Planning Board advances TCB septic study and finalizes village center survey

LINCOLN — March 23, 2021 — Lincoln Planning Board lines up TCB cost-share on septic study and clears village-center survey for distribution. Co-Chair Gary Taylor reported that The Community Builders will pay half the cost of an engineering assessment of the Lincoln Mall septic system, estimated at roughly $60,000 against an original CDM proposal of $90,000 — leaving the town's share at about $30,000, already budgeted for the current fiscal year. The board also approved a minor site-plan change for the Farrar Pond Village Condominium at Kettle Hole Drive, waiving a 10-foot no-disturb zone so 16 feet of safety mulch can extend to the property line beneath new play equipment; both the minor-change determination and the project approval passed 5-0. Members then spent more than an hour editing a long-delayed resident survey on the village center, agreeing to add a "fewer than 50" option to the housing-units question after Co-Chair Lynn DeLisi pushed back against starting the scale at 50. "If you're subject to 40B development, we wouldn't be having these discussions about what you want in South Lincoln," Taylor said in defending the survey's framing of state subsidized-housing requirements.