HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-09-18-2020-minTown of Lexington
Lexington 20/20 Vision Committee
Minutes of Meeting of September 18, 2015
Parker Room, Town Office Building, 1625 Massachusetts Avenue - 7:45 a.m.
Members Present: Fernando Quezada, Dan Krupka, Joe Pato, Peter Enrich, Peter Lee, Andrew Dixon,
Ginna Johnson
Staff: Claire Goodwin
Visitors: Elaine Ashton, Brian Yurovich, Cristina Burwell
Present: Call to order: 7:56am
o Fernando and Claire will schedule photographer to take group pic later in the meeting
on Oct 30
o Online version of Arts Survey distributed by Cristina. Can be viewed at artslexington.org
o Inku has expressed interest in joining the group — Peter will reach out to her
• Approve minutes from last time
o Approved
• Overview of residential policy initiatives currently under consideration of Planning Board
o Residential policy initiatives: last year abutter comments were concerning and related to
valuation of parcels; complaints against trees; issues triggered road reconstruction;
attempted to take on residential policy; limitations on height of properties was defeated
at Town Meeting; out of this the Residential Policy Committee was created
o Appointed RPC leadership; housing tour; have been meeting for the last few weeks to
prioritize initiatives; Thursday, September 24 at DPW
o Citizens' brought articles against tear -downs at Town Meeting
o Neighborhood Conservation Districts
• Reviewed and approved by Planning Board
• Preserves character of neighborhood; style, color, etc.
• Concerned about t -downs
• Ginna will provide hard numbers
• Joe: Building permits will tell you the number of housing demolished
• Other communities have more restrictive zoning than Lexington: Lincoln,
Concord, Wellesley all have limitations on what you can build on the property
• Wellesley: Denton Road
• To enact: joint meeting with regulating bodies, if 20% of neighbors don't want
to join automatically dismissed. If brought to Town Meeting, need majority vote
• There is pushback about regulating the neighborhoods
• Back Bay is a restrictive zoning community and is valuable
• Opt -out numbers are unknown in LX
• Turning Mill: having a block party in Sept. to discuss and want to bring to TM in
2017
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• Cottage street, Worker Housing close to MA Ave, Byron (considering Home
Owners Association), Five Fields, White Pine, and others
• How do you adjust to the change of the will of the neighborhood with changing
demographics?
• There can be a 10 year limit on conservation districts
• Is there anything that LX can do to encourage low- income individuals to move
into Town?
• Height restrictions (Town rejected previously) — attempting to propose height
restrictions on smaller parcels
• Todd suggested increasing set - backs, dimensional controls for non - conforming
lots
• 70% of lots are non - conforming
• Most communities enforce regulations on non - conforming units
• Any units larger than a certain size, require site -plan review
• Tree preservation —Tree Summit
• DPW, Tree Committee, others
• 130 trees on public property
• Strengthen tree bylaws
• 36 inch caliber trees are being taken out — problematic
• Would like to see specific rules about types of trees that can be
removed
• $500k is the gap between market value and what low- income individuals can
afford
• 244 Wood Street came up as problem parcel
• Planning Board and Ginna are meeting Monday to discuss
• E- Governance
• Update on proposed 20/20 focus area: Subcommittee on Asian Communities
o 12 members
o Issue: have not officially established as sub - committee
o Vision 2020 must vote for it to become official
o Subcommittee was unanimously approved by Vision 2020
o Survey communities similar to Lexington with comparable Asian populations
• Cupertino — 60% Asian
• 20/20 Vision Committee membership
o Encourage people to join
• 20/20 Vision Committee input for Town Annual Report
o Due October 30
o Last bullet: take out age and income to "social diversity"
• Adjourned: 9am
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