STAGED PLAN to Renew LHS

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Softening Impact on Taxpayers with

STAGED DESIGN PROJECT Solution

By Olga Guttag

Note: LHS4ALL leadership is comprised of experienced residents from many walks of business, academia and life. We do not purport to challenge the experience of our educational leaders nor the architects at SMMA.  We simply acknowledge that working on large project that is constrained by budget will involve tradeoffs early in the design process in order to control costs. As much as we would appreciate having the luxury of designing a new school without any budgetary constraint, this is not realistic; it is not fiscally responsible to expend public funds without some limits; a project of this size needs to respect the diverse economic strata within Lexington who should not be forced to relocate due to dramatic tax increases. It is in this vein that we propose ‘a new plan for moving forward.  

The MBTA zoning has put our town in a position it has never been before. All of the sudden there is a HUGE opportunity for residential development, and building permit applications are way above the usual application rate. As of today, 2/23/25, we could eventually see some 3,000 MBTA dwellings in addition to the 1,120 already known ones in 9 projects, or a total of 4,000 new MBTA dwellings, a 30% increase of Lexington’s population (now some 12,000 households). We expect that we will not know for sure the impact of the MBTA zoning on the Town for 2-4 years. It is irresponsible to guess at an enrollment number rather than wait and see what capacity LHS will really need.

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There is a known solution to dealing with the current overcrowding – an urgent problem. The SBC should design a STAGED solution that the same architects as today (SMMA) recommended in the Town’s 2015 Master Plan.

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Stage 1:  a new 4-story building is erected to replace the World Language building and a bit of the parking lot. The new building can have academic classrooms on all 4 floors, allowing total of 96 classrooms (including new science labs).

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Stage 2: In 3-4 years when projections for enrollment can be more accurate, we can proceed with the next phase of construction.

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This solution relieves the current overcrowding and can be built as fast or faster than the SBC’s proposed school - Bloom.

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This plan allows us to better estimate future space needs before committing to the size of Stage 2 of the project.

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Building too much or too little space based on insufficient (and currently not obtainable) enrollment data will lead to unnecessary spending. The town cannot afford to waste taxpayer money.

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This STAGED solution will require a 2025/26 DEBT EXCLUSION where taxes paying for the Stage 1 of the project can be kept much lower than the projected 10%-14% tax increase for Bloom, leading to an estimated tax increase of $500-$900 for the average property in the first 4 years of construction.

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We will need to raise taxes again to pay for Stage 2 under the already passed debt exclusion but, by then, we expect Lexington to get more state help to deal with a capacity problem the State created with the MBTA zoning mandate.

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At one of the SBC's community meetings we heard Mabel Amar, an elderly resident, deliver an eloquent plea (press "play" arrow and move slider ball to time 1:55:00).

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She explained that if the proposed $1,700-$2,400 debt exclusion passes, after having lived most of her life in Lexington she’ll be forced out of town by her tax bill. She got a loud round of applause. There are many people for whom forever raising Lexington taxes present a real hardship.

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The current SBC proposal is optimizing for only one group of Lexingtonians – the LHS students. But there are over ten times as many residents who will be affected by the project through their wallet and reconfiguration of fields. It’s not fair to throw the less well-off Lexingtonians under the bus so for four years our kids avoid all construction noise!

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Those of us who can afford the increased taxes have no right to dismiss other’s financial hardships due to raising taxes just because for a few years kids will be going to LHS with a construction near them (as will also be the case with Bloom). The above solution guarantees at 4-6 year deferral of at least half of the amount of projected tax increase. If we stage the project, the tax increase for the Stage 1 of the project should be less than half of what Bloom will require!

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I hope the Select Board will embrace this better solution and redirect SBC to work on it ASAP. All of us need to give Lexingtonians whose finances are tight more consideration.

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