Brookline Perspective

What's Wrong with Article 13?

2011-10-22T17:22:00.010-04:00

Article 13 began life as a resolution calling for the installation of a pedestrian-actuated traffic control signal at the Green St. crosswalk in Coolidge Corner. That's the crosswalk going from Friendly's to Upper Crust and the Coolidge Corner Theater at the corner of Green St. and Harvard St. in the heart of our beloved CC shopping district. The Article has since been amended to call for a study of said light.

The petitioner claims that all will be right with the universe if we do this. In this alternate universe, pedestrians will line up and press the button, then patiently wait a minute and a half, happy to cross when the whooshing vehicles are finally forced to stop by the red light, the pedestrians will scurry quickly across, then once again the vehicles will resume whooshing. All this will occur because the traffic lights at the nearby intersections at Beacon and Babcock will be coordinated and perfectly synced to move the traffic in seamless flow. Too bad none of this alternate reality scenario resembles reality.

I can appreciate the appeal and simple logic of this idea. Unfortunately, the traffic and pedestrian flows along this stretch of Harvard are anything but simple and the addition of a traffic control signal at Green St. will wreak havoc to traffic flows along this stretch of Harvard. Consider the following: 1) Traffic flows are two-way and these two-way flows are not equally balanced. 2) There are turning vehicles that enter the traffic stream on Harvard St., even when Harvard St. is red at Beacon. Vehicles turn right, going north from westbound Beacon, vehicles turn left from westbound Babcock. 3) These folks, along with those at the tail end of the previous green light and other, non-synced flows (contrary to popular belief the lights cannot be perfectly synched due to reasons #1 and #2) will be stopped for 20 seconds or more at the new light at the Green St. cross walk. Hardly a recipe for whooshing. 4) If you think slowing and occasionally stopping for pedestrians at the crosswalk is annoying for drivers now, imagine a light stopping all traffic for one-half of the available time (Beacon green), whenever anyone may have pushed the button, whether they are there now or not. and 5) The travel lanes widen to two just before and through the Beacon St. intersection, then suddenly tapering down to one again, right before the cross walk. This bulge and squeeze is the real reason there is a flow issue at Beacon and Harvard, not the cross walk.

The petitioner has told us that the pedestrian light is not a new idea, that its been studied and recommended before. This is absolutely not true. The 2005 study he cites had it wrong, (there existing conditions report stated that there was already a light there), and simply recommended the signals be coordinated. Clearly, these folks had a keen power of observation. The other 2009 study concluded that the Green St. crosswalk did not seem to be a dominant issue creating backups. This was based on field observation and not a study of potential impacts. The petitioner also stated that all other options for improvement had been tried. Again, not true. Professor Peter Furth, former Transportation Board member, professor of civil engineering at Northeastern University, PhD from MIT in Transportation Systems and recipient of the 2004, Best Paper award from the Transportation Research Board Committee on Traffic Signal Systems, strongly warns against signalizing the crosswalk. Peter's advanced traffic signal control class looked at this stretch of Harvard St. as a case study. They concluded that the core problem was that too many vehicles were passing through the Beacon St. intersection and that this problem could be corrected by shortening the length of the traffic signal cycle. Professor Furth strongly warns against putting such a light here, and as a resident of Brookline he strongly objects, noting how well the crosswalk works now and understanding the benefits to maintaining a safe, pedestrian friendly shopping district. Professor Furth's study, complete with traffic flow simulations is the most indepth study done to date, and yet the petitioner did not even bother to read it. Brookline's Director of Engineering, Peter Ditto testified at the Selectmen's hearing on this Article that his Department did not feel a pedestrian-actuated light should be studied.

There is Town wide desire to improve travel conditions in Coolidge Corner, which is why the petitioner has succeeded in gathering some support for the article, but there is also a clear sense, expressed by many, that we should be looking more holistically at travel conditions near Beacon and Harvard and that we should not be entering into a study already having concluded what the source and solution to the problem is. The petitioner has assured us that other ideas will be looked at. Yet, this is not what the resolution says, and the resolution cannot be modified because it would become a fundamentally different Article. I don't know about you but I am not comfortable giving my support to something based on the assurance that really, its not what it says it is.

The fact is the petitioner has decided what improvement is desirable and concluded that it would have a positive result, all without the benefit of professional knowledge, without supporting facts or analysis, without consultation with the Town staff or boards responsible for these decisions, who have been, by the way, working diligently observing, testing and working with consultants to solve the problem. Doesn't their opinion matter?

So, what’s wrong with passing the Article and studying the traffic signal? Surely, the study will come to the same conclusions as Professor Furth and the idea of the traffic signal will be dropped. For starters, such a study looks at the wrong thing, making it a waste of Town resources, we already have the advantage of a high-caliber free study showing us the way towards a promising alternative improvement. Second, directing the scope, focus and policy direction of a consultant’s work away from the fundamental problem and towards a single, ill conceived and predetermined result is bad science and bad policy and will prevent us from identifying better, more cost effective solutions that work for everyone, whether on foot, bike or in a car. And third, let's pass a resolution that lets the professionals do their job, instead of telling them what the conclusion is before they start.

Reading Olmsted's Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England

2011-05-07T21:02:00.000-04:00

The recent broadcast of the documentary "Olmsted and America's Urban Parks on PBS, inspired me to revisit this article describing Olmsted's early book, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England, which was first published in Our Town Brookline June, 2006. I highly recommend this early book of Olmsted's to anyone with a sincere desire to understand the man, his vision and his talents.

Frederick Law Olmsted is best known as the designer of NewYork’s Central Park and Boston’s own Emerald Necklace. What is less well knownis that he practiced a number of different professions before finding hislife’s work. Long before he began designing landscapes, F.L. Olmsted authoredhis first book, Walks and Talks of anAmerican Farmer in England. It’s a chatty recounting of his month longwalking tour through the English countryside. Reading it today, we get aglimpse of the formative experiences of a great talent. Originally published intwo volumes in 1852, the book was reissued in 2002 with annotated text and anexcellent introduction by noted Olmsted scholar Charles C. McLaughlin. Writtenfrom copious journals and letters home, Olmsted’s narrative is intimate,descriptive and often very funny. We are in the company of a young, energeticand inquiring mind.

At the age of 28, F.L. Olmsted, his younger brother John andJohn’s Yale roommate, Charles Loring Brace set sail for Liverpool, England, ajourney that took 26 days. To secure a place on the trip, Frederick convincedhis father that he needed to study scientific farming in England to benefit hiscurrent agricultural endeavor on Staten Island. To call the trip an adventureis an understatement by today’s standards, as the sea voyage alone was fraughtwith hardships, potential peril and a great deal of discomfort. Funds weretight and the young men traveled in the hardscrabble mode of students the worldover. At this point, Olmsted’sfuture was anything but determined. Prior to farming, he had been a surveyor, aclerk in a retail store, a merchant seaman, (a job that took him on a perilousjourney to China), and a journalist. Unlike most of his peers, he did not go tocollege, but was nonetheless widely read and inquisitive.

Knowing what we do about F. L. Olmsted’s later achievements andremarkable career, reading this, his first book is a chance to witness thegestation of the many skills, attitudes, beliefs, and aesthetic preferencesthat, when blended together, would result in Olmsted’s wholly unique set ofabilities. Open, amiable, adventurous, inquisitive, and exacting in hisobservations and critiques, Olmsted approaches England, “the mother land” withan affectionate regard, yet also with an eye for the distinctions andimprovements his newly free America has wrought. He pursues a wide variety ofsubjects, including social class structure, land economics, scientific farming,religious beliefs, treatment of prisoners, status of the poor, landscape andits effect on psychology, health and social cohesion, architecture, and cityform. Yet none of these were abstract concepts to Olmsted, his genius was hisability to connect his observations with the wider forces that were in factshaping those experiences he was witnessing. He had a reformers heart, but a realist’s view of theworld.

His many analytical skills are put to good use as hesystematically gathers first hand knowledge through penetrating observation and conversations with people from all walks of life. He acquires vast technical knowledge aboutsoil, climate, engineering techniques and the conditions necessary for healthyplant life. While the resulting long, detailed passages may prove tedious forsome readers, the knowledge Olmsted gains will undoubtedly prove invaluablewhen it comes time to transform the barren and swampy lands he was often givento work with into pastoral paradises.

We also meet Olmsted the social critic and reformer. Histraveling companion, Charles Loring Brace would later found the Children’s AidSociety in New York City and it was probably at his urging that the triovisited prisons, alms houses, jails and village schools. In this contextOlmsted is pragmatic, practical and open minded, displaying an eagerness toembrace divergent points of view, and yet he still forms his own definiteopinions. Despite the trip’s focus on learning and research, Olmsted was aboveall else acutely open to the experience of his immediate surroundings and as askilled writer he is able to capture and share those sensations.

Olmsted’s month long walking tour through the Englishcountryside would have a profound and lasting effect on the rest of his life.Many of the scenes and events that captivate and enlighten him mark the genesisof some of the core passions that would later propel him towards his ultimateprofession. On the Isle of Wight Olmsted considers the profoundly soothingeffect of nature when he writes, “ Dame Nature is a gentle woman…Gradually andsilently the charm comes over us; the beauty has entered our souls; we know notexactly when or how, but going away we remember it with a tender, subdued,filial-like joy”. A pleasant walk on a public promenade in Chester gives riseto his belief in the social benefits of shared public spaces. He experiencesthe extreme contrast between the dismal slums of industrial Liverpool and thebeauty of the surrounding countryside and would go on to devise newmetropolitan forms that better blend the advantages of both urban and rurallife.

We are witness to Olmsted’s epiphany at Birkenhead Park, apublic park outside of Liverpool. It was by happy accident that he visited thepark at all and yet it was an experience that changed the course of history.Created by landscape gardeners Joseph Paxton and Edward Kemp, the entire parkwas under-drained, with wide carriage roads and paths, rock gardens, pavilions,trees and shrubs and ponds stocked with fish and swans. Olmsted observes that“…large valleys were made verdant, extensive drives arranged - plantations,clumps, and avenues of trees formed, and a large park laid out. And all thismagnificent pleasure-ground is entirely, unreservedly, and forever the people’sown. The poorest British peasant is as free to enjoy it in all its parts as theBritish queen. More than that, the baker of Birkenhead has the pride of anOWNER in it. Is it not a grand good thing?” This was a revelation to Olmsted, for at this time therewere no such public parks in America.

