Greetings everyone.
First, a hearty thank you to all of you who attended our 2023 MBTA Communities Act (MBTACA) Kickoff co-sponsored with Abundant Housing MA at Hops N Scotch this past Tuesday night. Despite the dreary weather, the room was packed with over 100 of you (!), and a good time was had by all as we learned important details about the MBTACA and Brookline’s plans to rezone the Harvard Street Corridor to meet our MBTACA obligation to allow more multifamily housing in our transit-rich neighborhoods. We also want to thank everyone who commented to the Select Board encouraging them to approve the Opticos Design Contract to draft the detailed Harvard Street Corridor form-based zoning proposal; we are delighted to report that it was approved, thanks in part to your advocacy, by a 4-0 vote.
To keep the momentum going, B4E is circulating a petition to encourage the SB and Town Meeting to continue supporting this process as it moves forward; please check out the petition here and, if you agree, add your name now. For more background on MBTACA, see B4E’s FAQs here, or for real policy nerds, you can review the detailed March 3, 2023 memo from the Town Administrator and Town Counsel, addressing the question “do we really have to comply with the state law?” Spoiler alert: the answer is an unequivocal YES!
Surprisingly, there are no significant meetings this week we want to highlight, so we’ll look ahead and ask you to add two important events to your calendar:
- Plan to attend the 5:30 pm March 15, 2023 Meeting (via Zoom) of the Housing Advisory Board (register here) for the public hearing on the final draft Housing Production Plan (HPP). The final draft HPP has been received by the Town, and we expect a link to be available soon. For background, you can see the slide deck presentation to the HAB from its meeting on Nov. 30, 2022.
- Mark your calendar and register now (space may be limited) to join us in person at Brookline Booksmith at 6:00 pm on March 27th for a conversation with Katherine Einstein & Maxwell Palmer, authors of Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America’s Housing Crisis. Einstein & Palmer, political science professors at Boston University, examine how local land use boards and institutions enlarge the power of entrenched interests and privileged homeowners. They draw on sweeping data to analyze the dominance of land use politics by so-called “neighborhood defenders” — individuals who oppose zoning reform and new housing projects far more strongly than their broader communities, and who (not surprisingly) are likely to be privileged on a variety of dimensions. The result is diminished housing stock and higher housing costs, perversely reproducing inequality. Registration is free, though contributions to support B4E are welcome.
Thanks and have a great week,
Jonathan Klein, on behalf of Brookline for Everyone