HomeMy WebLinkAbout1977-10-CBD-rpt.pdf REPORT
of the Planning Board Subcommittee on
The Central Business District
Lexington, MA
Committee members,
Karsten Sorensen, Chairman
Larry Chait
AnNony Mancini
Richard Michelson
Don Olon
Louis Spencer
Submitted, October, 1977
As a result of the State passing a new zoning act,
the displacement of the retail food store by a bank,
and continuing concern for the vitality of the town
center, the Planning Board set up a Committee to study
the Central Business District in the center in order
to identify the problems facing the center and to make
reoemmendations to the Planning Board with respect to
necessary or desirable zoning changes which would enhance
the CBD as a community asset. as well as improve its
eoonomic viability and its ability to serve the Lexington
community. As part of this task the Committee was to
consider th-a desirability and the feasibility of creating
a transitio:.1 zone between the business district and the
adjacent residential zones.
The first question that faced the Committee was the
problem of tahat the center should be and what kind of
services it should make available to the residents of the
town and to visitors to this area. To start considering this
question is to open Pandora's Box - much time has been spent
discussing this issue both during meetings and other
times There are probably as many opinions as to what the
center should be as there are people in the town.
There are some general statements which can be made.
The area should contain activities that are both necessary
2
and desirable for normal life. These would include
cultural, institutional, governmental, retail and
service activities It is over the specifics that there
is disagreement. At the present time there is much
talk about the fact that the center may have too many
banks In the past, however, some have felt that there
were too many shoe stores or restaurants. Tomorrow it
may be that there will be too many of the very services
which we are trying to encourage today. The question
of what the center should be is central to the whole question
of what the problems are and how to improve the area.
The Committee does feel that the center should be
for retail businesses, i .e. , those businesses which sell goods
to the walk in trade. Beyond this group there seems to
be differing opinions. Some feel that the center should
not be regu..ated and that the economics of the area should
determine the mix of the businesses there; that this
will in the long run result in a better center for the
town than any board which might control the area might effect.
The other end of the spectrum on this issue is that the
area should be reserved for retail businesses and that
other businesses should either be regulated by Special
Permit or encouraged to locate in other zones that have
been reserved for those activities In any case, the
Committee is aware that in the end the economics of the
3
situation will in the end determine the services in the
Center. No business will locate there unless it can make
an adequate profit - there must be tufficient demand for
its services or goods; there must he enough traffic of
customers, and the expenses must not be too high. It is
for this reason that the Committee decided to look at the
problems fading the present businesses in the Center and to
identify those which the town could take steps to alleviate,
hopefully without much controversy.
The primary problem which faces the present Center, one
which impacts not only the businesses in the Center but
also the residential areas adjacent to the Center, is that
of parking. The parking problem has many facets. Some areas
of the Center have problems all of the time and all of the
parking areas are full some of the time. In any case,
there are not enough parking spaces for short-term parking
for customers. of the retail businesses which one would
like to encourage in the Center. Some of the reasons for
this will be dealt with later.
There have been a number of studies of the town, and
the Center in particular, done over the last thirty years.
Three in particular were discussed in varying detail by the
Committee; the Lexington Center Report of 1966, which was
done by Economic Development Associates for the Chamber of
Commerce and the Planting Hoard; the Metcalf and Eddy
4
Report of 1968, which was done for the town as a proposal
for a master plan but was never accepted as such; and the
League of Women Voters study of parking in the Center, which
was done in 1974. A number of other reports have recently
come to the attention of the Committee. These include
reports dating back to 1946. Each of these reports have
identified the lack of adequate parking as a major problem
of the Center, and each has made suggestions for helping to
solve this problem. The above reports should be read by
anyone who is interested in the problems of the Center.
This is not to say that the Committee endorses any of these
reports, but it does feel that some of the suggestions can
serve as good bases for attacking the parking problem. (One
cannot endoese all the reports in their entirety as they
make recommendations which in some eases are mutually
exclusive with suggestions made in other reports. )
In spire of the large number of' studies of the area
and the similar conclusions and many similar suggestions,
there has been little action taken by the town in order
to alleviate the parking problem. There are a number of
reasons for this inaction. The primary one is that there
does not seam to be agreement on what the Center should be
and which businesses should be encouraged or discouraged
from operating there. Without some kind of agreement on
what the Canter should be, it is difficult to measure
the 'success' of the present Center, and to decide whether
5
any action would improve or worsen the situation.
