Greetings Everyone, and Happy New Year! At Brookline for Everyone, we had a busy and successful 2024, with lots more on our agenda for 2025.
Our Work and Successes in 2024
Spring Election: In the Spring Election last May, we endorsed 63 candidates for Town Meeting across 16 of 17 precincts, of which 45 won (69%), including 23 of 24 incumbents and 22 of 41 non-incumbents. We were also delighted that Kimberley Richardson, who we endorsed, won her town-wide race for Brookline Housing Authority Commissioner, but disappointed that our endorsed candidate for Select Board, Alec Lebovitz, fell short. Overall, we improved the representation of pro-housing voices at Town Meeting last year, but much work remains for 2025 (see how you can help below!).
Spring Town Meeting: All four of B4E’s endorsed Warrant Articles passed, including Article 11, which approved $7,931,765 in allocations from the Community Preservation Act (including $6,441,535 for five critical community housing projects); Article 12, a modest expansion of the Senior Tax Work Off program; Article 13, a B4E priority which updated our Accessory Dwelling Units by-law; and Article 14, which updated our zoning by-law to make it easier to install heat pumps and EV chargers.
Fall Town Meeting: Brookline’s November 2024 Town Meeting brought real opportunity for more housing, but mixed results. We actively supported three Warrant Articles aimed at increasing housing availability, two of which passed, including Article 8, which allows for special permits to convert single-family homes into two-family homes, even when minimum lot size requirements cannot be met, and Article 15, which further liberalized the town’s Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) regulations to comply with new state requirements. Unfortunately, we were not able to pass Article 9, which would have allowed homeowners in two-family districts to add a third home, and it was referred to the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee by a small margin (a change of just eight votes would have made the difference!). Stay tuned – we will continue to press for this modest (but important) change to allow more housing.
Organizing and Learning: This year we continued building our community and our visibility, with an active presence at Brookline Day, the Farmer’s Market, and on social media, thanks to our terrific new Outreach Committee (thank you to co-chairs Margot Malloy and Jonathan Phillips; to join them, just contact us here). We also continued our quarterly Happy Hours and had our second annual Holiday Party, which was fun for everyone. We were also delighted with the Town-wide Forum we co-sponsored with Yes in Brookline! (and many others), Housing for All in Brookline: For-Profit and Nonprofit Developer Perspectives, where we all learned about the challenges of building housing in Brookline, and how we can overcome them. You can find an excellent summary and the recording here.
ACTION ITEM: How You Can Make a Difference in 2025
One of the most important steps we can take to implement pro-housing reforms to help move Brookline toward the environmentally sustainable, economically thriving, and racially inclusive community we want is to elect pro-housing candidates to Town Meeting every May. To make this happen, we need great candidates who understand that Brookline needs more housing – subsidized housing, market rate housing, and affordable housing for all incomes – and the Town’s zoning policy needs to allow this housing growth by right.
And we think YOU should be that candidate! We’re working hard to build out our 2025 May election campaign, and are planning info sessions on running for Town Meeting – the logistics of getting your name on the ballot, how to campaign in your neighborhoods, how Brookline for Everyone can help, and what being on Town Meeting entails. If you’ve ever thought about running for local office, or are trying to figure out how you can make an impact in our community, sign up here to learn more!
Town Planning Department Overview
We were pleased to see, and heartily recommend, this short 2024 overview, update, and January preview from Kara Brewton, Director of our excellent and hard-working Department of Planning and Community Development. It includes a short summary of the work of the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals for the past year, and this really helpful overview of all the upcoming activities in January, which you can check out here. Thanks, Kara!
Key Meetings of Interest this Week and Next
- The Housing Advisory Board (HAB) will have its regular monthly meeting Wednesday, January 8, from 5:30-7:30 pm via Zoom. The full agenda and registration have not been posted yet, but when they are (likely on Monday) you can find them here (scroll to the bottom).
- The Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee (see background here) will be meeting on Monday, January 13, at 7:00, in hybrid format, at Town Hall and on Zoom, to approve their “vision” and begin discussing “topic-based recommendations.” The Committee needs to hear, again and again, that their plan must find places for significantly more housing, and it needs to be reminded that there are underrepresented voices in town whose opinions matter. The full agenda and registration have not been posted yet, but when they are you can find them here (scroll to the bottom).
- The Chestnut Hill Commercial Area Study Community Advisory Group (see background here) also meets on Monday, January 13 at 6:30-8:30 pm, in person at Room 103 in Town Hall and via Zoom. The full agenda and registration have not been posted yet, but when they are you can find them here.
Best wishes to all for a Healthy, Happy, and Peaceful New Year!,
Jonathan Klein, on behalf of Brookline for Everyone