Tom Shiple has lived in a single-family home in Lexington for 18 years.
Today, the retired software engineer has three adult children — but none of them are able to afford moving back to their hometown.
“Two of them have good jobs as engineers, and you know, they’re sharing apartments with other people,” he said. The third is a graduate student. “The idea of buying something in Lexington is a complete fantasy.”
While the median price of a single-family home in Massachusetts was $610,000 in 2024, according to Zillow, the median price of a home in Lexington is now closer to $2 million.
Shiple, a Lexington Town Meeting member and associate member of the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals, says Question 7, on the Nov. 3 ballot, could bring more affordable housing to Lexington and provide access to the town’s high-quality public education, vast conservation lands and green space, and proximity to Boston’s job market.
What is Ballot Question 7?
Question 7, backed by Legalize Starter Homes, a housing advocacy campaign group, would allow single-family homes to be built on lots as small as 5,000 square feet, with 50 feet of road frontage, and access to public water and sewer.
Lexington currently has a 15,000- to 30,000-square-foot minimum, depending on the residential district.
Andrew Mikula, chair of Legalize Starter Homes, said young people hoping to start families and older people hoping to downsize are the two groups that would benefit most from Question 7’s passage.
The Massachusetts Municipal Association, a nonprofit organization representing local governments and municipal officials, opposes the proposal. It says the measure strips away the authority of local officials in making zoning decisions and argues it will not substantially increase affordable housing across the state.
Question 7 as a ‘useful step forward’
Even if only a few homes are gradually built as a result of Question 7 passing, Lexington would benefit, according to Shiple.
Many older homes in Lexington sit on lots of 5,000 square feet or smaller. There was no minimum before 1924, Shiple explained. The lot size requirements increased gradually from 5,000 square feet in 1924 until a 30,000 square foot district was created in 1953.
“There was actually a strong desire by some people to go to 40,000 [square feet], but they compromised down to 30,000,” Shiple said.
That was more than 70 years ago, and “nothing has changed since then,” Shiple said.
“I don’t think there’s anything natural about having large lot sizes, like somehow that’s ordained in the way it’s supposed to be,” Shiple said. “I think it’s completely reasonable, not only for Lexington but for other communities also, to kind of go back to where we were 100 years ago and not require such large pieces of land to build a single house.”
Smaller lots are just one piece of the puzzle
Gabriel Shiu, a 22-year-old software engineer who grew up in Lexington, finds himself in a similar situation to Shiple’s children. He currently lives in Roxbury.
However, he doesn’t believe Question 7 is enough to lower the cost of housing in Lexington. It’s “just one factor,” he said.
“Just because you lower the lot size, it doesn’t mean they’re actually going to build more houses at that lot size,” Shiu said. “And even if they do, it’ll take a bunch of time to do that.”
Developers in Lexington may still choose to build McMansions, but the ballot question could indirectly provide affordable housing in other communities because of the “moving chain,” Shiple said.
Economists call this a “migration chain.” Evan Mast, an economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, has studied how it works: When new homes are built in wealthier communities, people from nearby, less expensive towns can move into them, freeing up their starter homes for others.
Mast found that building 100 new market-rate units opens up the equivalent of 70 units in neighborhoods earning below the area’s median income, and 40 units in the poorest neighborhoods.
According to Shiple, even if the single-family homes that developers build in Lexington are sold at a higher price point, when people move into those more expensive homes, they indirectly free up more affordable homes.
Potential impact on Lexington schools
Families tend to move to Lexington for its quality of education. According to the U.S. News & World Report national rankings, Lexington High School is ranked No. 167 in the U.S. and No. 5 in Massachusetts.
However, if more families move to Lexington as a result of this measure, it could potentially impact Lexington schools.
Shiple says schools would not suffer from overenrollment, though, since elementary enrollment has declined by about 700 students since its 2019 peak, according to Julie Hackett, superintendent of Lexington Public Schools.
“We have six elementary schools, and we have enough empty classrooms in those six elementary schools to close like one and a half elementary schools right now,” Shiple said.
Question 7 may be a drop in the bucket against rising housing prices
Harriet Cohen, a Lexington resident of almost 40 years, doesn’t believe Question 7 would bring in many people.
“If one house was built, no impact. If 1,000 houses were built, of course, it’s big impact,” Cohen said. “But frankly … I don’t see a lot of houses being built.”
Cohen says she grew up on the outskirts of her hometown on Long Island — in a small house, in a town of generally large houses. Similar to Lexington, there were excellent schools, but it was very expensive to live there, she said.
“I got an excellent education in high school, which gave me a jump start for college, which gave me the opportunity to live in Lexington … [but] it’s becoming less and less possible to do better than your parents, to live the American dream, because of the cost of education and the cost of housing.”
Despite its downsides, Cohen, who is a member of the Lexington Housing Partnership Board, backs Question 7 as a step in the right direction.
“People who don’t have a lot of money, but do want their kids to have the benefit of Lexington education, or want to have a shorter commute when they work in Boston, it’s hard for them, or sometimes impossible, to find a place to live,” she said. “If we can contribute to more homes in the area, that’s a good thing.”
My main concern with Question 7 isn’t about whether we need more housing options – it’s about who gets to decide how our neighborhoods change. Right now, a neighborhood’s feel, lot spacing, and general character are things we shape collectively as a town through our own local process.
If a neighborhood with larger lots shifts to smaller ones, it should be because the residents of the town consciously decide that’s what we want for our community – not because a statewide mandate strips away that control and leaves it entirely up to developers. Handing over that kind of visual and spatial control risks turning distinct neighborhoods into a patchwork of out-of-scale density that the people living there never asked for.
Cute article but no-one has any concept of the impact of this re-zoning: up to six houses allowed, by right, on current 3/4 acre zoning, and up to 3 houses on all the rest of the town’s lots ( with qualifying frontage). This is going to Dramatically change our semi-rural town into urban level density.
I hope it passes because I’m a builder, but ALOT of people are going to be very shocked and angry (much more than were angry about the MBTA re-zoning!!)