Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-11-09-LCC-minTown of Lexington Lexington Center Committee Minutes for the meeting of November 9th, 2023 held in Estabrook Hall, 8:30 am in the basement of the Cary Hall Building, Lexington, Massachusetts. Center Committee members present: Richard Brown, Upasna Chhabra, Katherine Huang, Frederic Johnson, Jeffery Lyon, Pamela Lyons, Innessa Manning, Jerold Michelson (Chair), Pamela Shadley Liaisons: Doug Lucente, Select Board, Sandhya Iyer, Economic Development Director, Lorraine Welsh, Economic Development, Capt. Christopher Barry, LPD, Guests: Sorabh Kapor, Clay Oven, Sharon Spaulding, 1666 Mass Ave, Sarah Hartshorn, Chamber of Commerce, Carolyn Steven, Wendy Manz, Cristina Lin, Human Rights Committee We began with the DPW update with John Livsey: Center brick sidewalks will be washed down next week, parking lots will be cleaned before Thanksgiving. Battle Green Streetscape: paving is done, planters in the Spring, island is in, almost all curbing is in, some temporary asphalt is in. The roundabout is to slow vehicles, eliminates all left turns. Fred Johnson noted: anything that slows down traffic is better for safety and business – kudos to DPW for doing this. DPW has hired an architect to work on ADA accessibility issues for Belfrey Park. Lorraine Welsh and Sandhya Iyer gave the Economic Development update: the HDC declined to approve the mural in the back of Revival Café. Still nothing for the Bulpan space. There is an agreement for the Bertucci’s space. Abbott’s will be reopening. Nothing on the Signature Stationer’s space. Doug Lucente noted that feedback is the next step for the Housing Feasibility Study. Signs on the Exterior of Buildings: One needs permission from the property owners to post signs on private property. Then we discussed what are the by-laws concerning signs on public property. Capt. Barry confirmed that the signs on Town poles are coming down – the Town is not taking a position on the issue. (The signs are posters of hostages taken by Hamas during the October 7th attack on Israel.) Christina Lin said that the challenge is getting the message to the public in the way the public can receive it. Dick Brown suggested there might be regulations about political sign in non-residential areas. Jerry Michelson noted that there have been Black Lives Matter and Asian Hate signs in public areas over the years. Doug noted that section 100-5 of the by-laws stats that it is not okay to post signs in public areas without permission. It was noted that telephone poles are not technically owned by the Town. Jerry asked – what are the next steps? There was some discussion as to how to enforce Town by-laws. Pamela Shadley urged two steps 1. Education that this is not allowed and 2. What are the legal outlets for public expression? The consensus was that there should be an education effort in friendly language regarding the by-laws. Innessa Manning asked that we have a future conversation regarding vacant storefronts. Doug urged everyone to participate and help out in the upcoming Lexington Center workshop. Everyone should please weigh in, especially younger voices. Jerry went around and asked for volunteers to help out with the charrette. The Center Committee voted Nine to Zero to approve the minutes of the October, 2023 meeting. We then walked over, en masse, to the entrance to Conte Bikes for a discussion of the bumpout bus stop proposed by DPW at the October meeting. However, the Committee declined to take a vote because between the October and November meetings, the engineers had come up with another bumpout roughly in front of “Love at First Bite.” Unfortunately, a schematic was not available before our meeting so while there was some discussion it was felt that we needed to view the schematic prior to voting. A bumpout in front of LAFB would not need a drain and will be less expensive to build (than a bumpout in front of Conte Bikes which would need a drain.) The cost is roughly estimated to be n the area of $30k rather than $40 to $50K in front of Conte Bikes.