As the unrelenting chaos in DC weighs on all of us, we’re here to help you find a meaningful outlet to make an impact in your community.
Brookline Town Election Season Ramping Up
As you’re aware from our last few newsletters, Brookline’s local election is on the horizon–Tuesday, May 6th!–and we’re looking forward to supporting great pro-housing, pro-climate, and pro-transit candidates for Town Meeting, both incumbents and challengers.
We’re still looking for candidates in a few precincts; if you’ve ever thought about running for office or running again, there’s still time to get your name on the ballot! Reply to this email and we’ll be happy to help you with the process. We’re also building up our precinct teams to help us talk to voters about B4E endorsed Town Meeting candidates. Sign up here to volunteer! And finally, reaching out to thousands of Brookline voters costs money. If you’re in a position to contribute to this effort please do so here.
Brookline Meetings This Week
Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee – Monday, March 10 at 7pm (in-person in room 103 at Town Hall and virtual on Zoom)
- The committee will be reviewing and approving major topics for the comp plan, hearing updates from Town Staff regarding the timeline of the next phase of the process, and developing draft vision statements to present to the community. Click here for the agenda and meeting registration.
Fisher Hill West Uses Advisory committee Agenda – Monday, March 10 at 7pm via Zoom
- As a reminder, this committee was established to “make land use and potential disposition recommendations to the Select Board regarding the Town-owned Fisher Hill Avenue parcels…formerly referred to as the Newbury College West Campus.” This week’s meeting will focus on evaluation criteria for proposal submissions – meaning what kind of projects might be considered at this site. This 3+ acre site represents a tremendous opportunity for a really unique addition to Brookline, and we encourage folks to attend and ask that the evaluation criteria be as broad as possible to allow for creative thinking. Housing? Public recreation opportunity? A unique cultural center? Specialty retail / food hall? A combination of these or many other ideas mixed together? Click here for the agenda and meeting registration, or email your thoughts to the committee via mmorelli@brooklinema.gov.
Zoning Board of Appeals – Thursday, March 13 at 7pm via Zoom
- This week’s ZBA hearings include 3 properties each looking to add an additional home – a 3 family home replacing a 2 family at 71 Green Street; a conversion of a 3 family to 4 family home at 8 Kilsyth Road; and an attached garage conversion to a single family home at 37 Beverly Road. If you think these additional homes should be allowed, we encourage you to email the board via npare@brooklinema.gov, or you can review the agenda and sign up to provide public comment live here.
Why housing and land use is a climate issue
This week on the Volts podcast with David Roberts, he tackles the question of why housing and urban land use is central to climate policy. This is an issue very relevant to Brookline, where folks focused on climate action seem to be split on the topic of housing, and longtime environmental activists publicly oppose even modest density measures (such as adding a 3rd home to Brookline’s two family zones debated last November). This conversation between Roberts and Matthew Lewis of California YIMBY is a great listen, and touches on everything from why EVs are both vital and not nearly sufficient, to embodied emissions, to resistance to neighborhood change. Listen to the podcast (or read the transcript) here, and just go ahead and subscribe to the Volts podcast while you’re at it.
SAVE THE DATE: Brookline for Everyone March Happy Hour on March 31st
We look forward to seeing you all on March 31st at The Washington Square Tavern for our next B4E Happy Hour. More info and a link to RSVP coming soon!
Thanks, and have a great week,
Jeff Wachter, on behalf of Brookline for Everyone