HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-03-14-LHRC-min-attLexington Human Rights Committee Position statement
on Article 2 for Special Town Meeting 2025
The LHRC agreed to the following statement by a vote of 4-0-0 on Friday, March 14, 2025.
Committee members in attendance were Christina Lin, Stephanie Hsu, Rachel Levy and
Stephanie Ryan.
The right to adequate housing is a human right recognized in international human
rights law as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. - United Nations
Human Rights (OHCHR)
In 2023, The Lexington Human Rights Committee voted unanimously in support of Article 34 to meet
the Massachusetts State’s MBTA Communities Act requirements as well as the need for diversifying
Lexington’s housing options in the backdrop of a severe housing shortage crisis that continues to
persist today.
Two years later, an unexpected surge in development applications triggered concerns of potential
uncontrolled growth prompting Article-2 and public discourse around zoning in Lexington that became
so heated and divisive, our community momentarily lost our sense of civility and decorum. It was
within these challenging conditions that the Planning Board, staff, and proponents of Article-2
managed to forge a compromise—one that offered the community a chance to find relief and an
opportunity to overcome the divide that has kept us from moving forward.
While this compromise may have been necessary in the short term, it is crucial to acknowledge that
Article-2 will likely impede the development of much-needed housing and risk prolonging the
affordability challenges that already weighs heavily on our community and in the region. A key voice
unheard and unable to participate in these conversations, but still impacted by our decisions, are
those who cannot afford to live in Lexington and those experiencing the brunt of the housing shortage
crisis.1 Our decisions ripple well beyond Town property lines and even though we cannot solve the
entire state’s housing crisis, continued delaying of this process has dangerous consequences that,
collectively in the region, contribute to increased risk of homelessness and even begun driving talent
out of state.2,3
Much of the existing issues of affordability in Lexington is a result of decades long zoning policies that
limited development to single-family housing [which covers the majority of developable land]. This, in
combination with surging demand for housing driven by a significant population increase in the region
created an enjoyable period of wealth concentration in Lexington and a loss of middle and lower
3 Homelessness in Greater Boston: Trends in the Context of Our Broader Housing Crisis.
2 Younger, educated residents are leaving Mass. because of housing costs
1 a theme emerged, over and over, about the prioritization of municipal insiders over outsiders, and the prioritization of local needs over
regional needs. In this common framework, race and wealth may go unmentioned, but the characteristics are often embedded in the
distinctions, as the region has been so segregated across multiple demographic dimensions across the entire century I have examined. –
Exclusionary By Design (pg 39)
income family housing. Left unchecked, we now face increasing issues of affordability where middle
and workforce families are increasingly driven out of and priced out of Lexington and the state.4,5
Without building a meaningful volume of housing and diversifying our housing options beyond
single-family units, we will continue to struggle to make Lexington affordable to transit and
commercial development and continue to face the high burden of operating and capital expenses to
sustain the level of services we currently enjoy.
The success of the compromise should not be seen as a final resolution but as a starting point—a
chance to reflect on the importance of continued dialogue and education. We urge Town Meeting
members and the community to remain engaged in these discussions, as they are critical to ensuring
that future zoning policy changes are met with understanding and support rather than backlash. If we
fail to foster constructive and informed conversations, we risk implementing policies that impede
progress and further entrench our challenges around housing affordability.
While Article-2 was proposed with the best of intentions, its original form nearly put our community at
risk of falling out of compliance with the MBTA Communities Act, jeopardizing Lexington's eligibility for
significant grants and funding that directly support our roads, schools, and essential infrastructure.
This highlights the critical need for the expertise and wisdom we are fortunate to have on the Planning
Board and staff; and the need for a process to help ensure we are making informed decisions that
benefit the entire community. The compromised agreement reached on Article2 demonstrates what
we can accomplish when we find a way to work together even across differences. Let’s continue to
work towards greater housing affordability and inclusion, ensuring that Lexington remains aligned with
our values of being a welcoming and accessible place for all.
Below, we emphasize and reassert points of consideration on housing and urge Town Meeting
Members and the Select Board to continue to work to support affordability by protecting housing
development efforts.
1. Lower density cap jeopardizes production of inclusionary housing:
“Most single-family homes are owner occupied, and expensive, so single-family-only zones pose barriers to entry
for renters and low-income people, as well as people who for various reasons need other types of housing.
Single-family-only requirements lack flexibility to accommodate the changing needs of residents.” – Exclusionary
By Design (pg 34)
The lower density cap proposed in Article2 will have a disproportionately higher impact on the
production of inclusionary housing. Reducing the footprint of development and setting a
density cap effectively shrinks project sizes (especially on smaller lots) as intended. However,
by forcing smaller scale projects, we make it much harder for developers to pursue projects
large enough to absorb the costs of building inclusionary housing.
The scaleback of housing developments proposed in Article2 may alter our feasibility for
building inclusionary units at the 15% requirement down to 10% (for projects with 8 units or
more).
