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TOWN OF LEXINGTON 117 • tect the purchasers in such sales, the Planning Board origin- ally recommended that that; large tract remain open for either single or two-family development. Since zoning was proposed Mr. McIntosh has communicated with the owners of the various lots sold and has found that close to 90 per cent of them intended to, build single-family residences, so that the Majority Committee now recommends that the status of that district and of the remainder of the two- family area be changed to a single-family district. It is the belief of the majority of your committee that a large preponderance of the townspeople are in favor of limiting the bulk of the vacant land to single-family de- velopment, and opening it to two family development, if at all only when conditions change so as to make it just or nec- essary to do so. That but few two-family houses have been erected in the past does not ensure the owner of any plot of land in town that the next ones to be erected may not be upon lots adjoining his own. Let every resident upon the hill in the vicinity of Bow Street and upon Liberty Heights ask himself "Would the value of my property be impaired by erection of two- family houses upon the next adjoining lots?" if so, it would be to his interest as well as for the benefit of the town to vote for the majority committee's proposal to limit develop- ment upon that hill and on Liberty Heights to single- family dwelling only. Let the owners of properties in North Lexington and in other parts of the town ask themselves "Will our property values be impaired, and our places rendered less desirable for residence if two-family houses be admittedl to the vicinity?" and should they feel that the values would be impaired, let thern vote in favor of the majority committee's report excluding two-family houses from those parts of the town unless and until conditions change materially from what they are. While the majority of your committee feel strongly that the' best interests of the town, and of the individual property owners as well, will be promoted by a single-family development, they are not unmindful of the reluctance felt by many to exclude to too large an extent, the building of two-family dwellings. Accordingly they have spent a great deal of ,time studying carefully all sections of the town to discover areas that might, without harm, be opened to two-family development, but without satisfactory results. 118 ANNUAL REPORT For example it was suggested that two-family develop- ment might well be permitted along the lines of the present street railway or upon the highways that might be expected to serve the principal bus lines, but in almost every instance it has been found that contiguous to these highways are large areas of undeveloped lands which can be reached in future development, only by branch streets leading from such highways, hence to permit a more congested two- family development along the lines of the principal high- ways would be to compel entrance to the undeveloped pro- perties in the rear through such two-family areas, and would thus instantly relegate the undeveloped properties in the rear to the status of the properties through which entrance thereto must be had. In other words, to permit two-family developments to line our principal streets vir- tually means to reduce all the vacant areas in the rear to the same .type of development; therefore to open the prin- cipal streets to two-family development would mean at one stroke to depreciate area in rear thereof of the extent of hundred of dollars per acre for prospective development. The majority of your committee, therefore, are obliged to adhere generally to the position taken by the Planning Board in its first report namely, to encourage the building of single-family rather than two-family dwellings. We now recommend, however, a two-family area ex- tending from Follen Road to Plainfield Street upon both sides of Massachusetts Avenue and to the east extending to the railroad and embracing everything therein not devoted to business. On Woburn Street, we recomend a two-family district embracing both sides of Woburn Street—so far as not designated business—as far as Utica Street, and both sides of Cottage and Vine Streets. The above are the only two-family areas additional to those designated in The Planning Board's earlier report, that we have been able to carve out of the entire available areas that would not seem to injure rather than improve the sections in which they are located. By the Planning Board's first report very considerable areas were opened to the building of what were termed semi-detached or double dwellings where the apartments were side by side each with its ground floor and cellar and with a vertical partition wall between. Practically all