The Lynn City Council voted 8-0 Tuesday night, November 10, to adopt the lowest residential factor the state allows for fiscal 2027, the choice that moves as much of the property tax levy as the law permits onto commercial, industrial and personal property. Even with that shift, Director of Assessing Christopher Gaeta told the council, the tax bill on the typical single-family home will rise about $172.
The council also tabled a home rule petition that would enlarge the Board of Health from three members to five, after several councilors said they had not seen the list of old special acts the petition would repeal until the Friday before the meeting. Three committees met before the council: Utilities, Licensing, and Ways and Means.
Eight of the 11 councilors were present. Council President Constantino Alinsug said Councilor at Large Hong L. Net was on a scheduled vacation and that Councilor at Large Nicole D. McClain and Ward 1 Councilor Peter D. Meaney were out for personal reasons. This account is drawn from Lynn Community Television’s recording and the clerk’s posted agenda; minutes have not been published.
The tax classification vote
Each fall the council holds a classification hearing to decide how the levy is divided among classes of property. Gaeta walked through the three pieces. The first is value: the assessors’ review of the 2025 real estate market, approved by the state Department of Revenue the week before, puts Lynn’s total taxable value at roughly $16 billion as of January 1, 2026, an increase of about 2.7 percent. About 90 percent of that value is residential.
The second is the levy, the amount the city raises from property taxes. For fiscal 2027 it is $182 million, up $6.6 million from last year. Gaeta said the figure is last year’s levy plus the 2.5 percent allowed under Proposition 2 1/2, plus $2.2 million in certified new growth. He called that a good number historically but said it is down about $1 million from last year, which he attributed to the direction of the market.
The third is the split. A city may tax every class at one rate or shift part of the burden to commercial and industrial property, up to a factor of 1.75. With no split, Gaeta said, the single rate would be $11.34 per $1,000 of value, and the tax on the typical single-family home, now valued at $598,000, would go up $746. At the maximum shift of 1.75, which corresponds to a residential factor he gave as 0.9154, that same bill goes up $172.
No one spoke for or against during the public hearing. Councilor at Large Brian P. LaPierre moved to adopt the lowest residential factor, and Councilor at Large Brian M. Field seconded. Ward 2 Councilor Obed A. Matul asked Gaeta to confirm that it is the lowest the law allows; “with the current budget, yes,” Gaeta said. All eight members present voted yes. Gaeta said the vote lets the city finish the rate-setting process with the Department of Revenue and send third-quarter bills, the first to show the new rate, in late December. He did not state the residential and commercial rates themselves, which are set after the state certifies them.
Board of Health: three members or five
The first hearing of the night was on a home rule petition “to repeal certain previously adopted special acts and to increase the membership of the Board of Health to five members.” Lisa Tobin, the city’s chief of health and human services, spoke in favor. She said the idea dates back a few years and that a five-member board would better reflect a city she described as the eighth largest in Massachusetts. Salem, which is smaller, has five, she said, and most of the state’s 14 largest cities have more than three. Members are appointed by the mayor, and state rules require one of them to be a physician.
Field moved to approve and LaPierre seconded. Ward 4 Councilor Natasha S. Megie-Maddrey then pointed to the first half of the petition, the repeal of special acts, and said councilors were not able to review those acts until Friday. She moved to table, seconded by Ward 5 Councilor Cardeliz Paez. Paez said she supports five members but asked whether the two questions could be separated, whether the council could make some of the appointments and whether other qualifications should be written in. “To not understand something and approve it,” she said, was the problem.
A city attorney told the council that state law sets the board at three members, so the increase needs a special act; that the statute gives the appointments to the mayor unless the city charter says otherwise, and the charter does not; and that the special acts on the repeal list conflict with the charter and with the administrative code the council recently adopted, which already accounts for each board involved. Asked by LaPierre, the attorney said a home rule petition needs a simple majority, and the council was told that means six affirmative votes of the 11-member body, more than half of the eight present.
Ward 7 Councilor Jordan T. Avery, who worked on the administrative code, said the city needs to finish the job but that he heard his colleagues’ concerns. Field withdrew his motion, and the council voted 8-0 to table. Avery asked that the petition be on the next agenda, and Alinsug said it will be.