It sometimes took private wealth to create great art, as inthe case of Eaton Hall in Chester. Eaton was one of over 1,000 private estatesin England at the time, many of which were known the world over for the beautyof their lavish grounds. The private ownership of so many great parks inEngland fueled Olmsted’s conviction that public ownership and access to suchnatural beauty was a vital necessity in a democratic America. The artisticlessons to be learned here would not be lost on Olmsted, either. Immediatelyupon seeing Capability Brown’s landscape, Olmsted finds himself identifyingwith the creator and exclaims, “What artist, so noble, has often been mythought, as he, who with far-reaching conception of beauty and designing power,sketches the outline, writes the colors, and directs the shadows of a pictureso great that Nature shall be employed upon it for generations, before the workhe has arranged for her shall realize his intentions” These sentiments describethe far reaching vision that necessarily define the yet to be born professionof landscape architecture.

Landscape viewing had become an intellectual as well asrecreational pursuit in America by the mid 19^th century. Olmsted’sfather, John had read Sir Uvedale Price, William Gilpin, Richard Knight, andJohn C. Loudon, writers who waxed poetically about landscapes that werepicturesque, beautiful and sublime. A definition of these terms evolved as acommon lexicon and fostered the popular pastime of extended outings seekingvistas and views of scenic value. Picturesque scenery made a good, sketchablepicture and fell somewhere between the soft, rounded tranquil aesthetic ofbeautiful landscapes and the awe and grandeur one finds in sublime settingssuch as Niagara Falls. As a young boy Frederick’s father had taken him on manysuch outings. In this way he was already tuned into “analyzing” a landscape, askill he developed to a remarkable degree.

In the English landscape he found that form of thepicturesque he most admired, a domesticated land that has been cultivated forcenturies, one that fell somewhere between natural and civilized. He wouldlater strive to recreate his idealized versions of the Victorian Englishlandscape back home on American soil. Upon first seeing it he exclaimed, “Thecountry-and such a country!-green, dripping, glistening, gorgeous! We stooddumb-stricken by its loveliness…-in an English lane; with hedges, Englishhedges, hawthorn hedges, all in blossom; homely old farm houses, quaintstables, and haystacks; the old church spire over the distant trees; the mildsun beaming through the watery atmosphere...” Through observation he was ableto identify the precise combinations and relationships of scenic elements thatmade up this landscape, as when he observed, “The great beauty and peculiarityof the English landscape is to be found in the frequent long, graceful lines ofdeep green hedges and hedge-row timber, crossing hill, valley, and plain, inevery direction; and in the occasional large trees, dotting the broad fields,either singly or in small groups…here is everywhere a great deal of quiet,peaceful, graceful beauty, which the works of man have generally added to.”

It seems a special privilege to accompany a young Olmsted onhis trip. Reading Walks and Talks ismeaningful for those interested in learning about Olmsted’s early experiences,but the book can also stand on it’s own as an enjoyable travel book, giving adescriptive narrative of the English countryside of the mid 19^thcentury.

Landscape Urbanism vs. The New Urbanists

2011-01-31T13:24:00.003-05:00

Let me get this straight. A group of landscape architects are claiming that the road to urban sustainability can only be found if we place primary importance on protection of the natural environment (i.e. leaving the land as undisturbed as possible). They claim that suburbia (sprawl) has a greater potential to achieve their vision because of it's dispersed settlement patterns. In their minds they are in opposition to the New Urbanists' led by architect Andres Duany, who say that the built environment's form should mirror walkable town center's to enable a denser, more compact and social development pattern. The relevant point here is that we have landscape architects and architects each devising "systems" that are anything but systematic or holistic in their scope. Is it any surprise that the landscape architects are yelling "it's all about the landscape stupid" or the architect's screaming, "it's all about the buildings stupid!" Of course it is about both, and there are plenty of enlightened planner's who have grasped this reality for a long time.

To me, the one truly valuable contribution brought by the landscape urbanists' is their fundamental questioning of the long-term ecological viability of our over-engineered, mechanistic storm water infrastructure. They wish to see a more cohesive melding of human settlements and the natural functioning of land. This is not a new idea, and it is one that can be brought into urban settings, bringing the life enhancing benefits of living in close proximity to naturally functioning landscapes to urban dwellers. But to think that this implies that suburban development patterns are superior ecologically is to live in denial of the fact that human populations have already swelled beyond the capacity of our land resources to support a completely dispersed population, it also denies the devastating waste and environmental toll wrought by sprawl in terms of the very land resources they wish to protect, not to mention, the vast about of infrastructure and fuel needed to support the exclusively private automobile transportation system. I cannot agree with their assertion that suburbia is "what Americans' want". As we all know, cheap land, and federal subsidies to the oil industry and mortgage business have fueled this so-called "choice". Young people today do not seem to be making the same choice, whether it is because of shifting economics or lifestyle choice, the demand for walkable urban housing is growing drastically. The landscape urbanists' "anti-urban" urban vision also denies the fundamental fact that humans are social creatures who thrive on live exchange of ideas and shared experiences.

There are familiar "holes" in the New Urbanists' theories too. From the very beginning it has been pointed out that just building the "bones" does not a living, thriving community make. In other words, just because a newly planned community contains office space or retail space there are no guarantees that there will be a "match" between these jobs and goods and the nearby residents. Expensive, "faux" neighborhoods do not make a real neighborhood, where people care about the place and look after one another's interests without the modern planned communities' regulatory deed restrictions and covenants. Yet, the New Urbanists' insights were a leap forward; they helped us understand the role of walkability, street grid patterns, pedestrian scale and mixed use in creating livable places. These lessons are still just as valuable today. Are these lessons all that we need to create sustainable communities? Of course not. But then, neither is the Landscape Urbanists' theory of land protection. There are still the fundamental questions of life support systems, such as fuel for heat, electricity, water, food, transportation, the economy, family life, community and all the other basic necessities.

The fact that these two "camps" consider themselves in opposition is laughable. Both make interesting and valuable points. Both have huge blind spots and holes in their theories. Neither one of them is good in isolation and neither one of them is an appropriate blue print for future action in the real world. Since we can't wipe the slate clean and apply either one of these theories on a large scale in a pristine setting, I suggest that both camps get busy working on real world applications. Better yet, how about talking directly to each other and to others who have been thinking systemically for a long time? I have a great deal of tolerance and even delight in research and theorizing when it comes to urban planning. After all, how would we ever get new ideas if we focused only on the here and now. But in this debate, we see the ivory tower run amok.

It's amusing that their testosterone fueled debate has vaulted this spitting match to the pages of the Sunday Boston Globe . I can't remember when I last saw an article in a major newspaper covering an academic debate between two "competing" theories of urban planning. Perhaps this is due to a growing awareness that the tools and techniques of urban planning are useful mechanisms for helping us navigate the challenges of climate change and fossil fuel depletion. More of the general public has an interest in urban planning than ever before it seems. It would be nice if that attention didn't get dissipated by watching a school yard wrestling match. Rather, the time has come to collaborate and apply all the good ideas we can find to the massive problems we face.

The Case for Article 10

2010-11-20T09:19:00.000-05:00

I just tried to watch the Article 10 Town Meeting debate on BATV. Sadly, the sound was completely messed up. For that reason, I am posting the text of my presentation here. Special Thanks to all of the excellent presenters speaking in favor of Article 10 at Town Meeting, those who had a chance to speak, and those who did not. Linda Hamlin, AIA, Brookline Planning Board; Eunice White, TMM Pct. 2; Jim Batchelor, AIA, Preservation Commission; John Bassett, TMM Pct. 6; Brian Kane, Brookline Transportation Board, TMM Pct. 6; Werner Lohe, Conservation Commission, TMM Pct. 13, Rob Daves, TMM Pct. 5; Andrew Fischer, TMM Pct. 13; Anita Johnson, TMM Pct. 8

Well, I guess no one really cares very much about parking in Brookline do they?

Why did I bring this Article to Town Meeting? I’ve been immersed in this subject professionally and personally for many years. The Selectmen’s Parking Committee was a dedicated and talented group of individuals and as a member of that Committee, I thought it would be unfortunate not to see progress towards implementation of our recommendation to lower residential parking requirements. I believe this action is necessary to protect the beauty of our neighborhoods and our quality of life. I appreciate the focused attention and interest so many of you have paid to this topic and look forward to continuing our collective efforts towards achieving better parking policy in Brookline.

Article 10 is a proposal to reduce the minimum amount of parking we require for new multi-family residential construction within ? mile of MBTA T stops. The new minimums would be 1 space for a studio/1 bedroom unit, 1.2 spaces for a 2 bedroom unit and 1.4 spaces for a three bedroom unit. Two and three family homes would be required to provide 1.3 spaces per dwelling unit and Single family homes remain virtually unchanged, with a two space minimum. The requirements are applied to new development and when a dwelling is converted or added onto.

Some have raised concerns that the proposed minimums may not be appropriate for new housing, because high-income buyers want more parking. That’s debatable, but irrelevant because the proposed rates are only minimums, there are no maximums. Anyone wishing to build more parking would be able to. But by not requiring such a high level of parking, we are getting closer to allowing need, market, location and good design dictate the amount of parking to be built for a particular building. If the choice is to build luxury units, then let the market decide rather than regulate for that. If the choice is to target those seeking newly constructed units with less parking, lowering the minimums is the only way to allow that option.

What doesn’t Article 10 do? Article 10 does not increase the amount of building allowed. It also doesn’t take away any existing parking or change the equilibrium already established between rental parking and the buildings with little or no on-site parking. It is not about forcing people to give up their car or making them take the T. But it is a response to the fact that our residents within a 1/2 mile of the T have chosen to live in a transit-oriented setting and don’t collectively need as much parking as we currently make them build and buy. The key word there is collectively. Article 10 doesn’t prohibit those households who need two cars from having them, it just acknowledges the fact that not everyone does.

