Lexington spent much of the past two years grappling with how much land it wanted to commit to building MBTA Communities Act compliant housing.
Back in 2023, Lexington’s Town Meeting agreed to one of the state’s first and most ambitious plans for adding new multifamily housing along transit routes. But a few citizen petitions and articles later, Town Meeting voted to amend the town’s bylaw in March so MBTA Communities Act-compliant housing would not be built in the Center. One of the main arguments to exclude the Center — where the Battle of Lexington and the birthplace of American freedom took place — was to preserve its historic character.
Around the same time, however, a handful of property owners submitted applications that allowed them to freeze the zoning bylaw. Upon approval, those property owners were able to continue following the zoning law as it was written before the Center was removed.
North Shore Residential Development, a Woburn-based construction company, did just that for 16 Clarke St. The Planning Board approved its applications, which showed the developer’s plan to divide the property into three and build a cul-de-sac.
Fast forward to last week when North Shore presented its site design to Lexington’s Historical Districts Commission (HDC) during an informal hearing, its plan looked quite different. North Shore is now designing a four-story 52-plus unit condo complex with commercial space on the first floor for 16 Clarke St.
Some residents aren’t happy about it.
“Lexington is a town, not a city. This feels like a city building,” Town Meeting member Dawn McKenna said during the informal hearing last week.
Most HDC members, including Edward Adelman, Scott Cooper, Brien Cooper, Robert Bellinger, and James Carrico were likewise concerned about the design. Namely, they weren’t fans of the height of the new development and North Shore’s choice of siding (the sketches show it would be mostly brick). They argued those features aren’t compatible with the rest of the historic district. Most of the residents who spoke up and wrote in to the HDC shared those worries and expressed concern about traffic on Clarke Street.
“This development far exceeds any reasonable development of this land, and frankly is not in keeping with the historic district, overlooked by the historic Belfry above this megastructure,” Lexington residents Tom Fleming and Anne Wilkes, who live across the street from the property, wrote to the HDC ahead of its meeting. “The construction of this, coupled with construction of a nearly billion dollar high school, would be crippling for this neighborhood and this behemoth will impact the neighborhood forever.”
“Traffic is a major problem for this massive development,” Lexington resident Beverly Kelley wrote to the HDC ahead of the meeting. “The solution is to drastically reduce the size of the building, thereby decreasing the number of cars.”
Other HDC members liked the project.
“It’s well done, it’s well articulated in my mind, I would say it’s being respectful to the town of Lexington as best a building can at this size,” HDC member Daniel Hisel said. “I think it’s a polite building, there’s nothing terribly exciting about it but at the same time it’s got a job to do.”
“We’re in 2025 considering something that will be around until 2075 hopefully and that’s the question we have to think about and from that perspective, I think this is a good proposal,” Richard Neumeier said.
While the transition from cul-de-sac to condos has some residents upset, North Shore’s switch-up in design is perfectly legal.
“There is a provision in state law that allows property owners to freeze the zoning on their property for a period of 8 years when there is a zoning change if they submit a certain type of application prior to the Town Meeting zoning change vote,” Abby McCabe, Lexington’s planning director, told the Observer.
The property on Clarke St. took steps to enact the zoning freeze option via the preliminary subdivision followed by the definitive subdivision application, which means they can develop under the old zoning for 8 years, McCabe explained.
Several other properties in Lexington have also successfully applied to freeze the old zoning bylaw on their property. Lexington’s Planning Board approved applications submitted by representatives of the property at 10 Maguire Rd. (which spans over 16 acres) in the winter. According to its application, that property is on track to be split up into three properties with a cul-de-sac, much like the original plan for 16 Clarke St. But who knows what will actually be built there.
McCabe expects 17 property owners (in addition to applications the town received before Town Meeting voted to change the bylaw in March) will have frozen the previous zoning bylaw for their properties by the end of the year.
Last week’s meeting was one of many future hearings and applications the developer will have to go through before the project on Clarke Street is set in stone. Among other meetings, North Shore must have a formal hearing with the HDC to present the external design of the building. The HDC’s purview for this project will be to approve the appropriateness of the exterior architectural features.
“The applicant hasn’t yet filed with the Planning Board but the project will also need to submit a site plan review and stormwater management permit with the Planning Board,” McCabe said. “They elected to start with the Historic District Commission first.”
Thanks to the LexingtonObserver for explaining that these 8-year zoning freezes, which cannot be denied, will significantly increase Lexington’s population.
As explained below, our population growth in the next decade may be such that Bloom, designed for today’s LHS enrollment, will be unable to accommodate the new students from some 5,750 new dwelling units, even with 3 “stretch” strategies.
Lexington’s population may increase in the next decade because of:
– 1,150 already permitted units in 11 known projects (listed on https://www.lexingtonma.gov/1496/MBTA-Communities-Zoning), plus
– 3,000 units on lots that secured an 8-year MBTA zoning freeze (red cell of https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17OpIfyFsvGyrz8u_fQ5nhWYk7rnEDml4/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116971253884586510151&rtpof=true&sd=true, which assumes the same 50 units per acre density as the 11 known projects), plus
– 1,600 units on 80 acres zoned for MBTA developments, but with stricter height, etc limitations set by the March 2025 Special Town Meeting, allowing an average density of 20 units per acre instead of 50,
or a total of 5,750 new MBTA units in Town in the next decade, representing a 48% addition in households to our current 12,000 households.
