Joe answers
voters’ questions
Multi-family housing (MBTA zoning)
The citizens’ article at Town Meeting
At Special Town Meeting this spring, there will be a citizens article addressing the coming growth in multifamily housing. Do you support it?
Joe’s answer
The rapid rate of MBTA multi-family development projects we are currently seeing is faster than expected and warrants a slowdown or pause to allow the Town to examine the results of those projects already in the pipeline. I support a change to our zoning that would allow us to make adjustments so that we have more measured growth
The details of the citizens’ article are still in flux, but I support a motion that right-sizes our zoning by maintaining our compliance with state law and allowing us to better control the rate of growth. Let’s mend it, not end it.
See Joe’s position on multi-family housing and 2-minute video
Claims about housing numbers
It’s been claimed that Lexington instituted MBTA multifamily housing on 4.5 times the acreage required by the state, and this will add up to 12,546 possible new dwelling units, potentially doubling Lexington’s population.
What is your response to these claims?
Joe’s answer
The multi-family housing rezoning provides the opportunity for badly needed diversity of housing in Lexington. This housing will support residents who want to downsize, and who want to live closer to retail stores and professional services. It will also offer some lower cost, attainable housing. The housing now in the pipeline is a good thing – it is just arriving too quickly over the next few years.
The number of possible new units assumed in the question is an extreme, faulty number. It is not based on a “build-out analysis” of what is possible to build on the zoned acreage. Portions of that land are not developable. It is very unlikely we would ever see these many units. That said, the rapid rate of projects we are currently seeing is faster than expected and warrants a slowdown or pause to allow the Town to examine the results of those projects already in the pipeline.
Property taxes and new development
Most of the new units will be rentals which pay substantially lower property taxes than owner-occupied condominiums. Will the new development break our budget?
Joe’s answer
The proposed developments have not yet been assessed, so I can’t speak to how much incremental revenue they will bring in. However, a majority of the proposed units are one bedroom and studio apartments, which typically have a lower impact on the Town’s budget.
Impact on town resources
Has anyone performed analysis on the impact of new multifamily housing on traffic, public transportation, parking, water, sewer, trash & recycling, electric grid, cable/internet, recreation, police, fire dept, social services, municipal revenue and expenditures, property taxes (commercial/residential), rents, real-estate prices, climate impact, environmental impact (for example, habitats)?
Joe’s answer
The Town has commissioned a study on these issues and expects a report by mid-March.
Lexington High School
The Article 97 land swap
The new high school building project will require that land be “swapped”–that is, the new high school will be partially built on recreation fields, and when the old high school is torn down, the area where it once stood will be restored as recreation fields. By state law, this requires the state legislature to approve an Article 97 land swap. I have heard that it is difficult to gain approval for an Article 97 land swap. Could our high school project be derailed?
Joe’s answer
Article 97 land swaps for school projects are not unusual, and the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which we expect to finance over $100M of the Lexington High School project, anticipates that a project might need this. Town Counsel has explained that the Article 97 land swap attempts that have failed due to challenges have been due to not following the process and obtaining legislative approval.
The Town is on a path to follow the correct process. In the 2023-2024 legislative session, the legislature passed 22 Article 97 land swap bills, 3 of which were for school related projects.
Growth and the new high school
The new high school is designed to accommodate fewer students than we already have while hundreds of new students will be added due to future MBTA developments. Why wasn’t the new growth considered in the design of the new high school?
Joe’s answer
Growth was considered for the design of the new school. The proposed project has a capacity of 2395 students at 85% utilization. The current LHS was designed for 1850 students⏤but is currently serving over 2400 and is operating at just under 100% utilization. The new design provides much greater flexibility in the spaces as well as anticipated expansion capability to accommodate more than 3200 students and more than 3600 students if operating at current utilization rates.
Student-age population is declining regionally and we see this in the younger elementary grades in Lexington. Building a larger high school based on today’s higher enrollment bubble would increase costs and could leave us with unneeded capacity.
A 3000-student high school is as large as the school department recommends for a single facility. The flexible nature of the proposed design will accommodate this (and more during periodic enrollment peaks during the anticipated 75 years of service for this facility).
The School Master Planning Committee is working on plans to accommodate higher enrollment rates across the system as a whole should they occur. These plans would alleviate pressure on the LHS facility.
The central athletic and high school complex is severely constrained. A larger facility is undesirable, as it would further stress the area, potentially leading to a decrease in the availability of fields and a greater disruption to the neighborhood.