517 Lynnway: license held until the building is cleared
The Licensing Committee, chaired by Field, took an auto repair and flammables license for 517 Lynnway off the table, where it had been since October 27, and had two letters read into the record. One, from the director of the city’s economic development corporation, recited the conditions of the property’s special permit: hours of 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, tire sales and a short list of related repairs only, no general auto repair, no outdoor storage, and closing a curb cut. The other, dated November 4 from the city’s ordinance enforcement officer to the property owner, cited an auto repair business run by a prior tenant without a certificate of occupancy, an unpermitted shipping container, stored vehicles and tires kept in a truck, ordered the uses to stop, and warned of fines of $300 per violation per day. It added that a flammables license does not authorize a business to open.
A representative speaking for the prospective tenant said the company had been told the building was licensed, learned otherwise from the city, and removed its tires, equipment and cars the same day as the inspection. Council Vice President Frederick W. Hogan, whose Ward 6 includes the site, moved to continue the matter until the enforcement officer reinspects. The vote was 4-0. Field told the applicant the committee wants the business to succeed but has to weigh the neighbors’ complaints.
The committee approved the rest of its agenda, all renewals, in one vote: auto dealer and repair licenses along the Lynnway and on Western Avenue, Chestnut Street and Blossom Street Extension, pawnbroker and secondhand licenses for Empire Loan and A & S Pawn, and four sign licenses. It also approved a canning date of December 4, 5 and 6 for the Lynn Tech basketball cheerleaders.
Austin Square gas station rebuild comes with conditions
The Utilities Committee, chaired by Matul, granted National Grid a location to replace its gas regulator station on Summer Street at Austin Square. The company’s representative said the station was built in 1965 and has to be replaced to meet new state Department of Public Utilities requirements. Avery, the ward councilor, sent a letter asking for written commitments, and the committee made them conditions of its 4-0 vote: full-width concrete replacement of disturbed sidewalks, roadway restoration to limits approved by the Department of Public Works, protection of the memorial tree, protection and improvement of the veterans memorial island, and walk-throughs before and after construction. National Grid agreed and said it inspects its paving after 90 days and again after a year. The committee also approved, 4-0, a jointly owned pole on Essex Street north of Rogers Avenue; the company said the work takes one day and should happen within a month or two.
Transfers: $6.6 million for lead hazards, $265,000 in opioid money
On the recommendation of Ways and Means, reported by Avery in the absence of its chair, Net, the council approved every financial transfer 8-0 and added emergency preambles so they take effect at once. The largest accepts $6,619,986 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the city’s lead hazard control and healthy homes program. The council appropriated $265,000 from the opioid stabilization fund for community grants, a middle school hub and the downtown Lynn health and safety task force, and accepted $41,756.82 from the North Shore Workforce Board for a youth first-jobs program.
It also moved $75,000 in federal pandemic relief money from a heavy equipment line to small business grants run through the economic development corporation, $81,000 between parking accounts, $16,251.52 within the health department and $575 for a prior-year fire department bill. Two transfers laid over from October 27 passed as well: $28,125 from reserve to public works and $77,641.37 from reserve for the city’s match on a federal firefighters grant.
Also Tuesday
The council accepted Mayor Jared Nicholson’s notice that he has named Margaret Phelps, already a member of the Licensing Board, as its chair. It set down for future hearings special permit requests from Singh Realty Group for multifamily housing at 30-32B Western Avenue, sign permits at 806 Boston Street and 451 Broad Street, a request to remove conditions from a 2021 special permit at 138 Boston Street, and a National Grid conduit on Willow Street to serve 380 Washington Street. Alinsug thanked City Clerk Lamanna and the city’s poll workers for the November 3 election.
Norris Guscott presented the work of the Lynn Food Policy Council, a group of 14 organizations that grew out of a pandemic food security task force and was created by ordinance in 2023. He said the council has served more than 5,000 residents and that at the Phoenix Food Hub 387 households received help with SNAP benefits, with 81 percent of applicants approved. He named outreach, uncertain funding and growing pains as the challenges. Councilors praised the work; LaPierre used his remarks to criticize federal cuts to food assistance.
What happens next
The Board of Health petition and the 517 Lynnway license are both expected back at the council’s next meeting in two weeks. The recording is on Lynn Community Television’s channel, and the agenda is here.