Bloom is designed for 2,395 students. We had 2,367 students on October 1, 2025 at LHS. Increase this by 48%, and you get 3,500 students, which Bloom cannot accommodate without overcrowding beyond its 85% design capacity utilization, moving the CO out of Bloom and extending a wing of Bloom. And the costs of the last 2 strategies, in the tens of millions of dollars beyond Bloom’s $660 million, have never been disclosed.
This is literally the worst case scenario. Right now, LPS is beginning to see its population level off and maybe begin to decline. Lexington residents are going to be plenty mad if, 10 years from now, we have 1700 students rattling around in a building designed for 2400.
I suspect that those shiny new condos will bring in a LOT more tax revenue than the non ADA compliant, sad little medical office building that is in that place right now.
LHS’s population has waxed and waned before – and LHS has had 1900+ students continuously since 2006. It’s about time we had a school that’s actually large enough for our high school population.
Avon:
The grey box at the top right of https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11zfp3k01F-AJOIYZRJdvFC28tMA5quj3/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116971253884586510151&rtpof=true&sd=true shows that condos pay in taxes 91% of what single-family houses of the same size pay, but rental apartments pay only 36% of what single-family houses of the same size pay.
That’s a big problem for Lexington’s future budgets because the vast majority of the 5,750 MBTA new units I predict will come to Lexington in the next decade will be rental apartments (of the 1,150 already known units, 88% are and only 12% are condos). And those apartments bring the highest number of kids into our schools (which are 80% of Lexington’s total budget) of all types of dwellings.
If we need a larger high school, why would we stop the project to build a larger high school?
Abandoning this LHS project means forfeiting $121.3M in state funding, we have to bring the current building up to code at a cost of $300M+, AND design and build an addition for 600 students in tomorrow’s dollars.
The alternative to YES costs MORE to tax payers.
Please check out the “Vote Implications” video on the LHS Project website: https://www.lhsproject.lexingtonma.org/faq-videos
This 2min video explains the consequences of voting down this LHS project:
1. We lose $121M in state funding,
2. We have to pay $311M to renovate the current LHS,
3. We need to build an additional building to support the 600+ students that the current LHS is overcrowded by.
Voting NO doesn’t mean Lexingtonians do not have to build a new high school, it means we forfeit a beautiful new building for some Frankenschool that will cost us just as much, if not more.
We have put out information about how future students from the new housing can be absorbed by this new building, and here it is again: https://www.yes4lex.org/info/mbta
With gratitude for your consideration, – Taylor
Taylor:
Because by design Bloom is too expensive and too small — and can only be expanded for another 500 students, up to 2,900 students at 85% utilization (its design utilization rate, like any new high school) with undisclosed costs to do this 500-student expansion beyond $660 million spent on the basic Bloom.
Can you get the SBC to explain why Bloom, at $1,293 per square foot is 25% more expensive than Belmont and 14% more expensive than Arlington (while being larger than both, which due to economies of scale should make Bloom cheaper per square foot) as you can see on the pink rows in my Excel version https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FvIWNwfJKRfWjQspC9xCQGpH4MLuIrjE/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116971253884586510151&rtpof=true&sd=true of the SBC’s chart https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u2umuhbcHG43JgRG0Y19BM1lPVDyW2en/view?usp=sharing ?
And please ask the SBC (I asked at the last public meeting, but got no answer) why that SBC’s chart omitted Watertown. I find Bloom to be 39% more expensive than Watertown in https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PcH2CCi7DjPlKq10Q0ZhS41RU4VY6D9O/edit?usp=sharing&rtpof=true&sd=true.
Re Bloom being too small, we may have in a decade 1,150 (already permitted) + 3,000 (from 8-year zoning freezes) + 1,600 (on the acreage zoned for MBTA developments by the March 2025 Special Town Meeting) or 5,750 new dwellings built in Lexington, or in round numbers 2,000 to 5,000 additional students in our schools if 1 out of every 2 new units, or each new unit, has just 1 child in it, of which 1/3 would be LHS students, or 700 to 1,700 new high school students.
Added to our current 2,400 LHS students, those 700-1,700 additional students mean we would have 3,100-4,100 high school students to educate. At its 2,900-student expanded capacity, Bloom would operate at 3,100/2,900 to 4,100/2,900 or 107%-141% utilization rate: Bloom will be as overcrowded as LHS is now. That’s why Bloom is too small.
The SBC ignored a cheaper, more flexible, on-campus, “box”-based design recommended by the Schools’ own 2015 Master Plan, which we should pivot to instead of building Bloom.
It’s unfortunate that Lexington is willing to sacrifice the small town ambiance __ traffic is already a problem and 52 new units could equal 104 more cars in the center.
This is one of the only proposed leviathans that HDC can completely deny. It is completely within their purview to not allow the demolition of a structure in the HDC district, and unlike the historical commission rules, there is no time out or “demolition delay”. If the HDC say no, it’s No!
FYI: the requirement for parking, per MBTA regulations, is ONE space per unit. Assuming the residents have two cars, there will be 52 cars trying to park around that area, every day, and night!