Recreation fields
The proposed “Bloom” design for the new high school would destroy the contiguity of our cherished sports fields. Why can’t we keep our fields together?
Joe’s answer
The Bloom concept preserves and improves the quality of our sports fields, and the architects continue to work with the Town’s Recreation Committee to make the connectivity between the fields attractive and appealing. Many alternatives were considered and the Bloom concept was adjusted to reduce the number of fields needing relocation. A plan that would have left all the fields where they are would have led to far costlier and more disruptive projects that would take several more years to complete, adversely affecting students and neighbors.
School renovation budget
When I renovate my home, I have a budget and I spend within that budget. Lexington, however, has not set a budget limit for the high school. Why not?
Joe’s answer
To take your analogy: a budget for a kitchen renovation cannot be under the price of must-haves, like a sink, stove, oven, and refrigerator. The design process that Lexington has been undergoing for the past 2 years is a budget-building process.
We are looking at what we must have to meet the educational program as required by the Massachusetts School Building Authority. Once that is in place, we will refine the budget through “value engineering,” planning for–back to our analogy–a perfectly respectable GE electric range for under $1,000, not a $12,000 Viking range.
Renovations in neighboring towns
Neighboring towns such as Arlington and Belmont paid under $300 million for their recently constructed high schools, so why is Lexington’s project so much more expensive?
Joe’s answer
Arlington and Belmont began their projects and secured construction contracts before significant COVID-era construction cost escalation began. Significant increases in materials prices and other costs led to our estimated expense. The estimates we are seeing are in line with what other communities at this stage of project development are seeing.
Lower base costs in neighboring towns
Even adjusted for inflation, the Arlington and Belmont school projects are 70% of the cost of Lexington. How can we justify our expense?
Joe’s answer
Each project is unique. Our estimators caution us that comparing projects side by side can be challenging and that they generally look at ranges of costs.
Further, the costs reported for these other projects are their final costs. We are still at the early design phase before applying “value engineering.” For example, Arlington cut about $25M of costs from their project after the completion of schematic design (we are just beginning that phase).
Cost per student in neighboring towns
Comparable new high schools in Arlington and Waltham offer 10%-30% more space per student than Bloom, yet Bloom will be one of the most expensive High Schools in the nation (source Lexington Observer). How can you justify the cost?
Joe’s answer
Lexington is working to reduce the total cost of the high school project. The Bloom proposal uses classroom sizes of 850 square feet⏤a significant expansion over the current high school classroom size which averages 725 square feet. This is more than the 825 square foot minimum for MSBA projects and less than the 950 square foot maximum for those projects. Building larger classrooms in Lexington would increase the total cost.
Lexington has one of the largest high school student enrollments in Massachusetts. The cost of the project is directly related to the building’s capacity. Other Massachusetts communities in the process of rehabilitating their high school are seeing similar per square foot costs.
National construction costs aren’t a helpful measure. We can’t build our high school in a different state. What is important is the construction costs in our region and we are seeing comparable estimates for other high school projects in the region.
The field house
Part of the high school proposal includes a renovation to the current field house used by hundreds of students across multiple sports, which does not meet the needs of current students nor students who will be part of LHS in the next 50 years. Why can’t we have a new field house?
Joe’s answer
The current project proposal includes a renovated and expanded field house along with a significantly larger gym and PE spaces, greatly expanding the capacity for programs at LHS. An existing field house can be renovated as part of an Massachusetts School Building Authority project allowing some efficiency and cost savings in the project.
But if we were to build a new field house, the Massachusetts School Building Authority would not allow it to be part of the high school project; we would have to provide for independent utilities and separate design and construction teams. This would significantly increase the complexity of the project and costs. Moreover, a new field house was not recommended by the Town’s recreation committee, recreation department, school department, and town finance committees.
Nonresident enrollment
When are we going to stop the use of Lexington addresses to enroll non-family and unrelated students?
Joe’s answer
I have no information on this being a significant issue – but if it is, this is the jurisdiction of the school department.
Teachers vs. buildings
Aren’t teachers more important than the buildings? Why are we cutting teacher salaries when that is much more important to our kids’ education?
Joe’s answer
Teacher salaries are not being cut. They are increasing as negotiated in their union contracts which are under the jurisdiction of the School Committee. We collectively understand the value of good teachers in our town.
Education is about many things, including the quality of the teaching, the quality of the programs, the connection children feel to their teachers, classmates, and school. For these aspects of education to thrive, they need a home, a shelter–a facility.
