More than 60 residents packed a room (on Zoom) on Thursday night to hear from the three candidates running for two Planning Board seats in the June 15 election. In the forum organized by resident Sharon Antia, the trio answered questions about issues facing the Planning Board and the town more generally: South Lincoln rezoning, how to support businesses during the pandemic, affordable housing, and more.
Challenger Bob Domnitz, a former Planning Board member who was ousted by Gary Taylor in 2015, said he was running to regain his seat when “I realized the Planning Board was serious about bringing a zoning amendment before Town Meeting to make the Planning Board the decision-maker on major projects” by majority vote, he said. “That didn’t fit in with the nature of Lincoln as I knew it, and it’s antithetical to how we operate as a community.”
Under a proposal unveiled last year by a subcommittee of the former South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee (SLPIC), mixed-use projects would be allowed in areas around the mall and the MBTA station with s site plan review and a special permit from the Planning Board. With that permit, housing projects could be up to 20 units per acre, and a greater maximum lot coverage (60% for residential and 100% for business) would be allowed. However, Town Meeting approval would not be required unless a proposed project exceeded the special-permit density.
Incumbent Rick Rundell pushed back, saying it was “an absurd position” to imply that the Planning Board could take away power from Town Meeting without residents’ consent. (The SLPIC proposal was initially slated for a Special Town Meeting vote in the fall, but the Planning Board withdrew its proposal after encountering opposition.)
“How did they misread the character of this town so much that they worked on a proposal to take away Town Meeting authority for major projects?” Domnitz asked later in the forum.
“I had no idea what was going on [with the SLPIC subcommittee proposal] or I would have fought it,” incumbent Lynn DeLisi responded.
- Planning Board candidate roundup (March 2020)
- New statements by Lynn DeLisi, Bob Domnitz, and Rick Rundell (June 2020)
Rundell, who said he was recruited to the board in 2013 by Domnitz, argued that its duties should not focus on “fossilizing the town in a certain state” and that it has become more transparent since he was the chairman in 2014-15. The board has also “sunsetted” the requirement for site plan reviews after five years. “Today’s Planning Board has made light-years of progress since 2015,” he said.
Some of the questions focuses on what the Planning Board could do to help the town in this time of Covid-19. Incumbent candidate Lynn DeLisi suggested a public health center somewhere in town to promote vaccination once a vaccine becomes available.
The pandemic is a major challenge for both developers and prospective occupants of affordable housing. However, changing zoning regulations now to encourage more affordable housing and demographic diversity is not a good idea, the candidates agreed.
“I think we need to take a breath, wait a few months, and see how things settle out,” Domnitz said. “We may be heading towards a totally new world or at least a new equilibrium, and we need to go cautiously at this point.”
“I’m not sure the Planning Board can necessarily take the lead and make decisions about any of this. These are dialogues we need to have with people in the town,” DeLisi said.
The bigger question, Rundell said, “is whether we want to put a wall around our community and preserve the status quo… or be a part of a larger society, and I don’t think the town is at all aligned on that choice.”
Social diversity in Lincoln is certainly desirable, “but we can’t legislate that. All we can do is set up economic possibilities to create the kind of diversity we’re talking about,” Domnitz said. However, “getting some geographic diversity on our major boards would be constructive,” he added. Few if any current town board and committee members are residents of North Lincoln — although Domnitz is — “and the view from here is a little different than the view from elsewhere in town.”
As to where and how more affordable housing should be built, “does it have to be developing more dense housing in South Lincoln? I think it can be in other ways,” DeLisi said.
The candidates agreed that the SLPIC subcommittee’s efforts to reimagine South Lincoln were flawed but not about how to fix the process. The “sprawling” nature of SLPIC and its subcommittees meant that the effort was “not as transparent or receptive to input as it could have been,” Rundell acknowledged.
The board voted on June 9 to reconstitute SLPIC as a five-member South Lincoln Planning and Advisory Committee (SLPAC) but disagreed on the size of the new panel and who should be represented on it. Four of the five board members approved a group comprising only elected officials, “but I advocated very strongly for a member to be a resident from the affected area, and I was shot down by the other board members and I don’t understand why,” DeLisi said.
The parent board rather than a subcommittee should be responsible for coming up with future rezoning proposals, even though it will create more work and long meetings, Domnitz said. “This is very important and should take place within the Planning Board itself… the board needs to realize they own what that subcommittee is doing.”
Asked about the 2009 Comprehensive Long-Range Plan that was never acted on, Domnitz said, “The plan is vague, let’s put it that way… It’s much easier for people to deal with a tangible proposal than an abstract concept.”
“I mark it as a failure of leadership that there was not real follow-up to that plan,” Rundell said. “Absent planning, Lincoln is going to be like a ship in a storm without rudders or sails and will soon find itself on the rocks.”
From the candidates’ opening and closing statements:
“My motto is ‘Responsible planning by collaboration with neighborhoods’ — that says it all.”
— Lynn DeLisi
“The Planning Board is on the wrong track. We need to put it on a better track so something actually happens in South Lincoln.”
— Bob Domnitz
“Respect for the past and planning for the future with integrity, fairness, and transparency…
Look at today’s board and how they operate, and give your vote to a forward-looking candidate.”
— Rick Rundell
I agree with Lynn DiLisi –
Any changes should be responsible, transparent and with the collaboration of the neighborhood involved .