5 ‘Nowhere to hide:’ Housing costs keep climbing in all corners of New England - Federal Reserve Bank of
Boston
4 Massachusetts housing crisis testimony reveals complexity of issue
2. Challenges to affordability and affordable and inclusionary housing:
Affordability in housing spans a wide range of incomes and needs inclusionary housing at all
levels of income, including 80% AMI (area mean income). Middle-income and working-wage
priced units are essential to de-escalate rising housing prices in our region.
“In recent years, as housing costs in greater Boston have become increasingly unaffordable, middle-income
households that have not traditionally struggled to find housing are finding themselves priced out of entire
neighborhoods.
...any healthy city is home to an economically diverse range of residents from across the income spectrum. A
strong middle-income population prevents income polarization, bridging the gap between a city’s low-income
and high-income residents. Moreover, middle-income residents are a critical part of any city ’s economy. Their
discretionary income supports local businesses, and many middle-income workers – including teachers, nurses,
and police officers – provide valuable services to communities.”
Middle-Income Housing Production in the Inner Core Phase 2 prepared by the City of Somerville and MAPC
(Metropolitan Area Planning Council) 2019
Furthermore, definitive studies have shown that increasing supply is an essential component
of lowering housing costs over all. “New market-rate housing proposals are often met with pushback
based on skepticism that these new units will not contribute to meeting growing needs for affordable housing. …
research shows that new market-rate units have widespread positive effects on affordability across all housing
submarkets.” - The Data-Backed Case for How Increasing Production Can Help Solve The Affordable Housing
Crisis in Massachusetts.
3. Impact on Town Center ’s Economic vibrancy:
Revitalization of the Town Center has been an ongoing effort and consistently requested by
residents. Town hired consultants have recommended multi-family housing development in
Town Center as an important remedy to these concerns.
Currently, the 2023 Article 34 zoning provides corridors of density needed to support a
stronger commercial tax base and public transit development as laid out by Lexington NEXT’s
comprehensive plan. Multi-family housing in this area would provide easy access to public
transit, walkability to town services and amenities, and bring economic vibrancy to local
businesses in the area.
4. Housing shortage is linked to homelessness:
“…addressing homelessness in Greater Boston in the long term will require structural solutions, specifically the
construction of far more diverse, lower-cost housing. This approach will ensure that families at all income levels
can access decent housing without risking bouts of homelessness.” - Homelessness in Greater Boston: Trends in
the context of our broader housing crisis.
Housing cannot be considered in isolation from the region and severe housing shortages are
tied to increases in homelessness. Our decisions with zoning inevitably have ripple effects
extending well beyond our borders. The MBTA Communities Act was created against a
backdrop of a prolonged and growing housing shortage crisis reaching a deficit of 200,000+
units. It is not a problem Lexington alone can solve, but Article2 will not be as effective as the
current zoning policy passed in 2023 under Article 34.
5. Zoning policy change should be led by Planning Board members: The foundation of
the zoning changes made through Article 34 in 2023 was a multi-year long process and an
analysis of commercial zones in part documented in the LexingtonNext Comprehensive Plan.
The districts themselves were defined through 24 community meetings and countless more
Planning Board and Staff hours and were aimed not only at addressing housing concerns, but
also to address the stagnation of our commercial offerings and tax base.
What we know from decades, if not a century, of zoning policy in our country and region, is
that limiting development to single-family homes and obstructing needed housing leads to
segregation along racial and socio-economic lines. Let’s find a way to keep the conversation
going, not assign motives to one another and work towards a more inclusive, affordable and
diverse community that most community members expressed strong support for in the three
public hearings around Article2.
6. Student enrollment does not strongly correlate to housing production as shown
by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) study in 2017 and 2024.6
Lexington is a community that experienced increased student enrollment while most
communities saw declining enrollment without significant growth in our housing. The
driving factors of enrollment are more likely due to a reinforced cycle of wealthier
families pursuing high-ranking schools leading to income segregation of families.
The majority of data indicate that the development of multifamily housing results in a
net positive financial benefit for Massachuetts municipalities.
https://donahue.umass.edu/business-groups/economic-public-policy-research/massbe
nchmarks/massbenchmarks-journal-2019-v21i1
“I present detailed evidence of the pervasive practice of using zoning to exclude children from new multifamily
housing. This exclusionary practice embodies fiscal zoning and class zoning, although most proponents of it have
only mentioned the fiscal aspect out loud.” – Exclusionary By Design (pg 5)
6 “National studies have found that when comparing across school districts, income segregation of families with children worsened by 15%
over a 20-year period leading up to 2010, driven in large part by self-selection of wealthy families into high-income districts. We speculate
that wealthier families pursuing high-ranking schools may be bidding up housing prices in a limited number of attractive and accessible
districts, with cascading results: these municipalities become less accessible to middle- and low-income families; rising prices may induce
more Baby Boomers to sell their existing units and leave town, thereby freeing up even more units for young families; and higher
socioeconomic status of the school-age population contributes to higher standardized test scores, making the district even more attractive
and reinforcing the cycle, without a single new housing unit being built.” - The waning influence of housing production on public school
enrollment