The current LHS facility is decaying. In important ways, it no longer facilitates the quality of teaching and the quality of the education program that the Lexington community values and expects. It is not cost-effective to salvage the current building, which is why a new facility is necessary to support the work our teachers do on behalf of our children.
Taxes
Taxes and the LHS project
I do not have kids in the school system. Why should I vote for such a large tax increase?
Joe’s answer
Providing our children with a quality education in a safe and healthy setting is a fundamental community value. Indirectly, we also all benefit from the high property values associated with a premier school district. Many of our neighboring communities have addressed their out-of-date high schools by replacing them in the past decade.
Our high school will need hundreds of millions of dollars just to sustain its current operation without addressing its fundamental shortcomings. Each of us will have to determine if we can support the difference in expense to provide Lexington with a high school comparable to the schools in our neighboring communities or if we will throw nearly equivalent sums of money into inadequate half-measures.
Tax increases and the LHS project
How much will our taxes increase if the high school project is approved?
Joe’s answer
Preliminary estimates by Town staff are that unless other funding sources are applied, property taxes would ramp up to an increase in the range of 10%-14%. With the anticipated use of the Capital Stabilization Fund, this increase would be lessened and ramp up from FY28 to FY35 by an average of about 0.56% per year added to the annual 2.5% increase and then begin declining. This brings the peak increase in property tax to 8.15% in FY35. See line C in the chart below for the amount attributable to LHS construction and line D for the combined effect of retiring excluded debt with the LHS debt.
The Town is working on ways to further defray these costs, beyond using the Capital Stabilization Fund as illustrated in the chart below, including redirecting other funds as those related expenses are paid off (e.g., after fully funding the retirement fund in the early 2030s).
Budget Summit III
January 30, 2024
A more detailed model for property tax impact will be available when the project is submitted to Town Meeting for approval in the fall of 2025. At that time we will have more complete cost estimates based on the full schematic design and we will have the actual figure for the MSBA participation (that is, the state’s financial contribution) in the project.
Property taxes
Why are you running fixed income seniors like me out of town with high property taxes?
Joe’s answer
There are a number of tax relief programs for seniors and other qualifying taxpayers including
- the Senior Property Tax Deferral program
- the CPA surcharge exemption
- the Senior Service Program
- and the State Senior Circuit Breaker Tax Credit.
See the information in the brochure at the assessors office:
https://www.lexingtonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4711/FY2025-Property-Tax-Relief-Brochure-
As a member of a Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) policy committee, Joe has lobbied for additional state aid to municipalities and for additional relief for stressed property taxpayers. This has led to Governor Healy’s proposal to create new property tax exemptions for seniors. The bill will allow cities and towns to adopt a new Senior Means Tested Property Tax Exemption for qualifying seniors and to increase existing senior property tax exemptions.
Income taxes
Would you support making Lexington’s income tax more progressive?
Joe’s answer
Lexington doesn’t have an income tax – only the state does and as required by the state constitution, it is a flat tax. Lexington has a property tax – but it too is dictated by state law and we cannot make it a progressive tax.
There are a few tax deferral and exemption programs that qualified residents can take advantage of. See the information in the brochure at the assessors office: https://www.lexingtonma.gov/168/Elderly-Other-Tax-Relief
Shifting the tax burden
Concord found a way to shift the tax burden for a new middle school to the larger homes. Would you support such an approach for Lexington?
Joe’s answer
I support pursuing means-tested residential exemptions. This is different from what Concord implemented. I support taxation methods that correspond to ability to pay⏤but property taxes are based on the value of a home, not the ability for the resident to pay. For example, seniors on fixed incomes who have seen property value appreciation may find an increase in their taxes as a result of the residential exemption as currently allowed by state law.
In 2017 I gathered a working group to study the state’s Residential Exemption option – this is the system implemented in Concord and by a small number of communities statewide. That convinced the Select Board to commission an in-depth study of that tax option.
While many members of that study group initially thought the Residential Exemption would be a good thing, their work led them to unanimously recommend against its implementation.
Key findings from that study include:
- The benefit is not targeted to those in need.
- These local tax exemptions may reduce property tax rebates that moderate income households receive under the Massachusetts Senior Circuit Breaker Tax Credit.
- The exemption would increase the property tax on group residential facilities, making these developments less competitive in Lexington and reduce senior housing options.
- Taxes would increase on higher value homes, some of which are occupied by residents who are stressed by taxes.
- Owner occupancy verification required by the exemption is time-consuming to administer and verify, especially for properties held in some types of trusts.