Hope everyone has been able to stay warm this weekend. Let’s dive right in.
Join Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) for a meeting with Senator Cynthia Creem and Reps. Kay Khan, Ruth Balser, and Alice Peisch
Mark your calendars for an in-district meeting with Senator Cynthia Creem and Reps. Kay Khan, Ruth Balser, and Alice Peisch hosted by our friends at Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) on Monday, January 29 at 7pm at the Union Church in Waban (14 Collins Road, Waban, MA). GBIO has been actively engaged in pushing the legislature to improve the quality of state public housing, allocate more funding for affordable housing and homeownership, increase the overall housing supply, and improve access for returning citizens. Learn more about the event here. Or sign-up to attend here.
Brookline Town Board/Committee Meetings of Note We’re Tracking This Week
Community Preservation Act Committee, Monday, January 22 at 6:30pm
The committee looks to be digging into reviewing applications that they’ve received for the funds. This week’s meeting agenda is focused on historic preservation and open space & recreation. Since this is the first time the committee has gone through the process of recommending allocations to various projects, this session will shed light on their thinking and how projects get prioritized. Click here for more information and here to join the Zoom meeting.
Planning Board, Wednesday, January 24 at 8:30am
The Planning Board will continue their zoning discussion around two family zones. The Planning Department’s memo (read it here) has pushed back on expanding recently approved design guidelines too quickly without analysis of the ramifications for different neighborhoods. Brookline for Everyone agrees, and as stated in our letter to the board calls for the Board “to balance the trade-offs inherent in any zoning code to support the increased housing production necessary to maintain an economically vibrant, welcoming, and accessible Brookline” (read our letter here). Click here to sign up for the Zoom meeting.
What We’re Reading This Week
The co-authors of Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted under the Color of Law, Richard Rothstein and Leah Rothstein, write a newsletter focused on “challenging racial segregation and remedying its effects.” On January 4th they hosted a guest author, Karen Parolek, Prescient of Opticos Design (who worked with Brookline on our Harvard Street form based code development) for an excellent piece on missing middle housing. Missing middle housing is an excellent for communities like Brookline to add homes without massive buildings, but instead to legalize housing types that Brookline is already familiar with: courtyard apartments, triple deckers, townhomes, and more. As Parolek explains in her piece, “[c]reating places with a variety of housing choices in the interest of economic diversity is one way to start to address the challenges of racial segregation.” This is exactly what Brookline for Everyone is all about, and understanding “missing middle” housing types is an important step in becoming better pro-housing advocates. Read the piece here.
An Eye Toward the May Election
As we’ll regularly remind folks in this space, the local May election is just around the corner. And we’ll need your help to elect pro-housing candidates! Here’s a couple ways to get started.
- If you think you might be interested in running for Town Meeting, or are curious to learn more, sign up for a Town Meeting info session.
- Donate to the Brookline for Everyone PAC to help fund our campaign efforts!
- Volunteer to help knock doors, reach out to neighbors, expand our social media reach and more! Email us at volunteer@brooklineforeveryone.com.