The Newtonville Area Council (NAC) has produced a 3D model that purports to illustrate what would be allowed by right in the first draft of the Village Center Zoning Proposal. The Building Professionals Zoning Working Group analyzed the NAC presentation. We found a number of inaccuracies and unrealistic assumptions. The…
Posts published in “Zoning”
Up-zoning Newton’s village centers will dramatically impact the future of our Garden City. Residents need visualizations of the up-zoning ZAP plans to ask the City Council to approve in May. The Planning & Development Department has not provided this basic information to the community, instead spending time and resources on…
As part of the new Multi-family Zoning Requirement for MBTA Communities Act (Mass. General Laws c.40A § 3A), the City of Newton submitted this action plan describing how it will comply with the new law either through new zoning or rezoning properties located near transit. The Act requires the 175…
As previously reported in Fig City News, at the Zoning and Planning Committee meeting on January 23 (video), Councilor Pam Wright had said that since 2020, over 3,500 housing units were either approved or in the pipeline for approval — either by the special permit process through the Land Use…
The Newtonville Area Council (NAC) unveiled modeling of the proposed Village Center Zoning at its meeting in January. According to the NAC, “After ZAP and the Planning & Development Department repeatedly asserted that 3D modeling was neither necessary nor even possible within their time and budget constraints, the Newtonville Area Council voted to allocate…
At the January 23 Zoning and Planning (ZAP) Committee meeting (watch video on NewTV), Jenn Caira, Deputy Director of Planning, briefed the committee on the current status of the Planning Department’s work on Village Center Zoning. Ms. Caira’s presentation included a recap of the seven information sessions that were held…
According to the MassDOT website: The third and final virtual public information meeting of the Route 128 Land Use and Transportation Study Team will be held TONIGHT at 6PM. Register here. Designed to establish the future land use, housing, and economic development assumptions for the segment of Route 128 between…
I want to offer two comments related to the opinion piece by Peter Harrington, dated January 9, 2023. Mr. Harrington’s piece included graphics submitted to ZAP by Marc Hershman with his suggestion of what Waban would look like with the proposed village center zoning. There are numerous errors and distortions…
The development projects 28 Austin Street and Trio, which opened a few years ago, provide critical case studies by which to evaluate other, forthcoming large developments. One of the presumed benefits of both projects has been that large numbers of their residents would use public transit. That is why the City Council…
Thank you to Peter Harrington for articulating many of the issues with the zoning “redesign” in his op-ed of 1/9/23. It is impossible to properly give feedback, let alone vote, on the radical re-categorizing of zones without being able to envision what development would be like — especially development “by…