Name: Cindy Arens
Office Sought: Select Board
e-mail address: cindy4lex [at] gmail.com
phone number: 781-354-3806

Community Activities: 

• Chair of Sustainable Lexington Committee, since 2022, Member since 2019
  • Lexington Waste Reduction Task Force Member, since 2020
  • HeatSmart Energy Advisor, since 2023
  • Participated in Lincoln Field Turf Working Group, 2023
  • Housing Partnership Board Liaison, since 2022
  • MAPC Metro Boston Climate Action Plan participant, 2023
  • Lexington High School Project Focus Groups, 2023-4
• Founding Member of Lexington Clean Heat Alliance 
  • Passed Clean Heat fossil fuel free new construction (2021) and Sustainable Hartwell (2022) bylaws
  • Advocated and collaborated with state agencies and legislative committees to improve and enable energy efficiency and decarbonization policies.
  • Speaker and consultant for other municipalities and regional advocacy groups, including ZeroCarbonMA and the Massachusetts Building Electrification Accelerator
• Bowman Elementary PTA and Clarke Middle School PTO (2015-2022)
  • Started and expanded Green Teams
  • Executive Board Member
  • Clarke PTO Co-President (2021-2022)
• Core member of the LPS Green Teams
  • Passed the straw/stirrer/polystyrene reduction bylaws at 2019 Town Meeting
  • Led community presentations and forums related to recycling, composting and waste reduction. (2018 - 2021)
• Town Meeting Member, since 2020
• AARP Tax-Aide Volunteer, federal and state income tax preparation (2016 - 2021)
• Minuteman Senior Services Money Manager Volunteer, since 2015
• Big Sister (2015 - 2019)
• Informal consultant with LexHAB, since 2021
  • Engaged MassSave and LEAN program representatives to maximize state and federal incentives for improving housing units
  • Worked to lower residents' utility bills
  • Consulted on solar and heat pump installations

Two long term goals for Lexington are to increase affordable housing and to do our part to reduce the town’s carbon footprint.  These goals can seem to be incompatible, especially in the short term. How will you reconcile these two needs, both in the short term and the long term?

Increasing affordable housing and reducing the town’s carbon footprint are not incompatible for the short or long term. In fact, centering our focus on social and environmental justice, we are really looking at a single goal: to create affordable housing that is the most healthy and the most resilient with the least cost burden on the families that will occupy that housing. We do that by building highly efficient, all-electric housing that generates its own energy, which will reduce the town’s carbon footprint. The bonus is that with regional, state and federal assistance, rebates, incentives and experienced developers, it will cost less than standard construction.

We have a responsibility to address systemic inequities that have existed in the creation of housing. I and colleagues of mine in Lowell, Chelsea, Worcester and other gateway cities have been saying this for years. Institutions like Harvard School of Public Health, RMI, Built Environment+, the EPA, the MA Department of Energy Resources, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy and many more are in agreement too. Whether looking at these inequities from public spending or public health, from social justice or long term investments: Everybody deserves to live in healthy, resilient, low-operational-cost housing, especially our most vulnerable populations who can least afford health problems, expensive utility bills or costly retrofits in the future. We should not be leaving them behind because of outdated concepts regarding net zero/low energy use construction or because of resistance to change.

We need more housing. The technology, expertise and incentives are available today so we can have clean, healthy, efficient, fossil fuel free, equitable, affordable housing now that will lower emissions, will cost less, and be more resilient for decades to come.