We’ve seen how emotional an issue parking can be. It’s hard to be objective about it. Whether you think we need more or less, we all think about parking through the lens of our own experience and observations. Collectively these observations make up a kind of truth, but we’re not hearing the full range of viewpoints and experiences. Among those we do not hear from are those who don’t drive. But, when asked to think about parking policy, we project our own wants, needs and desires onto that hypothetical household we are trying to plan for. But Brookline is home to a diverse population of individuals all making choices that best suit their own unique situation. So, as far as prediction goes, the best we can hope for is to observe what has happened and objectively quantify conditions as they are today, which is the approach we took on the Parking Committee.

But there is a bit of the aspirational in any planning policy. After all isn’t that what the Comprehensive Planning process was all about? Trying to articulate our vision for the Brookline of tomorrow? Choosing goals and implementing them through policy is what planning is all about. We set priorities and make trade-offs. Our Plan articulates a lot of worthy goals. We want to encourage the use of transit. In fact, our Plan cites a Town survey in which Brookline residents identified access to transit as their number one criteria for choosing to live here. We want to preserve our historic structures, streetscapes and neighborhoods. We want a community friendly to pedestrians and bikes. We want to support local businesses and preserve open space. We want a diversity of housing types and affordability ranges. We want to limit traffic congestion and yet our zoning by-law requires parking for more vehicles than most of our residents even choose to own. Bringing more traffic into our neighborhoods, making it harder to walk and bike, increasing the cost of housing and threatening open space and historic structures. So we’ve managed to implement a policy that works against our stated goals.

How we treat parking in our zoning by-law makes a big difference. Today’s parking requirements are twice as high as they were until 1986. The pleasing streetscapes and walkable neighborhoods we enjoy would not have been possible had today’s parking requirements been in place when they were built. Instead, we would have streets lined with garage front houses, underground garage ramps, and surface parking lots and roadways that could not handle the traffic volume. High minimum on-site requirements mean we must fit all that extra parking onto each tiny lot and it takes its toll. Beautiful historic structures are lost to new buildings that must be designed around parking, often resulting in first floors that are garage fronts and parking. Yards are paved, pedestrians harassed and streetscapes destroyed. When we raised the parking requirements, we threw an additional significant spatial demand into the equation, throwing off the balanced equilibrium designed into the by-law between Floor Area Ratio, Setbacks, Open Space and parking. We require all these standards be met, but they can’t possibly be, so special permit violations must be given. There is no special permit provision for a reduction in parking requirements for new residential construction. Instead, the bulk and height of the building is often increased because it incorporates the parking. Over time, if left unchanged, these requirements will transform the form of our town, replacing our homes one by one with hybrid garage homes. There are no design standards that will “fix this problem” or preservation mandates that will protect our structures.

Some Hybrid Garage/Homes

The Selectmen’s Parking Committee was appointed in 2008. With the help of Town Planning staff we undertook an in-depth study of our parking requirements and existing parking conditions, and we learned a great deal. Based on our research:

We know that the average multi-family household, including two and three family dwellings within the overlay zone owns about 1 car. 23% of these same households own no car.

We know that 47% of commuters living in the overlay take public transportation, walk or bike to work.

We know that the total number of cars in Brookline has declined since 1998 while the population has increased.

We know that Brookline Zipcar membership has increased from 40 to 3,300 in the last decade.

We know that existing buildings with parking requirements matching Article 10’s meet the parking needs of their residents on-site with the amount of parking they have. Some have extra spaces that they rent.

We know that the multi-family parking lots surveyed by the Committee had an average vacancy rate of 25% and some of those locations are actively advertising spaces for rent.

We know that of the 300 or so publicly available resident overnight parking spaces less than half of them are occupied and that the prices for private overnight rental parking have not increased beyond cost of living increases in the last decade.

We know the Article 10 proposed rates are consistent with other peer communities who also have over night parking bans, including Newton’s 1.25 and Arlington’s 1.3 spaces per unit.

We know the proposed rates are consistent with professional standards for similar settings, such as the Institute of Transportation Engineer’s 1.0 to 1.2 per unit and the Urban Land Institute’s 1.2 – 1.4. Our current parking requirements exceed even recommended suburban standards for multi-family housing.

We know that some multi-family buildings predate the auto era and were built without parking, we also know that enterprising property owners have creatively met the parking needs for these buildings. Signs asking for parking or selling available parking are a sign that spaces in the underground market are turning over, not of desperation.

Requiring extra parking to be built in new buildings is not an effective or efficient means to add to the public parking pool. New building parking is not necessarily built where extra parking is needed. Many new buildings limit access to their garage areas, so that expensive extra parking represents a huge waste of money and resources. It passes the cost of parking onto the buyers and residents of the new buildings.

The Parking Committee’s recommendation to lower residential parking rates was based on the totality of all these findings and more. The recommended requirements in Article 10 are above the minimums that were in the primary proposal considered by the Parking Committee’s regulatory sub-committee. They are based on the number of vehicles residents say they own, sorted by housing type and size, and include a 25% positive margin of error.

The proposed rates work because a building’s population is a microcosm of the population as a whole, containing singles, couples, families and friends at different stages in their life, with varying needs for parking. Building to the average, with a moderate upward cushion factor built in, is how we meet resident’s parking need without over or under building parking.

It seems every time Brookline’s parking requirements are assessed by transportation professionals, the recommendation is the same, they are too high. For instance, in the Coolidge Corner District Plan pg. 67, which reports the consultants findings it says: “Coolidge Corner typifies what is meant by TOD, with the exception of parking standards for new development. As outlined earlier in this section, zoning amendments to reduce parking requirements for new development…should be considered as revisions to the Zoning Bylaw.”

At the well attended Brookline Parking Forum held on June 9th 2008, Jason Schrieber of the Transportation Planning firm Nelson/Nygaard noted that Brookline’s residential parking rates were 25 to 50% higher than other greater Boston communities. He then presented examples of recent residential projects built in Boston neighborhoods, the Alewife area of Cambridge, and Arlington, all of which were within 1/2 miles of transit. Parking provided for these projects ranged from .69 to 1.23 spaces per dwelling unit.

Research has been cited that concludes that removing or lowering parking requirements allows for increased density and that areas putting in new transit lines see an increase in land values, drawing wealthy residents who bring vehicles. Well this is precisely what happened in Brookline at the end of the 19th century. The trolley line was put in down Beacon St. and suddenly it became possible to live in an apartment building close to the T. Land values increased and new development possibilities were created. Those case studies are about areas that are trying to create new areas of transit oriented development, not places like Brookline where history has built the form for us. But, the point of needing to match the parking requirements to the built form still holds true. Imposing suburban parking requirements onto an already densely built setting wrecks havoc to the built form.

Yes, parking is a complex subject. Yes, we will continue to debate and study it. Yes, there are other zoning reforms we should undertake. But re-setting our minimum parking requirements to levels in harmony with our built form, vehicle ownership and peer communities will not bring Armageddon and it is ultimately a policy choice. The intent of Article 10 was to restore the balance between space for our cars and the spaces we live in. Resetting our parking requirements will give our regulators the ability to demand better design, preservation and protection of our neighborhoods.

Article 10 for Fall Town Meeting

2010-09-24T20:53:00.000-04:00

Article 10 would lower the amount of off-street parking required for multi-family residential development. Below is some general background information on the Article, and you can follow the link below to download the full text and explanation. Please feel free to write to me with any questions or comments. I will be using this blog to post information and updates about the article as we approach Town Meeting, which begins Tuesday, November 16.

Passage of any zoning change requires a 2/3 majority vote in Town Meeting, which is a difficult threshold to meet. Therefore, it is important for anyone in favor of this measure to call or write your Town Meeting representatives. Download a full listing of Town Meeting Member's contact information by clicking Town Meeting Members A-Z on the right. You can determine your Precinct here, if you don't know it by typing in your address.

It is also very important that supporters voice their support in person at the various review meetings that occur prior to Town Meeting. This is the public's chance to express their thoughts. Direct input from the public is very influential to those Committee members considering Town policy. Please show your support for lower parking requirements by attending these upcoming meetings.

Upcoming meetings:

Zoning By-Law Committee
Monday, September 27, 2010
6:30 pm Room 103 Brookline Town Hall

Notes: The meeting begins at 6:30, but there are four other articles that will be discussed prior to Article 10, interested parties should arrive by 7:30, although it is possible the order may be changed.

Planning Board
Thursday, September 30, 2010
7:30 pm 6th Floor Selectman's Hearing Room Brookline Town Hall
Send Comments to Polly Selkoe. Make sure you put Article 10 Comments for Planning Board in Subject line and ask her to distribute your comments.
Notes: The meeting begins at 7:30, but there are four other articles that will be presented prior to Article 10, interested parties should arrive by 8:30.

Advisory Committee/ Planning and Regulatory Sub-Committee
Monday, October 4, 2010
7:30 pm Rm 103 Brookline Town Hall
Send Comments to Neil Wishinsky. Make sure you put Article 10 Comments in your Subject Line and ask him to distribute your comments to the Committee.

I'm proposing Article 10 for Fall Town Meeting. My proposal would lower the off-street parking requirements for multi-family residential parking. Right now, Brookline's Zoning By-law requires 2 or 2.3 parking spaces for every multi-family dwelling unit built, even studio and one-bedroom units near transit. Each parking space requires 330 sq. ft. of space, so in the case of small units, the amount of space devoted to parking is close to the size of the unit!

My proposal would lower the minimum parking required to between 0.8 to 1.4 spaces per unit, depending on the size of the unit. These rates are very similar to the parking requirements in Brookline's By-law from 1962 to 1986, namely 0.8 to 1.3. Prior to 1962, the only parking requirement was the one space per multi-family unit that has been required since 1922.

It was only recently that two substantial increases, one in 1987 and then another in 2000 brought our requirements to their current peak of 2 and 2.3 spaces per unit. The new proposed rates have been crafted to reflect Brookline-specific auto-ownership and travel behavior for each dwelling unit type.

A full text of the Article and a detailed explanation (two separate files) can be downloaded from the Town of Brookline website here:

Town Meeting Warrant Articles and Explanations

Our existing requirements exceed those common in suburban locations, where the only way to get anywhere is to drive a car. Brookline is not like this, which is one of the reasons so many of us find it such a desirable place to live. We have options. We can walk or bike to our neighborhood stores, schools and parks and we can take public transit to employment, culture and recreation.

