City Council votes against housing that neighbors liked
In case you missed this in the Chamber newsletter:
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Four homes? Apparently, that’s asking too much
>Eight months after he was sworn in as a Newton City Councilor, Brian Golden delivered his first speech on the council floor last night.
>It was a short but eloquent statement in support of a seemingly no-brainer proposal to allow a builder to replace a two-family house on a residential street in Newtonville with four attached single-family homes.
>Golden — a former state rep who once ran the Boston Planning & Development Agency under Boston Mayors Menino and Walsh — praised the project for its design, number of units and the way it blended into the neighborhood.
>But mostly, Golden said, "It's impossible for me to lose sight of how far behind Newton and the state are on building for human beings who need housing…. I do not want to forgo opportunities that are here right now that will yield housing for people who need it."
>It didn't help. Neither did the letter we sent last week.
>Golden and his colleagues voted 13-11 in support of the project at 60 Brookside Ave. But the special permit needed 16 votes to prevail.
>Sorry, human beings who need housing, it’s not happening.
>I don’t need to detail the objectors' objections, because we’ve heard them before: It doesn’t fit the neighborhood’s character; it's not going to solve the affordable housing shortage; we shouldn’t make exceptions to the zoning rules, we should reform the rules first.
>Oh, there was one councilor who voted no partly because the proposed units (the largest would have been 2,300 SF) were bigger than her house.
>Now, the developer will likely build one massive house at 60 Brookside instead — no council approval required.