The MBTA Communities Act, and the effect it will have on Lexington, is personal for Kunal Botla.
A junior at Tufts University, he is starting to think about post-graduate plans. He knows he wants to stay in Lexington, but like the vast majority of young people, affording a place of his own here would be just about impossible for him.
But the state’s new zoning law could put a small place in Lexington within Botla’s reach because it will bring hundreds of affordable units to town.
“I’m committed to staying in Lexington for as long as possible. I’m hoping that I’m able to move into some of the housing that gets developed here as time goes on,” Botla told the Observer in an interview about his candidacy for Planning Board. “There’s a lot of opportunities for younger folks to stay in the town.”
The incoming housing presents the same opportunity for older residents who want to downsize but stay in town, and lower income families who want to move to the area, he noted.
Helping to stifle the affordability crisis through zoning is one of Botla’s main goals if elected. He’ll seek out opportunities for businesses to come to town to shift the tax burden off residents.
“I think we should be looking at…how we can balance the tax base in a way where residents aren’t facing as much of the tax increases or the cost increases from rising costs,” he said.
Botla has already volunteered in town for several years. He is currently the youngest Town Meeting member and was voted on when he was 18 years old. While on Town Meeting, Botla supported bringing the 100 percent affordable housing development to Lowell Street and increasing affordability requirements in special residential developments. He is also the current chair of the Transportation Advisory Committee, through which he works closely with the Planning Board, giving feedback on how incoming developments impact transportation.
Asked whether being young will be an asset or challenge for him, Botla told the Observer he hopes people vote on policy, not age. Botla is studying architecture and planning at Tufts, which he argued is one of his main selling points as a candidate.
“Out of the three candidates this year, I’m the one with the education or training in architecture and planning,” he noted.
“I’m surrounded by the research and the theories and everything that’s going on in urban planning and architecture right now so I think it’s a way of being able to bring some of that more current methodology and information to the board,” he said.
Botla’s education gives him the ability to interpret the bylaw, which is written in legalese and is not accessible for your average layperson. Most Board members, Town Meeting members, and volunteers are often confused by the bylaw, which has created voting obstacles during Town Meeting sessions. Botla can also understand what developers’ submissions would actually look like.
“Having that skill set, having that in my toolbox, is very powerful because not every developer is making a render in the same way. So something might be different but plans, sections, elevations, those technical documents are really what the Planning Board is evaluating and approving,” he explained.
As a way to help translate those complicated topics, Botla wants to create visuals so “it’s possible for residents to have a more complete understanding of what the Planning Board is proposing or what is happening in the town.”
Botla’s education also gives him knowledge of contemporary planning methods, which could be beneficial for Lexington to adopt in different areas of town, he argued. For example, he has studied form-based zoning, a land development regulation method that focuses on the physical form, scale, and design of buildings rather than strict separation of land uses. He thinks that could be utilized in Lexington Center.
Overall, studying municipal planning gives Botla the understanding of how developing different neighborhoods affects the “whole life cycle of the community,” as he put it. He is excited to approach zoning holistically, especially in the Hartwell Ave. district.
“The things that we want to do on Hartwell Ave. in terms of bringing businesses in and modernizing the district, or when we talk about revitalizing the center, or when we talk about affordable housing and how we can protect conservation land and all of these goals, I think having technical knowledge and that expertise is very important,” he said.
Hartwell Ave. has long been a business-park-like neighborhood, lined with one- and two-story commercial developments. The Planning Board is currently considering three different developments that applicants would like to build along Hartwell Ave., totaling 732 units.
“We’re at a very interesting point where the lab market isn’t as strong but there is still a commercial market and there is strong demand for residential development,” he said. “Taking advantage of that opportunity to create a comprehensive plan for Hartwell is very important so we get both what the town wants but make sure that we are accommodating for [about] 1,000 proposed units.”
Making the relationship between residents and the Planning Board more transparent is another one of Botla’s goals. He vows to host weekly office hours if elected so residents can come directly to him to discuss concerns or ask questions.
He also noted how the Planning Board is the only elected town body that doesn’t have town emails. He wants to work with the town manager to get each member a town email to open another line of communication with residents.
“Having people be able to give feedback and be able to engage with the planning process is very important because a lot of these decisions impact people’s real lives and decision making,” he said. “Having this be a process where more and more folks are able to engage and there isn’t a technical bar to entry is very important.”
The effects of incoming housing on transportation for existing and incoming residents is another topic Botla is focused on.
As the chair of the Transportation Advisory Committee, Botla has been having discussions with the Planning Board on this topic. One of the state’s goals with the MBTA Communities Act is to get people out of their cars and encourage them to use public transit. That is why the new developments are being built in transit-connected municipalities and, in theory, near public transit stops.
The Transportation Advisory Committee has already gotten some of the incoming developments to work with the 128 Business Council — a non-profit Transportation Management Association (TMA) based in Waltham, that aims to reduce traffic congestion and improve mobility in the Route 128 West region — to help fund building new bus shelters outside incoming developments and possibly implementing a shared Alewife shuttle, Botla said.
“If we have four developments that run a shuttle to Alewife every hour, that same level of infrastructure could also run one bus that stops at the four developments every 15 minutes,” he explained. Getting people off the roads by introducing that kind of efficient public transportation could soften the impact of increased traffic in town, Botla said. Encouraging people to use public transit instead of their cars could also be a cost-saving measure amid the current affordability crisis.
Sustainability is another priority for Botla. He wants to use zoning regulation to help mitigate the effects of climate change. While he supports bringing multifamily housing to town, “there are certain places that we should not add density,” Botla argued.
He wants to ensure zoning protects spaces that are susceptible to environmental damage by working closely with the Conservation Commission to ensure the Board is aligned with its goals.
LexObserver asked every candidate running for local office, ‘who is a politician or leader, local or not, who you look up to?’ Botla said Massachusetts’ entire congressional delegation, namely: Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Ayanna Pressley, and Katherine Clark.
He argued those leaders have stood up for truth at a time when “research-driven problem solving has lost a lot of value,” he said. He admires how they lead the state in that way.
“They’ve all used regulation and policy as a vector for making sure that we’re creating good opportunities for people, we are meeting the goals that we want to, and that we’re doing things in a way that are creating real solutions to real problems,” Botla said.
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