The other reasons for the inaction on the parking
problem include the cost of change, politics, inertia,
attitude and the presence of other sources of services
such as the Burlington Mall. At this time of tight budgets,
or in fact at any time, people are not particularly fond
of funding projects which they see as primarily benefitting
only a small group. In order to get town funding or
backing for any project in the area of parking, it is
necessary to convince the citizens of the town that the
Center is art asset to the whole town and the problems there
affect all the people in the town. In any political group,
the members may represent different constituencies with
differing interests, interests which are often mutually
incompatible. In such a case it is not unreasonable that
rational individuals with differing interests cannot come
to agreement on certain issues, no matter how much discussion.
A parking lot may be of benefit to the user, but it is a
nuisance to the abutter, and it is not unreasonable that
there will ne disagreement over the placement of parking
facilities.
Even when people are all in agreement regarding some
issue, there is often much ground work to be done before the
goals can ba reached. And unless there is continuity of
effort, then any attempt at meaningful change is bound to fail.
6
Of course one often runs into the problem that many people
prefer the status quo because it is known, whereas the new
is unknown and therefore risky. But, it must be kept in
mind that the world is not static a:1d that there is no option
of maintaining the status quo. There is change all the time
and it is important to try to make this change improve the
situation and not deteriorate it.
Finally, the presence of the Burlington Mall and
adjacent shopping areas must be considered. Not only do
people come to expect easy access to parking, but the
presence of a large number of retailstores makes some feel
that the retail services in the Center are superfluous, and
that it is not necessary to encourage or support them.
The Committee, faced with many studies on the Center
and very little action for one reason or another, decided
to concentrate on what it considered to be a major problem
in the Center, one that there seemed to be general agreement
on that it was a problem with some real possibilities for
alleviating, namely the problem of finding adequate parking
in the Center. After all the work that has been done
previously, the Committee is not anxious to repeat the
work only to have the results end up as a study to be filed
on a shelf in the library.
The problem of parking has arisen over the years
because of increased affluence which brought with it a
7
greater dependence on the automobile as the primary mode
of transportation and the correspona.ing decrease in the
use of public or mass transit. In the early part of this
Century, many people from Boston came out to Lexington by
trolley to visit an amusement park at what is now Route
128 and Bedford Street. The trolley is now gone and the
bus service is not as frequent. With automobile popularity
and wider home ownership there also came more spread out
suburbs. The result has been that any area which is to
serve people must have the space for their automobiles.
The problem of lack of parking in the Center manifests
itself to the merchants in town through customer complaint
and decreasing use of the Center. The automobile has made
distance aLnost irrelevant as a consideration in deciding
where to make purchases. The time ':o drive to Burlington
Mall is often less than the amount of time it takes to
find a parking space in the Center.
There are several options which can be followed to
deal with parking problems. The first is to do nothing.
Basically the idea is that the economics of the situation
will eventually bring about a proper balance of services in
the Center This approach requires no outlay from the town
and requires no increase in the restrictions on businesses
in the Center. One argument for this approach is that the
8
land owners, who have a financial stake in the future of
the center, can better determine what the services should
ben than could a governmental board.
The second option is to work to increase the number of
spaces that are presently available in the Center and to
alther the patterns of use of those spaoes. There are several
ways of increasing the number of spaces' acquire more land
for municipal lots, make use of existing non-public lots in
the area for all-day parkers, consolidate fragmented parking
areas, change layouts in present lots, and build parking
structures. Each of these approaches has good points and
bad points. Some require money from the town. or at least
guarantees on loans.
A third option is to place restrictions on the CB distriot.
In the last year there have been a number of expansions of
existing bv.ildings that have eliminated parking spaces used
by all-day parkers. The users of these spaces and the employees
in the new buildings must now find other places to park in
an already overcrosded center. Restrictions can be in the
form of changes to the Use Table, Special Permits, and ohange;s
in the dimensional requirements for businesses in the Center.