Our history as a streetcar suburb created the land use pattern we find so pleasingly human scaled. Blocks are small, houses are close together, concentrated pedestrian commercial areas surrounded by leafy neighborhoods. Denser housing nearest the T lines. It all happened before the automobile became ubiquitous. An auto-oriented development pattern would look quite different. This is for one simple fact: automobiles take up a great deal of space. They spend 95% of their time parked and for each car there exists approximately 4 parking spaces.

The negatives of requiring too much parking have become apparent, we:

1) Lose more of our limited green and open space to pavement for excess parking we don't need.

2) Threaten Historic Structures. Re-use or expansion of existing buildings becomes impossible with the high parking requirements, thereby incentivizing the tearing down of historic buildings.

3) Degrade building design. First floors become parking. Facades become garage fronts and side yards are driveways. Buildings become taller and bigger to recoup the cost of the parking and to accommodate the sq. footage desired on the same lot.

4) Decrease Housing Diversity. The extra costs of the parking are added onto the cost of housing, smaller units are not built and the continuing maintenance costs are born by residents. Occupants are not given the opportunity to save household transportation expenditures from opting out of purchasing excess parking.

5) Incentivize Auto Use and Degrade Pedestrian Environment. Mandating excess parking encourages excess auto ownership, shifting individuals away from other modes. More autos, driveways, curb cuts and garages makes it harder and less pleasant to walk.

Visit Brookline Park(ing) Day, 2010!!!!

2010-08-21T08:29:00.003-04:00

September 17, 2010 is Park(ing) Day,
Join us in Coolidge Corner for a day of fun in the "Park"

What is Park(ing) Day?

It's an annual worldwide celebration where metered parking spaces are transformed into temporary parks for the public good.

Originally invented in 2005 by Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, Park(ing) Day asks the question, "What if we took the 200 sq. ft. of space normally dedicated exclusively to parked cars and reinterpreted it as a usable public space?

Brookline's Park(ing) Day parks will be located on both sides of Harvard St., just north of the Green St. pedestrian cross walk.


In front of Upper Crust and CC Theater by Derrick Choi

In front of Upper Crust Pizza and the Coolidge Corner Theater there will be a colorful activity center with games and "movies" showing pavement to parks improvements from around the country.


In front of Friendly's by Derrick Choi

Across the street, in front of Friendly's there will be an urban oasis where visitors can sit on the grass or in a beach chair and dangle their toes in the water or play in the sand.

An underlying theme of Park(ing) Day parks is the exploration of the fact that approximately 80% of the public space in an urbanized setting is the street, which is usually the exclusive domain of the automobile. If we want to enliven our streets and make more accommodation for people places, we might be able to find a way to share the valuable public space of the street.

Our goal is to enliven our commercial area and create fun interactive people spaces that make it enjoyable to spend time "in
the street". Brookline's Park(ing) Day is sponsored and supported by the Brookline GreenSpace Alliance, Brookline Garden Club, Livable Streets, WalkBoston, Brookline Park's Department, Brookline Transportation Department and Transportation Board.

Park(ing) Day has captured the collective imagination. In 2009, there were 700 parks in 144 cities, in 21 countries on 6 continents and 2010 promises to be even bigger. To learn more about the movement in general, visit www.parkingday.org.

To help create or staff Brookline's Park(ing) Day, please contact me! (See the email me button to the left!)

Hope to see you in the "park"!

[where: 02446]

Over-Building Brookline: One "Preservation" at a Time

2010-07-09T17:36:00.005-04:00

or Extreme Building: The New Normal? In my previous post, I wrote about the threat to our historic homes from development interests looking to tear down homes in order to extract maximum value from the high cost housing market in Brookline. An older home is found and purchased often in a distressed or stressed sale condition, which can then be replaced by a multi-unit building. In a recent Boston Globe article entitled "Neighbors Decry Development of Historic Sites", Jeffrey Feuerman is quoted as saying, "You can get a bigger project with more units with a demolition". He went on to say that, "...Keeping the historic elements of such properties is not prohibitively more expensive than tearing them down and starting fresh, it takes longer, often included expensive surprises, is harder to build and is less attractive to buyers". (This coming from the same individual who was listing his preservation award winning, three bedroom unit in a renovated 1855 carriage house on Harvard Avenue for more than 1.5 million.) I don't know about you, but I know plenty of buyers who place a premium on authentic historic architecture and character.

As a further point in favor of demolition, Feuerman went on to say that "single family homes on such sites means much lower tax collections than a new multi-unit building. A quality condominium complex will also translate into higher property values for nearby properties. A single-family is not the highest and best functional use of the property." Spoken like a true developer. However, his claims about value are questionable. When the adjoining property's views, light, air and trees are removed to make way for these new condos, it clearly diminishes that property's value. When the street scape is harmed by the loss of front yards, historic homes and trees, some of the publics' collective ownership value is taken. There will come a point when Brookline will lose enough of these things that the "quality of life" premium that property owners in Brookline enjoy will be gone. "Highest and best use" means only that use that will make the most money for the individual property owner or developer. It fails to account for what is most valuable or best for the Community. Further, while tax collections may be a bit higher for condominiums rather than a single family house, there are increased costs to the town associated with additional residential development too, which may or may not be off set by the increased tax revenue, such as Schools, police, fire, open space and recreation, libraries, trash, roads, etc. It is not a clear "win" for the Town fiscally, and clearly not a win for abutters, whose property values are in fact more likely to decline.

My point here is not to say that all new development is bad. But it is to say that we need to think critically when we hear these "truisms", like "highest and best use" bandied about. But more importantly, we need to recognize, protect, and build upon the amazing assets we do have. The historic landscapes and neighborhoods, planned and designed by some of the most brilliant and talented designers to have walked on the planet. These are our assets, and if we lose these, or degrade them beyond recognition, we will have lost the beauty and soul of what makes this place so desirable to begin with.

In response to the community's distress about losing some truly priceless pieces of historic architecture, (many of which play a key role in defining our community character), a new "model" has been proposed. In the same Boston Globe article cited above, Scott Gladstone is quoted as saying, "the hope was to start a trend in Brookline where old houses are preserved, and Jeff Levine, Brookline's Planning Director proposed using 99 Winchester St. as a model". Let's look at 99 Winchester St. from above, to give us a sense of site design and scale.

99 Winchester is in the center of the image, the reddish building with the turret. As you can see, the renovated house has a large addition on the back, which seems to be built extremely close to the property line, completely filling up all available space on the lot. (Lot lines are in yellow). While this scenario may be lucrative for the developer, it clearly comes at a price to the community, in terms of declining values to surrounding properties, due to the loss of open space, loss of light, air, sky views and trees.

The idea behind the Winchester model is that the preservation of the house is such a great benefit to the community that it justifies extreme violation of our zoning by-law, thereby allowing for the granting of special permits, etc. The proposal pictured above, 70 Sewall, requires 9 special permits/variances. It is not to object to special permits per se that I raise my concerns. It was expected that some "wiggle room" was needed to make an adaptive re-use project work. But it has gone far beyond "wiggle room". While no one wishes to see these historic structures destroyed, I believe the developers proposing these scenarios, are in fact going beyond any reasonable standard with their proposals, taking advantage of the Town's desire to preserve the house and using the threat of demolition to go to extremes. Convincing us that they are making a sacrifice by preserving the house. When in fact, the proposed development becomes extremely valuable. The historic structure is saved, adding beauty, character and quality that no new construction could ever achieve and a super-sized addition is allowed, even though it violates all minimum standards of sound building and planning practices. Because we are so afraid of demolition, we fail to realize the truth of the fact that even with demolition, a new full build FAR building would not fit on this lot either. In fact, in the case of the 70 Sewall proposal, (above) a building of only 1.14 FAR (not the full 1.5 allowed) would fit, and even then this assumes underground parking and a height variance.

A look at the site plan for the 70 Sewall project reveals the full extent of the site design violations.

Side yards are reduced to 4', at the smallest point the rear setback is 36". These miniscule setbacks are insufficient to allow adequate light, sky views, and freedom from shadows for the abutters. They will not function in terms of safely accommodating circulation of persons or machinery. There is not sufficient space to support plant life to aid in buffering the building from neighbors.

The historic house is moved forward on the lot 15 ft. Fundamentally changing the setting of the house, alters one's view and experience of the house from the sidewalk and street. It is no longer the same house. The 36” oak tree at the front of the property is unlikely to survive the movement of the house. In addition, four other 10”- 12” trees are slated for removal from the property. New trees that are proposed would in fact grow onto adjoining property, would be difficult if not impossible to maintain and would also so severely limit circulation on the site due to the close proximity to the building that they seem impractical. Given the extremely dense development in the area, the value of these trees as softening, humanizing elements cannot be overstated. Key historic elements are being altered or eliminated from the house. Only 245 sq. ft. of usable open space remain on the property. The scale and mass of the addition overwhelmes and dwarfs the original structure, the beautiful 1889 Schweinfurth designed Queen Anne house.

Our Town boards and staff have forgotten that the maximum size (or Floor Area Ratio) allowed in a given zone is just that, a maximum, not a de facto right, and that at least basic standards of safety, functionality and protection of abutters must be maintained. These are the core functions and purpose of zoning.

The question then becomes, does the partial "preservation" of this house justify the extreme violation of our Zoning By-law and by extension the rights and privileges of the citizen's of Brookline? Has Extreme Building become the New Normal?

It seems to be catching on. Jeffrey Feuerman has submitted his plans for a project at 59 Green St. Here we see a two family home being turned into one giant condominium and another giant condominium being added onto the back, resulting in a long narrow housing development stuck into the back yard, next to homes with open back yards. This too was a case where demolition was threatened before the Preservation Commission stepped in.

Both of these proposals will be discussed at the upcoming Planning Board meeting next Thursday, July 15 in room 111 at Brookline Town Hall, starting at approximately 8:00 pm.

The Stretch Energy Code: It's Good for Brookline

2010-05-03T15:15:00.000-04:00

Article 11 on this Spring's Town Meeting agenda would strengthen the energy efficiency portion of Brookline's Building Code. The standards have been set to be easily attainable, predictable, and desirable. I won't go into all of the details here, for more information, please visit the town website and look for Stretch Code Information.

