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TOWN OP LEXINGTON iib Mr. Burrill's entire frontage and permit his property as a whole to have the same status. At the junction of Bedford Street and North Hancock Street the previous report of the Planning Board recom- mended a business district extending from North Hancoc:c Street, north on the easterly side of Bedford Street for a distance of .two hundred feet, being the section now prac- tically occupied by a block of stores being built by the Lex- ington Building Trust. No occasion has arisen for cang- ing the section so allotted to business on Bedford Street, but the maority Committee recommended additionally that. said business section be extended easterly on the northerly side of North Hancock Street to include the property and store of E. W. Ormond now existing in that locality, being to a distance of two hundred fifty feet from Bedford Street. RESIDENCES The principal point of difference between the minority and the majority committee is upon the matter of single- family dwelling house districts. The minority members insist that a single •general residential district only be provided to embrace all parts of the town not devoted to manufacturing and business, and within which all kinds of residences may be permitted so long as they comply with the building law. The majority committee are firm in the belief that the best interests of the town and of its individual property owners will be served by limiting the major part of the present undeveloped area of the town to th3 erection el single-family dwellings only, permitting the erection of two-family dwellings in such districts, only when it shai1 have been determined that successful development cannot be had with single-family dwellings and when public necc,- sity makes two-family dwellings necessary. The several hearings granted by the Planning Board and by the present committee, and conferences held with citizens owning .the major part of the undeveloped area of the town, have made it perfectly clear that these owners prefer a development of single-family homes. The onny citizens who advocate throwing open these areas to indis- criminate building of single and two-family dwellings are individuals living in the center of the town who have no considerable land of their own to place upon the market and whose solicitude seems to be not so much in behalf of 116 ANNUAL REPORT the townspeople, as in behalf Of unknown outsiders who may hereafter feel prompted to move to Lexington and who may then desire to erect two-family houses. The minority members of the committee suggest that all land other than what is reserved for manufacturing and business, be opened to every kind of residential develop- ment, and later, when the need rises, protect the town against undesirable development by restrictions to be then imposed. To pursue this course would be to lock the door after the horse had been stolen. If a man owns a considerable area and desires to dis- pose of it for single-family dwelling development, he would suffer serious damage if, after having held it for such de- velopment for a period of years, he were to awake some morning and find that the farm next adjoining him had been sold for two-family development. It would then be too late to zone the district to head off such development. On the other hand, if all the land wel•e zoned for single- family development and it were found that any given por- tion could not be disposed of at a reasonable figure for such development, the owners and adoining owners could peti- tion the town to have that tract opened up for two-family development. If the change should be a desirable one for the town, it would then be possible to impose terms, such for example, as requiring the houses to be of a certain character, or size, or cost as a condition to the opening up of the tract for two-family development, which conditions could not otherwise be imposed. The minority argue that the town as a whole should be open to al] kinds of residential building and that restric- tions, if any, should be by individual agreement among the owners. The answer to that proposition is that it is seldom possible to obtain agreement of all owners of a considerable tract to restrictions of that sort, and unless all join, none can be protected. Furthermore, restrictions imposed in- dividually by deed are frequently wiped out by foreclosure of mortgage, the owner of which may not have consented to the restriction. It is significant that Mr. Neil McIntosh, who -bas de- veloped a large tract in the vicinity of Grape Vine Corner and who has sold lots to more than 200 owners who intend to build, many of them the coming year, originally sold the palasaa eq of aulllomp so ad/Si of sr, uollrijiull Inotlllet punt thereon. Knowing this fact, and feeling it a duty to pro»