) The Planning Board and staff refused to give an estimate of potential units throughout the process until 3/14/2023, one week before the Town Meeting was to commence

When asked by Town Meeting members, the answer was “only 2% of Lexington’s total area is zoned for MBTA multi-family” and the Planning Board was only “proposing zoning not construction”. 


This is despite the fact that the Town of Lexington had committed to the state on January 5, 2023 to use the Compliance Model from EOHLC (Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities) to estimate the number of units allowed -"unit capacity".


5) The 13,421 unit capacity number (or a similar estimate based on the Compliance Model from the state) had never been disclosed before the 4/12/2023 Town Meeting vote. 

Unit capacity is based on the Compliance Model developed by the state and all 177 MBTA communities are asked to use it to estimate the potential number of units their zoning proposals may allow. 

On January 5, 2023, Town of Lexington committed to the state to use the model to estimate the number of potential units. 

This Compliance Model was never mentioned in any meetings or presentations. It was a Town Meeting member who did the research and formally requested it.

Town Meeting Member Tom Shiple, candidate for the Planning Board and member of the private "Cluster Housing Study Group," dismissed the Compliance model as "rather simplistic" and "grossly overestimates what we would actually see built in Lexington." 

Despite multiple requests by Town Meeting members, the Planning Board/staff stated that “We do not have anything from the state’s Compliance Model, so we cannot provide information that we do not have.” 

As a result, no estimate from the state's Compliance Model had been disclosed to the public before the 4/12/2023 Town Meeting vote.

6) An estimate of 400-800 units without backup analysis was published for the first time 6 days before the Town Meeting was to commence 

The estimate that “400-800 units will be developed in 4 to 10 years” was added in the Planning Board presentation on 3/14/2023, and did not include any quantitative analysis to back it up. 


Town Meeting Member Tom Shiple, candidate for the Planning Board and member of the private "Cluster Housing Study Group," published their own estimate of "500-700 units in 10 years" on 3/22/2023. 

7) Concerns raised by residents were dismissed

A fiscal impact analysis by resident (3/2023) and questions on school population and cost projections raised by residents were dismissed. 


The Planning Board insisted "only 2% of total land is being zoned", "Proposing zoning not construction", "Fair Housing Laws prevents zoning land use discrimination against families." 

8) Planned Development projects (requiring approval by Town Meeting) were presented as examples in the by-right MBTA zoning

The presentations asserted that by-right MBTA developments could yield similar results as the Planned Development projects, the latter of which had gone through extended engagement and negotiation with the town and community, and required Town Meeting vote. 


MBTA zoning is by-right where the town cannot reject any application that meets the minimum zoning requirements. The site plan review process required in the MBTA zoning can only enforce non-compliance.


9) Expectation to narrow down the proposed locations/acreage was never realized

During the 12/14/2022 presentation, the goal was to “narrow down locations” in the proposed 170 acres. Instead, the Planning Board continued to expand the acreage until 3/1/2023 to 253 acres.


10) Racism claims were made when a compromise McKenna Amendment was brought by 13 Town Meeting members

The Planning Board report on the McKenna Amendment:

“Isolating multi-family housing at the edges of Town near the highways epitomizes traditionally exclusionary zoning practices;”

“Not consistent with the Comprehensive Plan’s stated goals for diversity and inclusion;”

“Not consistent with 2020 Town Meeting’s adopted Article 8 Systemic Racism Resolution”