Happy December! Town Meeting hopefully finishes this week on Tuesday and Thursday at 7pm, and will finally get to Article 41 to study establishing an Affordable Housing Overlay District for Brookline.
Action Item No. 1: The significant remaining item from B4E’s Town Meeting endorsements is Warrant Article 41, asking that the Housing Advisory Board establish a committee to explore what an Affordable Housing Overlay District (AHOD) could look like and accomplish in Brookline. Brookline for Everyone strongly endorses the establishment of an AHOD as one strategy to add more affordable housing development in Brookline in a “post 40B” environment. If you haven’t yet done so, please email or call your Town Meeting Members now to urge them to support Warrant Article 41. (Find contact info for your members here.)
Action/Learning Item No. 2: Economic Development Advisory Board (EDAB) has its regular monthly meeting on Monday from 7:00-9:00. You can register here, and find the agenda here. The first item on the agenda, right at 7:00, will be a presentation by Senior Planner Maria Morelli on the Planning Division’s Harvard Street-focused study on barriers to multifamily and mixed-use development. We are excited to see her presentation, which may suggest ideas to lift some of those barriers and which could, in part, help address Brookline’s requirement to allow “as of right” zoning for multifamily housing in order to comply with the MBTA Communities Act.
Learning Opportunity No. 3: Engine 6, which is Newton’s housing advocacy organization, previewed their cool new website last week, and we urge you to check it out here. You will find lots of good information about affordable housing challenges in Newton which — as it turns out — are pretty similar to the ones we face here in Brookline. Congratulations to Engine 6 on their great advocate work and their very helpful new website.
Learning Opportunity No. 4: Last week at the HAB Meeting, Judi Barrett of Barrett Planning Group presented a detailed slide deck with the first look at Brookline’s updated Housing Production Plan, which you can check out here. The full draft is expected in the next few weeks, and will be presented in future meetings to both the Planning Board and the Select Board for review, public comment, and approval.
Thanks and have a great week,
Jonathan Klein,
on behalf of Brookline for Everyone