I believe that adopting the Stretch Energy Code is good for Brookline for several important reasons:

1) Greater energy efficiency saves money for Brookline's residents and businesses.

Let's face it, energy is going to get more expensive. Even at today's prices, the small additional costs associated with the additional Stretch Code compliant efficiency improvements are quickly paid back through energy use savings.

2) Less energy use is better for the environment and reduces our dependence on foreign oil and other fossil fuels.

Conservation is a key component to any policy or technological strategy that reduce harmful emissions and slows our consumption of energy resources. Here in the Northeast, heating and cooling our homes and commercial buildings contributes significantly to our energy use. In Brookline, about 60% of our total greenhouse gas emissions are from residential buildings.

3) Home owners and builders achieve consumer protections, receiving verified levels of energy efficiency.

Required energy efficiency measures are determined and verified through a 3rd party professional modeling and testing procedure, or through the installation, from a check list, of specified product types and construction techniques. Therefore, the consumer, in this case either a home owner or builder, is assured that the finished building will in fact meet the energy efficiency standard. This knowledge will surely become valuable information to prospective buyers and tenants as they rightly compare the "operating" costs of various property purchase options.

4) Savvy tenants and buyers are seeking energy efficient buildings.

It is in Brookline's best interest to position itself as a community that understands and promotes energy efficient, quality building. Doing so will attract residents and businesses with long term objectives who value stability and continued viability.

5) Adopting the Stretch Code gets us closer to becoming a Green Community.

As a result of the recently passed Green Communities Act state legislation, a Green Communities Division (within EOEEA) was created. Their mission is to establish and administer the Green Communities program, whereby cities and towns can adopt certain energy conservation or renewable energy generation policies and in return gain access to grant monies to pay for all manner of energy efficiency, management, conservation and renewable energy generation projects. Access to these funds would allow Brookline to be on the forefront of implementing state of the art energy saving projects. Becoming a Green Community could benefit Brookline both directly through grant monies for projects and secondarily through energy cost savings.

Some of the frequently cited objections to adopting the Stretch Code are principally founded on a faulty understanding of the Code's applicability. For instance it's been stated:

We can't afford to place an additional cost burden on home owners/businesses at this time.

The Stretch Code does not require anyone to make any changes to their existing home or HVAC systems. It does become relevant when an individual builds an addition or changes out windows or furnaces, but only applies to those things being replaced. If you choose to change one window, that new window must be an Energy Star window. You will not be required to replace all your windows or change anything else about your home. As stated previously, the additional cost associated with the higher energy efficiency is quickly paid back. Also, there are frequently utility rebates available to help home owners and businesses make energy improvements, as well as federal and state tax incentives.

If Brookline adopts the Stretch Code we will drive away certain contractors who don't want to deal with the new requirements and this will hurt our competitiveness relative to surrounding communities.

The improved building practices embodied in the stretch code are already being adopted by quality builders and will be required in a few years anyway. The resulting buildings are the ones that buyers and tenants are seeking in the market place. Therefore assuring this higher standard of building actually helps Brookline's competitiveness. As of April 28, 2010 18 communities have adopted the Stretch Code, with many more considering the option this spring. Newton and Cambridge have already adopted it and Boston has it's own high level energy efficient building standards.

Extra energy efficiency measures will require me to make inappropriate changes to my historic home.

As stated earlier, no one will be required to make changes or energy improvements to existing buildings because of the Stretch Code. When renovations, additions or new building occurs that triggers the energy portion of the building code, then the Stretch Code will apply. The performance standards can be met in a variety of ways, and do not require changing historic features. Properties listed (or certified as eligible for listing) on the State of Federal historic register or as part of a local historic district or designation are exempt from both the base and Stretch energy codes.

Demolishing Brookline one House at a Time

2010-04-03T12:09:00.000-04:00

As I react to the flurry of demolition requests in and around my neighborhood, I think, this must be what it feels like to be on a volunteer fire department. You try to get on with your everyday life, yet your antennae is up, ready to receive the alarm at any moment. You and your comrades run to the scene of impending devastation and you do what you can. Once in a while you are victorious, at least to some degree, and the dreaded devastation is kept to a minimum. When this happens, you acknowledge that luck had something to do with it. Your tools are inadequate, your frustration and sense of failure great. A sad heaviness clutches your heart.

Three months into 2010 and there have been 8 demolition requests for houses in Brookline. Five of these requests have been delayed by the Preservation Commission because the house has been found to be historically significant. These five homes are 70 Sewall, 64 Naples, 163 Kent, 19 Hilltop and 59 Green. Usually, this action simply delays the inevitable, but as our preservation staff has said, "sometimes miracles happen".

70 Sewall Ave. 1898 Home of Charles Flagg, Architect, Julius A. Schweinfurth

It's worth asking the question, why is this happening? It is of course difficult to generalize to all cases, but it is fair to say that for those tear downs that are most disconcerting, i.e. those where significant historic architecture is lost and neighborhood fabric is torn asunder, there are a confluence of particular circumstances. First of course is the high value of land and the high price to be had for housing in Brookline. (i.e. money to be made). Next, is the reality that our zoning allows the construction of buildings much larger than those commonly found in the surrounding neighborhood and, adding to the mismatch with context, the required setbacks do not necessarily match those of neighboring structures. Third, then, if you are a developer, you simply wait for an existing house to lose some of its value through age and neglect, perhaps a death or divorce in the family, (i.e. eager seller) and you have a recipe for a successful tear down and build scenario. Sadly, the result is often the loss of a unique, finely made home that contributed to the beauty and fit the context of the neighborhood. In its place, often comes modern cookie-cutter construction, built to maximum size with minimum amenities. There are no regulatory protections in place to prevent this scenario from happening over and over again throughout our neighborhoods. The higher the density of the underlying zoning, the greater the pressure, or allure, from the developers' point of view.

Each time this scenario is about to play out, neighbors rally, acutely aware of what's at stake. In vain they look to our Town planning staff and volunteer boards for assistance. They begin to wonder why the potential for this occurrence wasn't anticipated. Why is there such seeming indifference towards protecting what they know to be the key assets of our community? They are told that they can participate in "design review" of the new project, but as this process proceeds they find their influence often limited to superficial aspects of the design of the new building, such as colors or siding materials. The major decisions seem to have already been made by others, elsewhere. These decisions were in fact dictated by rules and regulations already in place, financial considerations and a deference to the rights of the land owner to maximize profit with minimal effort.

Finding themselves in this situation, citizens often realize that the one remaining regulatory mechanism available to them is the establishment of a Local Historic District. In the best of circumstances, an LHD would be created organically, with plenty of time and care, based on a realization by homeowners and preservation officials of the value of protecting worthwhile properties. This has not been the case in Brookline, where LHD's have become the de facto planning mechanism for neighborhoods who can muster the organization and will to save themselves. We are now hearing from our preservation and planning staff that they are overburdened, they cannot handle another LHD. This is extremely ironic, given the fact that the plethora of LHD's is a symptom of the lack of proactive planning to begin with. Spontaneous, neighborhood lead LHD organizing efforts represent a grass-roots movement to deflect the rapacious churning under of our cultural and built heritage, and yet we do not seem able to commit the necessary resources to facilitate this effort. What does this say about the Town's ability to be stewards of our community?

What we are seeing played out in this drama is the classic conflict between use value and exchange value. It is really helpful to understand this distinction, for it colors every decision we make about planning and zoning. Our culture and laws seeks a precarious middle road between the two and depending on your perspective you likely value one over the other. The use value of real estate is what everyone who owns a home and lives in it enjoys. They choose their home because of the particulars of the structure as well as purchasing a share in a neighborhood, town, community, school district, etc. with a certain set of assumptions about what that means. They love the look and feel of the street they live on, the park across the street, access to Brookline schools, or their proximity to the T, etc. All of these things factor into the value of their home, both to them and to any one else looking for a place to live. If the park across the street were suddenly paved for a parking lot, their property would lose value. Their homes' value remains anchored to its current use as a home.

The exchange value of a property however is something else all together, and because of the disparity between the size, scale and form of existing structures and the generous and general standards in our current zoning ordinance, the exchange value of a property is inflated significantly. This gives the owner who does not value the use value, (i.e. they don't live there) a strong incentive to want to tear down and build big. Now, buying the land, tearing down and building new is not cheap, so the developer feels they must max out the sites' potential to get a decent return.

The problem with all this is that an essential conflict of interests has been created. Maximizing the exchange value by one individual reduces the use value of the remaining properties on the block or in the wider community. That "look and feel" of the street that you bought into when you purchased your home is no longer there. If you believe that that the beautiful historic architecture contributes to the desirability of Brookline as a place to live, then its destruction diminishes the value of housing in Brookline. The private actions and gains of a single land owner has caused negative impacts to ripple out into the community. Zoning is meant to prevent this. Planning boards are meant to act on behalf of the public to protect their interests, to help balance the equation between the maximizing of exchange value and maintenance of use value. It is entirely possible to have regulations in place that would be fair to both parties while giving better guidance on form, size, scale, setback, on-site amenities, etc. generating better results.

Beyond the "out of scale" etc. issues there is of course the sad fact of tearing down one-of-a-kind craftsmanship and solid, beautiful structures. It is just not possible to build such quality today. Why would it make sense to send it to the landfill? Just look closely at some of the new construction around town and ask yourself if it looks like it will still be viable in 100 + years? We cannot afford to waste these precious resources. It doesn't make sense. Not from an energy point of view, not from a resource and materials point of view, not from a cultural heritage point of view. This level of craftsmanship will never be created again, why throw it away as if it is of no value? And yet, we have no way of "internalizing" this external cost. This thing of great value, (the exquisite craftsmanship and beauty of the historic home's interior and exterior features) has no value in the equation. Unless the developer has sufficient vision and understanding to realize that potential buyers will value and therefore pay a premium for this quality, they are likely to choose quantity over quality for their building plans.

The LHD mechanism may be, in some cases a clumsy and ill suited "planning" mechanism. Adaptive re-use is a positive. Large single family houses may not be practical for many of today's smaller families and adding additional housing units without tearing down existing structures seems like a good idea. Shifting demographics will create the need for a range of housing alternatives, such as assisted living, co-housing, group living structures, live/work spaces, commercial space, etc. Proactive planning for better neighborhood design need not preclude these options.

