We hope folks enjoyed time with family and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday, and want to recognize the Massachusett, Wampanoag and Nipmuc peoples, who called our community home before us.
Join us for our 2024 Holiday Party!
Brookline for Everyone will be celebrating the holiday season with our annual gathering on the evening of Monday, December 16th from 5:30-7:30pm. Friends, family, and neighbors are welcome! RSVP here.
We look forward to celebrating 2024 with you, to discuss opportunities ahead in 2025, and catch up with friends, old and new.
Upcoming Brookline Meetings
We want to highlight 3 meetings on the town schedule for this week, plus one for next week:
- The Affordable Housing Overlay District (AHOD) Study committee will be meeting on Monday, December 2 at 7:30pm to review and comment on the financial analysis of feasibility prepared by RKG Associates, and to plan its next steps. Check out the full report here, and click here for the agenda and Zoom registration info.
- The Planning Board is meeting Tuesday, December 3 at 7:30pm for a design review meeting for the project at 40 Kent Street / 40 Webster Place. The proposal is for a 6-story residential building with 50 units (of which at least 8 would be affordable under our Inclusionary Zoning requirements), 24 parking spaces, and ground floor commercial. You can find more information about the development on the Town’s Website here. The proposed site is near the Goldfish Swim School, a 15,000 sq ft office building, and across Kent Street from a 4-story multifamily building. Click here for the agenda and Zoom registration info.
- The Housing Advisory Board (HAB) will have its regular monthly meeting Wednesday, December 4, from 5:30-7:30 pm via Zoom, where the agenda will include a follow up discussion on how to encourage more ADUs now that our zoning has been updated to meet the new state requirements, a report from the AHOD Study Subcommittee, and reviewing the recommendations from the Housing Production Plan approved by the Select Board in February 2024. The full agenda and registration have not been posted yet, but when they are posted (likely on Monday) you can find them here.
- Save the date: The Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee will be meeting next Monday, December 9 at 7:00, location/sign up tbd. For email updates on Steering Committee events, sign up here.
A Former Boston Globe Reporter Shares His Experience with Homelessness
As many of us spent this past Thursday counting our blessings in our warm, safe houses, more than 12,000 people in greater Boston have no home to call their own. Most of us have a vague sense of what being homeless might be like, former Boston Globe reporter Patrick Fealey’s recent piece in Esquire “The Invisible Man” gives his firsthand account of homelessness in America that is well worth your time. The rising cost of housing in our region puts more and more individuals and families on the precipice of homelessness, making the importance of housing abundance existential for many. Read the piece here.
The cycle of housing insecurity is hard to break, and the best solution is prevention. If helping folks stay in their homes and building more subsidized housing for low income households are important issues to you, consider a donation to the Brookline Community Development Corporation, which works toward both of these goals and has helped many families remain in their homes over the past couple years. (And if you donate $1,000 or more, get a state tax credit equal to 50% of your donation!)
Thanks and have a great week!