2008-05-27-PB-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Minutes for the Meeting of May 27, 2008 Page 3 They requested help from the Selectmen on the following: technical assistance with traffic modeling; understanding Green design; and money for publicity and preparation of materials. Sustainability and traffic mitigation are two very important issues to the Selectmen. The Town has a Sustainability Design Policy for municipal buildings and we should hold commercial developers to a similar standard of energy efficiency, selection of materials and minimal environmental impacts. Increased FAR could be used as an incentive to achieve sustainable design in commercial development. There should be incentives for traffic mitigation to minimize the traffic impacts on the community. The Traffic Mitigation Group has discussed two types of incentives: 1) to deal with infrastructure like sidewalks, bus shelters, traffic calming and access to traffic impact fees; and 2) a strong traffic demand program that puts responsibility on business owners to reduce the number of vehicles. The Planning Board should be encouraged to use density as an incentive to get the type of mitigation that is important to Lexington. Mr. Hornig had some concern about being able to require commercial developments to follow the same sustainability design policies that municipal buildings now follow and whether it is outside the state building code requirements. He asked the Selectmen’s help in trying to improve the state building code to make it more sustainable and green than it is now. Mrs. Krieger reported on discussions by Weston, Waltham, Lincoln and Lexington Selectmen and Planning, plus state legislators and state administrative staff that are talking about mobility on Route 128. They are trying to look at ways that vehicle traffic can be reduced and have a commitment to try and fund a corridor study to begin to look at ways we might mitigate traffic along the Route 128 corridor. We cannot talk about commercial development unless we think of ways to encourage transportation and mobility that is no longer dependent on single occupancy vehicles. Mr. Kelley suggests looking for development that would add value, but would not add density. There is a large publicly owned site which would be a good location for a generating plant, but could also be utilized for a business plan that would include a regional recycling or a transfer station, which would have appeal for value, but not generate a large number of additional cars.