In the meanwhile, I hope you will let your voice be heard if you value these homes and their contribution to our community. Speak out about what their destruction will mean to you and your neighbors.

Rethinking Coolidge Corner Lane Scheme

2010-02-19T16:25:00.000-05:00

I have some serious concerns about the latest Transportation Board proposal for lane changes at the Harvard/Beacon intersection at Coolidge Corner.

The most recently proposed plan, to reduce the number of southbound Harvard Street lanes to one on the north side of Beacon St., remove the median on this same side of the intersection and add an additional northbound lane, has come about as a result of focusing entirely on trying to solve the problem of gridlock or “blocking” that occurs regularly at this intersection. While this is a serious problem, I do not think the proposed solution will be effective, nor does it address the most prominent contributing factor. However, in addition to these shortcomings, I fear we have overlooked some of the serious negative consequences likely to result from this narrowly focused attempt to “fix the problem”.

We can surely all agree that there is a heavy volume of vehicle traffic flowing North on Harvard St. Beyond this point, I fear there are as many opinions as there are individuals. My professional experience leads me to the conclusion that there are two principle reasons why the traffic fails to clear the intersection before the green signal activates (and then frustrates) the westbound Beacon St. flows. Number one is the simple fact that two lanes of traffic must merge into one. Allowing a bit more space for this to occur by having an additional lane accepting traffic on the far side of the intersection will not sufficiently accommodate the merging traffic. To complicate things, your proposal retains curbside parking here. While I support maintaining the parking for its traffic calming and pedestrian buffer functions, the “friction” caused by parking vehicles and the inevitable double parkers will minimize the effectiveness of the scheme you are proposing if your goal was to maximize traffic flow through this bottle neck.

A much more effective solution would be to eliminate the two to one lane merge all together by making the northbound right hand lane on the south side of Harvard for right turns and buses only. That way only one through lane would be crossing Beacon St. to begin with. Yes, this will extend queue’s on Harvard St. A don’t block the box treatment and enforcement would be necessary at Longwood. Otherwise, there is sufficient storage capacity for the resulting queue. Yes, traffic will back up on Harvard, it already does, but the “flow” will be regulated before it enters the intersection at Beacon and the problem will be eliminated.

Another contributing factor to the gridlock problem relates to the width of Beacon St. It appears that the signal timing does not adequately compensate for this. It appears that some vehicles entering the intersection on the yellow (and sometimes red) do not have adequate time to travel the full distance to clear the intersection, regardless of or made worse by the delay at the merge. If the clearance time were lengthened, that is if the signal on Beacon St. simply stayed red longer, drivers would be spared the frustration.

Even if, after considering my comments you still believe the proposed changes will work for the limited goal of moving more vehicles through this very small segment of our roadway network, I ask that we take a moment to stand back and ask ourselves what our overall goal should be and what the wider consequences from this change may be.

Coolidge Corner is, for many a vital transportation and commercial hub. Thousands of commuters from the T stream through daily, stopping at shops and restaurants on their way. Thousands more visit daily from home on foot. It is for their comfort and safety that I object to this scheme. The median in the middle of Harvard Street is a vital refuge for many a pedestrian, especially those who have difficulty speedily crossing in front of impatient drivers. I think it should be extended rather than eliminated. Consider also the effect of combining the through and right turn lane in the southbound direction. Who hasn’t been walking across the street, only to hear the car behind the car waiting for you lay on its horn? The volume of pedestrians is heavy at this intersection. We should be really glad for the high pedestrian volume because if each one those people were in a car, they would be taking up 60 times more space than they do on foot, none of us would be going anywhere.

Because of the heavy volume of pedestrians, right turning vehicles will sometimes wait a long time before they can turn, thus blocking the through travel. How patient will those drivers be after waiting through a light or two? How safe, comfortable or relaxed will the pedestrian crossing the street in front of those drivers be?

Already, the automobile is favored over the pedestrian at this intersection. There is no protected pedestrian phase, despite the heavy pedestrian volume. Many times car drivers play dodgem trying to turn through a group of pedestrians. All of this is particularly menacing for elderly or disabled people. Most people have no idea that they must press the very distant button (which is often blocked by snow mounds) to get a walk signal. They either wait and wait, or finally give up and go. This is especially problematic for parents with young children who are trying to teach their kids how to cross safely using the signal. If we make it more difficult and dangerous and unpleasant to walk, which I think this scheme does, we are “shooting ourselves in the foot” in terms of mitigating congestion or maximizing the capacity of our infrastructure, as walkers will take to cars because they no longer feel safe. Infrastructure is a precursor to activity. Make room for more cars and you get more cars. Make it more pleasant to walk and more people will walk. It is that simple. Make Coolidge Corner more people friendly and you get more people.

Paying attention to and giving greater accommodation to those on foot focuses our attention on the human scale and impacts the quality of everyone’s experience in Coolidge Corner. We have a choice. Can we find a balance between accommodating the through traffic and making Coolidge Corner a people place? I hope so.

SHIFTBoston Ideas Competition

2010-02-03T10:53:00.000-05:00

On the frigid eve of January 14, 2010 the Institute of Contemporary Art was the setting for unveiling of the winners of the SHIFTBoston ideas competition. I was there. It was fun. Lots of folks who love the city, many of them unemployed architects, were enjoying the shared buzz of dreaming and creating a more lively and meaningful city. Check out the winners and significant contributions at the website below.

The brief for the competition, (from their website, Shiftboston.org) says this:

Let’s make Boston dynamic!

The SHIFTboston Ideas Competition 2009 called on all architects, artists, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers and anyone to submit their most provocative wild visions for the City of Boston: WHAT IF this could happen in Boston?

SHIFTboston seeks to collect visions that aim to enhance and electrify the urban experience in Boston. Innovative, radical ideas for new city elements such as public art, landscape, architecture, urban intervention and transportation. Competitors were encouraged to explore topics such as the future city, energy efficiency and ecological urbanism.

This competition is intended to collect and inspire. The goal is to attract greater public interest in future possibilities for the urban environment of Boston. We want to inspire and engage the city community while encouraging positive awareness and a hunger for change. We believe a collective desire to push boundaries and challenge the familiar are the necessary seeds with which to grow a more dynamic city!

THINK PLAY THINK NEW THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
We seek to drive a SHIFT in thinking, perception, attitude, definition, process, method, planning, and organization in order to re-energize Boston’s urban environment. We are here to move Boston forward. Be part of the SHIFT!

Despite their plea for open endedness, the brief actually gave a lot of direction, which was not necessarily a bad thing, but it is easy to see in hind sight how the entrees fit within the topics. I actually think they did a good job of provoking a direction just enough to contain the range, while still encouraging creativity. Remember too that entries were visually rendered. The world as defined by trained architects. So while the competition was named an "Ideas" competition, the realm of possible ideas was clearly visual/spatial. Again, not a bad thing, but a niche nonetheless. A reshaping of the world achieved through building or using space in a different way. To be able to enter, a person needed to have a profound mastery over rendering software, so the universe of possible entrants was delineated.

Some clear themes emerged. 1) Active use of public space. Such as urban farming on the Greenway, floating temporary park barges, or the winner, which proposed turning the unused Tremont subway tunnel into a theater space. 2) Interactive environments, using technology in response to natural forces to heighten our awareness of our environment. Such as the wind and light responsive dynamic light display in Fort Point Channel, or the harbor cleaning floating responsive technological play/learn barge. 3) Responses to climate change, these ranged from the simply profound blue chalk "water line" marking the new water level after sea levels rise, to the adaptive response to flooded land that proposed an acceptance of change rather than resistance. The green underpass walls, wind and water technology collaborative learning center and shared use kayaks hinted at an acknowledgment of building a more "harmoniously integrated" environment. A profound reawakening of our relationship to the ocean seems destined for our future, and was on the minds of many entrants.

After introducing the judges, presenting the runners up and discussing the "dominant entry themes" the event's MC Brian Healy yielded the floor to the political luminaries in the audience. There was a Boston City Council member, who liked what he say and spoke about the need for Boston to be attractive to young people, which meant creating more opportunities for active public life, and Kairos Shen, Boston's Chief Planner, who stressed realism perhaps more than anyone else there that night, all the while noting that if the mayor were here, he would be wildly happy. A representative of the State's Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development pleaded for help and ideas for solving the problem of matching building opportunities that he oversees with truly creative talent. A valuable identification of a solvable problem, and I am sure many in the audience were more than happy to learn about a new source for employment opportunities.

While those present clearly yearned for a loosening of the restrictions and negativity that so often meets new ideas, there was no shortage of inspiration. The temporary nature of many of the proposals held out the greatest hope for implementation. What many fear, (and rightly so in many cases), is the imposition of "of the moment" fads and fancies of architects that will not stand the test of time and are hopelessly out of scale and context to their surroundings. Loss of meaning through destruction of our built heritage is not necessarily the best route forward. But there is also the need to create and to respond to present needs and life styles. The ideas generated here, pose a third alternative with their innovative, and often temporary re-use and re-claiming of unused and unwanted spaces and places. This seems particularly appropriate in our short-attention span era and somehow suits the needs of a limited energy , finite space and financially constrained reality. The cry for more human contact, interaction and fun was palpable. While striving to be futuristic, the entries were, in reality, sublimely of the moment.

What is Balanced Transportation?

2009-12-26T15:39:00.002-05:00

It has been said that Peter Furth was ousted from his seat on Brookline's Transportation Board because he was "too focused on bicycles". Not even getting into the truth about Professor Furth's bona fide credentials as a world class transportation engineer, let's just stop for a minute and think about what saying that someone is "too focused on bicycles" to be on the Transportation Board means.

Bicycles are one form of transportation. A very efficient, inexpensive, accessible and non-polluting one at that. In fact, it's fair to say that we have become so biased in our view that we think myopically, assuming that "transportation" is code speak for moving cars. Can we imagine someone saying "he's too focused on cars"? By articulating how to improve conditions for bicycling, we are making an effort to nudge our thinking a bit. Our community could improve if we viewed our public streets as a community asset and amenity meant to be used in a way that promotes access, safety and livability. This means looking holistically at the needs of the those in a car, those on foot, those riding a bike, and those riding the bus and train. How do all those moving parts interact with one another?, with their environment? and how can we best provide access between to all possible origins and destinations for the benefit of the greatest number of people in the most efficient manner? We need to think about the mobility needs of all members of our community. To speak about the needs of bicyclist's is to try to broaden our thinking to include accommodating other forms of transportation besides the automobile. And so, it is in fact an act of bringing balance to the board to have a member who has such a broad perspective already and with the experience and expertise to speak for the needs of bicyclists, pedestrians, transit riders and drivers.

