Update: Town Meeting voted to go ahead with the Dana Home development regardless of the many issues raised by this site.
Update: May 5, 2012 – Town Meeting Vote only days away!
- The scope and scale of the proposed development are far in excess of what the site can reasonable accommodate
- One access driveway for customer parking and deliveries is just several car lengths from the Mass Ave.-Worthen Road intersection; recommended safety improvements were identified last June by the Town engineer and are not in the plan.
- This same driveway serves a lot and loading area which cannot even accommodate 24-foot delivery trucks, which would have to either back in or back out onto busy Worthen Road, a major safety hazard. Recent photos show a one of the developer’s delivery vehicles doing just that.
- The proposal also calls for a new, 22-car, paved parking lot right on Mass Ave, an eyesore on our historic byway
- Even with this additional large lot, the developer’s plans only allow for about 50% of parking requirements – the rest will spill over onto public streets where neighbors live
- There are residents on every side of this proposed development, a combination of single family homes and 16 families in Pine Grove Village
- The restaurant would operate 365 days a year, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner from 7am to 10pm, 7 days a week!
- The developer has not engaged the neighborhood in any significant way and has not reduced the scope of operations despite repeated entreaties to do so
A B&B in just the footprint of the former would provide an inn for Lexington without all the disruptive elements of a restaurant which would forever alter a historic, family-friendly neighborhood.
This is an rendition of the historic Dana Home (center) and Isaac Mulliken house (right) after the proposed development based on the March 15 Site Plan; note how intensive the site plan is and how parking lots eliminate all green space between buildings. Note that off street parking is still required and how entrances to parking lots create hazards for turning motorists and others. Even more, the project still requires re-zoning from residential to commercial or CD zoning, something that has never been done as a spot zone before.
AB Holdings has released a revised Site Plan to the Conservation Commission in advance of its March 20th meeting. Despite some changes to the site layout, the overall scope and scale of the project remain unchanged. We present a list of changes made and of changes not made below. Many substantial concerns about the Site Plan and Proposal remain and are discussed here: Concerns about the Revised Site Plan for Dana Home.
The Site Plan makes the following changes:
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The smaller house at 2013 Mass Ave is being moved 21 feet closer to the property line towards the property line (only 10 feet from the neighboring property line);
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The addition to 2013 is smaller and just outside of the 50 foot wetlands buffer zone, but still in the 100ft buffer;
- The small bump out to the Dana Home has been eliminated, and the restaurant being moved to the back of the house;
- The larger resulting land space between the Dana Home and 2013 will become one large black-top parking lot containing 22 parking spaces (no Handicap spots), with all cars visible on Mass Ave all between the 2 houses (only low plantings);
- This entire large Mass Ave lot is within the 100ft buffer zone and would rely on highly engineered ground water filtration systems which require maintenance in perpetuity;
- The corner parking lot will be smaller than previously planned, expanding by 3 parking spaces (2 for handicapped drivers), with no improvements planned for the driveway entrance onto Worthen Rd;
- The restaurant will have a separate entrance and a 15-seat waiting area where patrons can order drinks while they wait for a table;
- The barn will be converted into 2 guest rooms with no offices or conference room.
Of note, many core aspects of the project are NOT changing:
- 22 rooms (2 will be in the old barn and 9 squeezed into the adjoining house)
- 54-seat restaurant
- Waiting area (14 seats, plus possibly as well in the adjoining 34-seat Sitting Room)
- Insufficient parking for guests and patrons according to Lexington By-Laws
- Street parking for employees requires 15 spaces
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This website is created to share information about the proposed hotel and restaurant complex located at the Dana Home on the corner of Massachusetts Ave and Worthen Rd. We invite you to:
- Learn about the facts of proposal – many Key Documents are linked to the right of the page, including a traffic safety and parking study, a letter to the Historic District Commission, and a commissioned report to the Conservation Commission about Wetland protection problems.
- Read about concerns other Lexington citizens have.
- Over 100 Lexington citizens have signed this letter to the Planning Board which outlines the major non-wetland-related objections to the proposal.
- The residents who directly abut the Dana Home property and whom will be most affected by the proposed development have sent a letter to the Planning Board in opposition to the proposal.
- Take action to help influence the scale and scope of the proposed complex!