Business uses that were felt to be incompatible with more
desirable uses could be restricted and encouraged to locate
in other zones. Parking could be required. Present private
parking areas could be acquired.
The Committee feels that to do nothing will result in a
deterioration of the center as a community asset. The lack
9
of parking will force customers to go elsewhere for shopping
and the Center will eventually become an office center with
a few businesses such as restaurants and banks. In order for
the Center to stay a community asset with a wide variety of
services available, the town must take an interest and a
number of step'\ must be implemented immediately.
There is a feeling among at least some of the members of
the committee that the town should consider changing the Use
Table for allowable uses in the center in order to give retail
businesses a better chance to compete for the available space.
At the present time there appear to be a number of different
types of businesses that are able to pay almost any rent, no
matter how high. The result is that it is difficult to attract
new retail businesses to the center. The difficulty with this
issue is that it requires that the question of what an ideal
center would. contain must be answered before one can decide
what busineeees and services should be allowed and what should_
be restricted. While diversity is desirable to some, duplication
of services often helps to increase the traffic for those
services with the result that all businesses benefit. This is
one reason that shopping malls are successful.
There are a number of problems with placing more res-
trictions un. the Center. The zoning- laws must be in conform-
ance with the state zoning act and activities cannot simply
be restricl•sd because it seems to be a good idea. Restrictions
must be for one of the reasons in the statement of the purposes
10
of the zoning act. Once it is decided that a restriction is
to be invoked, the question arises as to who will be the
administrator of the law and what the criteria will be for
the issuance of a permit or an exception to the rules. All
of these questions have been discussed by the committee but
very few answers have been found. Tne best that can be said
now is that the question of restrictions is still a very open
one.
The Committee would like to make a number of recommen-
dations for actions that can be implemented by the Town in
order to help with the parking problem in the Center. The
ideas are not necessarily original, but they are still worth
implementing. They do not constitute anything in the way of
a master plan, nor are they intended to completely solve the
parking problem in the Center. The suggestions are brought
forth as some actions that cen be taken without great espense
and they constitute a first step in alleviating the parking
problem If the town is unwilling to take even these modest
steps, then it is felt that further discussion and study by
this commit':ee are futile.
11
The Committee makes the following recommendation:
1 . There should be no expansion of the CB district until
the parking in the area is improved. There should be no
special permit or variance issued without adequate off-
street parking for employees and expected customers.
2. A Parking Authority should be established.
3. Meter rates should be raised to 100 per hour. Parking
should be limited to one hour on streets and two hours
in municipal parking lots. Meters should be installed
on Waltham and Muzzey Streets to Forest Street, and on
Meriam St. to Oakland St. Meters should be installed on
Mass. Ave. from Woburn St. to the Post Office and from
Winthrop Rd. to Wallis Court.
4. Parking fines should be increased
5 . Money from meters and fines should be reserved for
projects that will improve parking in the Center under
the auspices of a Parking Authority
6. Given the increased usage of parking spaces after
6 P M , the hours that the meters on Mass. Ave and
Waltham St. are in effect should be increased to 9 P M
six days a week.
7 . Parking in the areas adjacent to the Center should
he mon. tored and restricted if necessary to promote the
12
flow of traffic Should the parking in these areas need
to be restricted, parking shoh:.d be prohibited during a
time period during the morning. (e.g. 8 A M to 10 A M )
8. With the exception of the Battle Green, signs that
restrict the duration of parking to one or two hours
should not be used. Where it is necessary to restrict
duration of parking, meters should be used.
9. Negotiations §hould be started with owners of private
parking areas in and adjacent to the Center for use by
all-day parkers with stickers. The charge for the stickers
would pay for expenses associated with such a program
10. One of the first applications of the money derived
from the parking meters and fires should be the develop-
ment of space for all-day parking (for example, the
Meriam St. lot and the Edison Lot )
All of the above suggestions are, the committee feels,
low cost actions that do not require any large expenditure of
funds by the town. In fact, if they help to revitalize the
Center, the town may actually realize, a net gain through
increased tax revenue