When it comes to trying to achieve "balance" between an auto and a bicycle or pedestrian, it's a bit like talking about the "balance" between an innocent deer in the woods and a hunter with a rifle. The safety equation is heavily skewed in favor of the one with the weapon. In this case, the automobile. I read a recent article about an AARP survey of aging drivers. In a setting where complete dependence on the automobile is subsidized and fostered, it is understandable that elders fear the isolation and reduced opportunities for an active life that giving up driving entails. When asked about whether or not they considered walking an appropriate alternative to driving, the most frequent reason given for not thinking it was, was a lack of safety! Elders can no longer drive safely, yet they fear for their life as a pedestrian. This is a direct result of designing our streets and intersections to facilitate the maximum movement of cars instead of focusing on making it safe (let alone pleasant) to cross the street on foot.

At a time when obesity related health issues and the direct health implications of climate change threaten our very existence, you would think we would want to do everything we can to make it safe and enjoyable to walk and bike, whenever these modes might be a via alternative. What those who fear these accommodations don't realize is that it is not an all or nothing proposition, but rather a case of providing a viable choice for those who might wish to choose it if it were available. While many argue that accommodating bicyclists and pedestrians is catering to the "fringe few" this is a disingenuous argument. How can we gauge the "market demand" for something that doesn't even exist in the market place? Bicycle safety increases dramatically the more bicyclists there are.

It can also be said that Peter Furth does have a balanced viewpoint, or more importantly a realistic viewpoint, understanding and having expertise in all modes of transportation engineering. He has studied how people get around, around the world, and it is this breadth of understanding that allows him to see the potential for doing things better in Brookline. The changes he has advocated for in Brookline, and the one that apparently cost him his seat on the Board, was extremely modest, and he helped work towards a compromise when objections were raised. And yet those who favor the status quo above all else have made their wishes known and gotten him booted off the board. By the way, I think Bill Schwartz will be a fine addition to the Board, but a seat could have been found for him when a vacancy opened up, it did not have to be at the expense of someone of Peter's talents who was willing to serve.

It is also disappointing to contemplate the broader implications of the move to ouster Professor Furth. Here we have someone with a great deal of professional skill and expertise who volunteers their time and energies, but in making an attempt to apply themselves, arouses a few vocal opponents. This, despite the fact that the Transportation Board, Mr. Furth included, worked very hard to listen to and accommodate all concerns. The result, he is removed. This, I am afraid, does not encourage those who have valuable insights to contribute to step up and volunteer.

YourBrookline.org

2009-12-10T08:00:00.003-05:00

Brookline Community Foundation has a new website, YourBrookline.org that focuses on generating social capital. Local groups can post their organizations profiles, listings and events. There is a master calendar and various ways to search. My group, the Friends of the Minot Rose Garden uses it. Community members interested in finding out about volunteer opportunities or interesting things to do have a one stop shop. Check it out!

Car-Sharing and Brookline: a Perfect Match

2009-11-20T19:00:00.002-05:00

Wheels When You Want Them. Actually, I think a more accurate slogan might be, wheels when you need them. It's a subtle difference, but it gets at the heart of why Zipcar members drive so much less than private auto owners.

3,300 residents of Brookline rely on ZipCars. Why is there a demand for car sharing in Brookline? In short, our residential density and proximity to business centers make transit, walking and biking viable transportation alternatives. Roughly one half of our resident work force gets to work without driving. More than half of the non-work travel is accomplished without a car as well. As a result, many only need to use a car occasionally. Using a shared car for that trip makes perfect sense. Car sharing enables car shedding.

For many the option to give up one or more of their vehicles has meant the difference between being able to live in Brookline or being forced to leave. Freeing themselves from the heavy burdens of car ownership, car share users save both time and money that can be better spent locally. Significantly, users have more resources to put towards housing costs. CSO’s are particularly beneficial to residents of North Brookline, where off-street parking is at a premium and efforts to accommodate private vehicle ownership has had serious negative consequences. We’ve struggled with the paving over of our lawns and green spaces, seen the negative consequences to new housing design, incurred significant additional costs for parking and dealt with severe traffic impacts. Car sharing helps address all of these concerns, by reducing both parking demand and vehicle traffic.

How does car sharing reduce vehicle traffic? Not having that private vehicle in the driveway increases an individual’s use of transit, walking and biking. If we must plan ahead and pay for each car trip we take, we will only use a car when it is the best choice, rather than the convenient or habitual choice. Choosing instead to walk, bike or take transit when we can. They are easier. We don't have to reserve in advance, we don't have to pay by the hour and we don't have to be back on time. Zipcar membership promotes "conscious transportation consumption". These effects have been repeatedly documented in many cities with car sharing. Less traffic has the synergistic effect of making it more pleasant to walk and bike for everyone.

Concerns have been raised about the potential for oppressive impacts from CSO vehicles. Zipcar has been in Brookline since 2001. Today there are 78 cars at 34 sites. 59 of these vehicles have been located in residential zones without any problems or complaints. This track record gives us plenty of evidence showing how comfortably CSO’s can be accommodated throughout town. Concerns about heavy site-specific traffic from CSO vehicles are unfounded. In fact, Brookline’s zipcars are used an average of 1.5 times per day, which is analogous to a privately owned vehicle. Worries about displacing private parking seem counter-intuitive. Car-sharing reduces parking demand, with each CSO vehicle accommodating more than 40 members, many of whom got rid of or avoided acquiring a personal vehicle. As for the rowdy zipsters in the night, irresponsible zipcar members will not be members for long. ZipCar is careful to ensure its drivers are safe and responsible and you must be 21 to join. The average age of Brookline’s zipcar users is 38.

Allowing CSO’s in Brookline brings many benefits to our neighborhoods, the environment, our economy and lifestyle. Article 13 has been crafted to legalize existing CSO locations and brings oversight and input to the process of creating new sites. Car sharing reduces reliance on automobiles while retaining mobility, making it an important piece of a more sustainable transportation future for Brookline. Zipcar membership allows us to jettison our privately owned automobile. Many of us living in Brookline are lucky enough to not really need a car f

What's With the Gray Box?

2009-07-15T14:40:00.001-04:00

It's hard to miss the unique new structures going up around the former Presbyterian Church on the corner of Harvard Street and Pierce Street. These days, lots of folks passing through Brookline Village or visiting Town Hall, Pierce School or the Library stop dead in their tracks and gaze up at the strange, almost windowless gray cube that seems to almost float, detached from its surroundings, hugging the sidewalk. The exterior material appears to be something with a matte finish that resembles cardboard and despite its cube-like visage, its shape actually includes a jaunty angle or two.

We learn from the sign posted on the corner of Harvard and Pierce that this is part of the new Community Center addition for the Korean Church at this site. In addition to the gray cube the site design includes an extensive concrete wall surrounding a "plaza" and an overly large modern structure with anti-angled roof next to a house on Holden St., right across the street from Town Hall. The illustrations from the project boards, while giving the improbable bird's-eye viewing angle, nevertheless, illustrate something of the finished products. (I digress here to note that these types of presentation views fail to offer any insight whatsoever as to what the buildings will look like from the point of view of a person walking past on the sidewalk, or from down the street or for that matter driving past. Therefore, those charged with reviewing the proposal must be able to read the plans and drawings and envisage the resulting experience for themselves).

It is hard to see how these structures "fit" into the context of their surroundings. While this is not a blanket condemnation of modern architecture, I have to say there was no attempt to design the buildings or to design the site layout in a way that would in any way create a pleasing street scape or pedestrian experience. In fact, I don't think the building's users will find much delight here either, considering all that harsh concrete, lack of windows and strangely shaped interior space. As a pedestrian on Harvard St. we are confronted with a form molded concrete wall, getting taller as we proceed southward until it is eye level or higher before we get to the cube, which seems strangely shoved to the sidewalk's edge, despite the lack of structural bulk between it and the church building. Walking along Pierce Street, as the new formed concrete wall begins, we are treated to what seems destined to become a large electrical service box (the base for the box is there now), placed right in the former front lawn of the existing church building.

As for the Holden St. side of the project. Imagine living in that house next to the seemingly massive, wedged-in-there oddly angled building. It appears that this structure too will have a similar exterior material. What was once a residential setting has become something else altogether. This structure no more relates to the church than it does to the house on the other side of it. It seems to be deliberately designed to be as distinct as possible. Are we dealing with Brookline's own version of a "starachitect". An attempt by a singular personality to make waves by creating a structure so unique that it can't be ignored? Why would we want that here, in this closely knit setting of historic homes, businesses and public buildings?

The cube itself is a monolithic presence, kind of like a big stereo speaker in a room of antique furniture, as we look across the street to the fine historic red brick buildings, with their inviting doors and windows, fine detailing and timeless simplicity. It would have been entirely possible to design a modern structure that nonetheless fit in this setting. Had it had some elements remotely in common with the structures in the vicinity, namely the original church, the house on Holden, or the brick buildings on Harvard, be it materials, height, massing, roof height and angle, the rhythm of windows, shape, form, etc. But these structures have none of these.

Just what is that material that the cube is made of? I believe the architect said it was a colored "cementitious" material, but I must say it doesn't look as if it will weather very well.

So how did this project get approval? Our zoning ordinance includes special consideration for building proposals on Harvard St., calling for additional design review. This is obviously in recognition of the need to "get it right" when it comes to designing for this prime Brookline Village location. The zoning for the site is G 2.0 which allows a building floor area that is twice the lot area, a maximum height of 45 ft. and has no set back or open space requirements. So, almost anything could meet the bare minimum of the zoning, hence the need for the design review and one of its key standards, "Relation of Buildings to the Form of the Streetscape and Neighborhood" which states that the proposed development shall be consistent with the use, scale, yard setbacks and architecture of existing buildings and the overall streetscape of the surrounding area.

