LINCOLN – Residents will get to vote this Election Day on whether to build a new Public Works Department garage on Park Avenue for about $675,000 next year.

The Town Council’s 7-0 vote on Monday will put the issue on the ballot, and if voters approve it will appropriate the $675,000 – which includes $576,000 in bonds – to pay for the new structure.

The vote occurred without discussion.

The council has been considering the move intermittently since at least March 2007, when former Town Manager Glenn Aho gave residents a questionnaire and placed the issue before councilors. The councilors set aside $99,000 for that effort, should residents vote to approve it in the fall referendum, in the town’s 2007-08 budget.

Earlier estimates placed a new garage’s cost at $450,000 and a renovation at presumably less. Re-skinning the building would involve reducing it to its most basic steel beam components, insulating it and replacing the exterior walls. Building it anew would involve replacing its steel beams.

Councilors have generally agreed that the building needs renovation or replacement. Built more than 20 years ago, the garage has a leaky roof, its sides bleed heat because of a lack of insulation and the garage lacks workspace, a lunch area for workers and storage space. It also could use a new hydraulic system.

The garage is one of several town buildings councilors are considering replacing or building. They also are considering building the town’s first recreation and community center off Route 6 and relocating the town office to an empty space off Main Street and West Broadway where the former mall was destroyed by fire.

In other council business:

The council approved a docking policy for all town boat landings that forbids boaters from leaving crafts docked at town landings or docks overnight. This came in response to one boater leaving a small boat docked on town property at West Broadway and Main Street for most of the summer.

Councilors declared Oct. 15 to be Community Health and Counseling Services Day in recognition of that agency’s 125th anniversary.

Interim Town Manager Lisa Goodwin was authorized to sign a Long Pond Boat Landing Lease Agreement with Lakeville Shores Inc.

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