Town Meeting Votes on the MBTA Communities Act Consensus Proposal THIS TUESDAY!

We want to start this week off with a big thank you to everyone who responded so quickly to our call to action on Thursday. Thanks to your efforts (as well as our friends at Yes In Brookline, GBIO, and Mothers Out Front) the Advisory Committee received over 70 comments, both written and in person at the hearing, opposing a last minute referral motion that would delay, if not kill outright, the passage of meaningful compliance with the MBTA Communities Act. The Advisory Committee ultimately voted against the referral motion by a vote of 15-6-2, and there’s no doubt your action made an impact.

Town Meeting is scheduled to hear the MBTA-CA Consensus Warrant Article on Tuesday evening, November 14th. While there is strong momentum behind the consensus proposal, nothing is assured until Town Meeting’s final vote. With this in mind, we’ve got two more asks.

• Join us on Tuesday, November 14th at Brookline High School at 6pm for a “Rally for More Homes in Brookline!” This is the final opportunity to show Town Meeting Members the strength of the coalition supporting meaningful compliance with the MBTA-CA, including a rezoning of Harvard Street to enhance the vibrancy of this vital corridor with more homes and businesses. Sign up here if you’re able to join us!
• And if you haven’t already done so, urge your Town Meeting Members, by phone or email, to vote YES for the Select Board’s Consensus Warrant Article (STM4-WA1), and vote NO on any referral motion. Click here to identify your TMMs, and here for suggestions about what to say.

While you’re reaching out to your Town Meeting Members to encourage their support for the MBTA-CA Consensus Warrant Article, you can also encourage them to support our other Fall 2023 Warrant Article endorsements. Here’s a quick summary of where we stand, with our full write-up available here:

• • Special Town Meeting 4, Article 1 – Select Board’s Consensus MBTA-CA Compliant Warrant Article
    • Recommendation: FAVORABLE ACTION as filed; NO ACTION on ALL referrals, amendments or substitutions.
  • Article 6 – Rezoning of Three Lots on Mason Terrace
    • Recommendation: FAVORABLE ACTION on the article as amended
  • Article 8 – Senior Property Tax Work Off Program
    • Recommendation: FAVORABLE ACTION on the article
  • Article 11 – Renaming the Community Preservation Community the Community Preservation Act Committee
    • Recommendation: FAVORABLE ACTION on the article
  • Article 16 – Home Rule Petition for rent stabilization and tenant eviction protections
    • Recommendation: NEUTRAL. Rent stabilization can be an important tool in the toolbox to help current residents stay in their homes, and we encourage our local leaders and activists to continue engaging on local option efforts at the state level, as part of a broader housing strategy to address our regional housing affordability concerns.

Our friends at Abundant Housing Massachusetts (AHMA) will be hosting their “First Annual Celebration of Abundance!” on Thursday, November 30th at 7pm at Lamplighter @CX in Cambridge. More from AHMA:

As a young state-wide organization with more than two dozen grassroots local affiliates, we want to celebrate our growing accomplishments and rally for the years to come. What began just a few years ago as a small yet mighty set of advocates in a few communities has grown into Abundant Housing MA (AHMA), a robust statewide organization playing a leading role in one of the most significant zoning reforms in Massachusetts history. The impact of our grassroots work has been clear. There is a continual need for state-wide agency with a local organizing lens. Through our work with affiliates, pro-housing residents have grown their bases by organizing themselves and their neighbors, they’ve elected pro-housing voices to key town meetings or appointed seats and activated new pro-housing voices through effective grassroots advocacy strategies. Will you be joining us to celebrate a year full of abundance?

Landmark Housing Policy Report

We want to draw everyone’s attention to an important report issued by Boston Indicators, the research center at the Boston Foundation, and written by Amy Dain, titled Exclusionary by Design: An Investigation of Zoning’s Use as a Tool of Race, Class, and Family Exclusion in Boston’s Suburbs, 1920 to Today. We know some of you were able to attend the launch event this past Wednesday, but if you weren’t able to make it, there are a couple of ways you can learn more about the findings in the report.

• Watch the recording of Amy Dain’s presentation of the report. It’s under 30 minutes and well worth your time.
• Read the full report here.

However you’re able to engage with the research, we highly suggest that you do. Her framing of “The Big Downzone” in the late 1960s and 1970s, including Brookline’s major early 1970s downzoning, as primarily about exclusion, both racially and economically, encourages a grappling with this past and bolsters efforts toward redirecting our housing policy toward more multi family homes and walkable density near transit, and affordable and abundant homes across the region

And finally, we encourage anyone who missed this week’s Boston Globe Spotlight Team report “Brookline homes: One wealthy liberal town reckons with its past.” Stephanie Ebbert takes a deep dive into Brookline history, zoning, and politics to paint a picture of today’s Brookline housing conversation.

Thanks and we hope you have a great week,

Jeff Wachter, on behalf of Brookline for Everyone