There was an important assumption in the spreadsheet attached to the quoted message that voters need to think about when deciding what sort of community Lincoln is.
The spreadsheet assumed a ratio of 1 new school age child per $600,000 value of new construction. That could be right, or it could be way off. If you want low property taxes you want childless people living in McMansions. You want houses that are more expensive than yours so your share of the tax burden goes down. You want the most luxurious luxury condos the world has ever known. If you want diversity, equity, and inclusion then you want a town that diverse people can live in. That means less expensive housing. You can't do both. (That's also the title of a good novel by Kinglsey Amis.) If we do vote to greatly increase school spending then the community center looks less affordable. We also have tens of millions of dollars of deferred maintenance on the water system to pay for. I used to live in a town that went from 2 acre to 4 acre zoning to keep the wrong people out. When I went to elementary school the building was stuffed full with four grades. Now it teaches five grades and is underused. I intend to vote for rezoning. John Carr On Sat, Nov 18, 2023 at 1:43 PM Karla Gravis <[email protected]> wrote: > It is naive to think that adding hundreds of incremental units to Lincoln > would have no downstream impacts that would actually go against what we are > trying to achieve in the first place. The impact on municipal services > would require an increase in property taxes that would force the most > vulnerable residents out of town. The argument made below that by > increasing units by 1,000 we would get 100 affordable units misses the fact > that this would make the town unaffordable for current residents. > > > The HCAWG has not provided a response as to why no study has been > conducted to estimate the actual impact (all they have shown is an analysis > conducted for Oriole Landing, which uses a cost per pupil that is > completely wrong), but we have two analyses we can use to triangulate. One > conducted by a professional consultant in 2005 for a very similar scenario, > and another conducted by a town resident, both of which point to a > potential increase of almost 30% in property taxes (approximately $6,000 to > the average homeowner per year): > > - The town actually asked a consultant (Sasaki Associates) to conduct > a similar study back when a Hanscom Air Force base closure was in the cards > around 2005. In that scenario, Lincoln would have had to absorb 850 new > housing units at Hanscom. By happenstance this would be roughly equivalent > to the impact of Option C. Option C could lead to 950 incremental units as > it would rezone for up to 1,135 units versus the existing 185. > - The Sasaki study concluded that expenses would go up by 63% and > revenues would only go up by a corresponding 28%. The implication is that > taxes for existing residents would need to increase by 27%. The study can > be found at the HCAWG’s website. > - David Cuetos’ analysis > > <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1L4j2Hr0CF0cSSW5ay12Ja-14Gcva0YY1Hx_oHWHT6sA/edit> > of the fiscal impact of HCA rezoning leads to similar proforma tax > increases (29%) in a full-buildout scenario. > > > >
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