HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-10-24-BLMNCD-min
NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING OCTOBER 24, 2015
AGENDA
1) Summary of Donna and Wendy's meeting regarding neighborhood
conservation districts held on September 2nd (Donna - 15 minutes)
Met with Marilyn Fenollosa (HC & HDC)
Sally Zimmerman (HC)
Richard Canale (Planning Board)
Historic Preservation Protection in Lexington:
Local Historic District - National Registry is different than
local historic district
Architectural Conservation District
Demolition Delay
Preservation Restrictions placed on properties
Neighborhood Agreements - examples are Peacock Farm, Five Fields,
Pleasant Brook neighborhoods; shared documents from
Peacock Farms, Pleasant Brook, Six Moon Hill; sent us e-mail of
the Wellesley document that they are using as a template for
the spring Town Meeting.
Wendy will be talking about characteristics of neighborhood
conservation districts later in the meeting.
2) Summary of the Planning Board initiatives for spring Town Meeting
from Planning Board Residential Policy Committee meeting, September
24th (Donna, Andrea, Terry - 15 minutes)
Aaron Henry, Planning Director, gave introduction and short history.
M.G.L. 40a talks about lots, use and structures in a general way but
towns expand on this. Lexington is more permissive than other
communities and there have been attempts in the past to
address this.
Goal is good land use policy without being overly burdensome.
1924 was the first zoning laws in Lexington and there was no
change between 1924 and 1950. It was considered a single
family residential town. In 1953 they drew a dotted line around
the "center" of town and considered it the "outskirts" of town and
talked about things needed to preserve the character of the town.
So there were three districts:
RS center of Town
RO outskirts of Town
RT along Mass. Ave. (some 2 families by special permit)
It was in 1953 that the lot size went to 30,000 sq. ft. in the RO
district from 15,500.
in 2015 the Planning Board created the Residential Policy Ad Hoc
Committee or RPC. They had a listening session on May 20th of
this year and divided the comments into sections:
1) Town Character
2) Zoning
3) Diversity of Housing
4) Trees
5) Policy
Meeting broke into focus groups at that point:
1) Neighborhood Conservation Districts
2) Zoning Dimensional Controls
FAR - Floor Area Ratio, in other words, how big the building
can be in relationshhip to the lot size
3) Diversity of Housing Types
4) Tree Preservation
So, today, in anticipation of meeting with other neighborhoods that
have been in the process of discussing updated and permanent
neighborhood conservation districts if the Planning Board is able
to get this enabling legislation passed by Town Meeting, we wanted
to make sure that you knew what it will mean, both the pros and
cons.
3) Characteristics of neighborhood conservation
districts (Wendy - 15 minutes)
4) Open discussion of thoughts on creating our own neighborhood
conservation district (Everyone 15 minutes)