When I asked a Planning Board member about this project, I was told that this development was brought to us courtesy of the Dover Amendment. The Dover Amendment (M.G.L. Chapter 40A Section 3) is a state law that states that "No zoning ordinance or by-law shall prohibit, regulate or restrict the use of land or structures for religious purposes or for educational purposes on land owned or leased by the commonwealth or any of its agencies, subdivisions or bodies politic or by a religious sect or denomination, or by a nonprofit educational corporation; provided, however, that such land or structures may be subject to reasonable regulations concerning the bulk and height of structures and determining yard sizes, lot area, setbacks, open space, parking and building coverage requirements."

As I understand it, the main purpose behind the Dover amendment is to disallow local governments the option of denying (or making such restrictive requirements that it amounts to a denial) building permits to churches and educational institutions. It is assumed that this is needed to counterbalance the preferential treatment that local government permitting bodies might bestow on taxable developments over non-profits. As in the case of affordable housing, it is thought that the competition between local communities for tax dollars creates a disincentive for allowing the publicly beneficial or necessary functions that non-profits bring. It is a blunt club trying to even the playing field. There have also been arguments made that the Dover amendment is needed to prevent discrimination against certain faiths or ethnic groups, etc. As with most laws, the true meaning is derived through case law as those left to interpret its meaning become embroiled in disputes about the meaning of various aspects, such as whether or not the building is "integral to the mission" of the educational institution or just how "unregulated" does the project have to be. The give and take between local governments and religious and educational institutions wishing to build and expand has of course led to a continuous parsing of the finer points of interpretation of this bit of legal code.

A question in this case might be are the "community center" buildings that comprise the church expansion "integral to the exercise of their religion"? The house of worship already exists. These buildings are to accommodate various community functions. If they are not integral to the practice of their religion, than they would not be protected under the Dover Amendment and their design could be made to comply with the above mentioned design standards.

These buildings probably do meet those limited elements of our zoning code that can be regulated under Dover, (height, bulk, lot coverage, etc.). However, it is nonetheless common for towns to seek dialogue and review on project proposals.

In the case of this project the architect was asked to appear before our Planning Board for a "courtesy" design review. Amazingly enough, it turns out that for the most part, our Board members said they liked the design. I doubt seriously that our Board members were able to conceive in their minds eye the way this project actually looks from the various angles we are destined to experience it, such as what the concrete wall will be like to walk next too for half a block, or how "detached", ill-placed and odd the cube looks from the perspective of the pedestrian walking on Harvard. Had they done so, I would hope they would have realized just how "out of context" and frankly ridiculous this project really is, and armed with that visage of the future, they might have tried to negotiate for a better design, or looked into the question of Dover applicability a bit more robustly.

Here is what our Planning Board members said about this project's design, as quoted from the minutes of their 04/18/07 meeting with Brian Healy, the project's architect.

"Linda Hamlin said she likes the modern design of the building, and
appreciates the strategy to address adjacent buildings in the residential
and commercial areas. Linda Hamlin said she is concerned about the
concrete wall along Harvard Street, and replacing the existing stone wall,
in regards to maintenance and friendliness. Brian Healy said he
understands her concerns with the wall, and says he will do mock-ups to
select the best design. Linda Hamlin asked about the windows on the east
elevation. Brian Healy clarified, and showed the Board the plans and
elevations. Steve asked about the height of the wall. Brian Healy said
it will be from 3’ to 5’ in height. Steve said he also appreciates a
modern design, but has also shares Linda Hamlin’s concerns about the
concrete wall. Steven Heikin said he does not feel the design addresses
the residential and commercial contexts of the two streetscapes. Kenneth
Goldstein said he likes the design on Harvard Street, but feels the design
on Holden Street elevation does not address the residential character of
the street.

Jerome Kampler said he is not a fan of modern architecture. Jerome
Kampler said he was concerned the house on Holden Street would see a
concrete wall out of their north windows. Kenneth Goldstein agreed, and
said the addition is not residential in character. Jerome Kampler asked
why they weren’t taking advantage of the windows on the south side. Brian
Healy said they wanted to better utilize the play of light within the
chapel by keeping the wall dark.

Linda Hamlin said she felt the building scale was appropriate considering
the institutional nature of the area. Jerome Kampler said he felt no
residential neighbor would want to open a window and see a blank concrete
wall."

The architect has been described to me as "arrogant", and it may be that, because of the Dover protections, the Town would not have been able to gain any concessions on this unfortunate design. But I would have liked to think that our public servants (planning board, town councel, planning staff, etc.) would have more clearly seen that this design was a negative for the village and pursued all avenues to seek a better result. I don't think that happened and now we are stuck with it for a very long time.

Under Surveillance

2009-05-24T12:46:00.006-04:00

The debate in Brookline over whether or not to accept 24/7 video surveillance of our "Critical Infrastructure" as a part of the nine-community Metro Boston Homeland Security Region has been far reaching and intense. For some, the issue has brought to the fore and highlighted deep seated beliefs about the nature of freedom in a democratic society, the role of government, the nature of the "threat", the potential for mistakes and abuse, the paralyzing effects of fear and whether or not cameras add to or alleviate this effect, and the need to safeguard civil liberties.
Still others focus more prosaically on questions such as whether or not the cameras will be useful for their intended purpose, the potential for application for other purposes good and bad, the true costs now and in the future of the "system", the opportunity costs of dedicating police resources to surveillance and not other types of policing, and wondering about the possibility of a meaningful assessment of the program during the 1-yr trial period. And then there are those who simply do not wish to second guess our Police Chief.

It is this later motivation which I believe has trumped the considerations of our Selectmen so far. After all they are the ones who have to work very closely with the Chief and must rely on his cooperation and good will to "get the job done" in the exemplary manner we have come to expect. Avoidance of conflict is not, however, a good enough reason to impose a critical infrastructure with such far reaching ramifications onto the citizens of Brookline without careful consideration of all the tough questions nor without accounting for the general feelings of unease this proposition has engendered. This is after all the way we approach all other difficult decision making. Other department heads must undergo similar questioning and scrutiny without taking it either personally or holding a grudge, it comes with the territory.

What is most interesting to me is the general mindset this debate has tended to reveal, in terms of how people view the idea of Homeland Security and whether or not people have a critical skepticism about the motives and effectiveness of programs originating from the Department of Homeland Security. Some see the world in terms of all its potential dangers and seek to deploy all available tools to combat these threats, even to the point of not questioning their true efficacy, finding comfort in the fact that they have done all that they can. Their thinking runs along the lines of, "Imagine if something terrible happened and we could have prevented it, or someone may have been helped, if we had the cameras, I would never forgive myself if I was responsible for the lack of cameras." It kind of reminds me of those who wish to employ all possible life prolonging medical technology at the end of life, just in case...

On the other end of the spectrum are those whose worst nightmare is the harassment, accusation or imprisonment by the government, or police, of an innocent victim who whether or not they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time or were simply acting a bit "different" were nonetheless identified as a "suspect". The culture of fear run amok. On a more subtle level many are concerned with the general culture of conformity and suppression of freedom caused by the threat of this occurrence. For these individuals, the cameras simply heighten the general feelings of paranoia running rampant today and perpetuate the dissolution of our feelings of trust and human connection. The opposite of fostering community.

For those who see the cameras as protection, those who see danger in surveillance are seen as "crazy radicals or those who have something to hide". For those who see the cameras as a threat to civil liberties, those who see the cameras as protection are pinning their hopes on a flawed and false "techno fix" and have been duped into a dangerous mind set of trusting "government protection against unseen threats".

To me one critical fact about this question, especially as it relates to our relationship with our Police Chief is that this is a system designed and financed by entities beyond the Town. We can argue until the cows come home about whether or not cameras may or may not help solve crimes (its been pretty conclusively shown they do not prevent crime). That's not the point, because this system was designed to aid in the evacuation of Boston and everything about it, from the choice of cameras to the data system to the camera's locations have determined with that in mind. The fact that our Chief has tried to make use of the cameras for other things is commendable, but not very convincing. Repeatedly at various hearings and forums, in response to citizen's concerns about being under surveillance in public areas, the Chief has said "the cameras are simply pointing in the middle of the road". If this is the case then, how can they be truly useful for solving crimes? We have been told that the camera's are "our cameras and under our control". However, when asked if then we could locate the cameras wherever we wanted, the Chief answered no.

Had we been presented with a well designed surveillance plan arising out of a spontaneous need and developed to address specific problems in Brookline, (identified by our Police, that was not a blanket 24/7 surveillance of public areas), I believe we would be having a much different conversation. However, that is not the case. As is obvious, these cameras are not free. The decision to "refer to Committee" so very popular in Brookline is, in this case only a way to defer making a decision. The task of truly evaluating both the tangible and intangible potential costs and benefits of this system are beyond the capabilities of this and just about any other possible committee.

For many, our local crime problems could be better addressed through increased patrolling, including officers on foot or bike and better lighting, not remote surveillance. A greater police presence with face to face interaction would add to citizens feelings of safety and security.

The Chief clearly has our safety and well-being in mind, no one doubts this. He also wishes to avail himself of the latest technology and is loathe to turn down such a "gift", or to become a "non-complying" community within the consortium. However, this is a decision whose impacts have such far reaching repercussions that the burden of that decision must be borne by us. Brookline has a long history of independence and we should not be afraid to exercise that choice once more.

Lessons From Bogata

2009-02-08T15:11:00.022-05:00

Once again, an inspiring urban leader has come to Boston. Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogata, Columbia held forth at multiple speaking engagements last week, thanks to the Livable Streets Alliance, Walk Boston and the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy. As with Nicky Gavron, the former deputy mayor of London who I saw speak last year, there was much food for thought as we heard about the farsighted transformations realized by this remarkable urban leader.

The capacity crowd filled the Rabb Lecture Hall as Mr. Penalosa began his presentation. Distilling things down to their essence, he was able to convey, not just the mechanics of his remarkable public transportation and urban planning vision, but the basic philosophy that underpins his view of cities, how they function and what makes them livable. The fundamentals he presented have relevance anywhere and we would all do well to remember them as we plan and make policy in our own communities.

In London, all policies and plans flowed from a single driving principal, namely to make London the city of the future by planning for sustainability in all sectors. Every possible program, expenditure and policy was held to this metric and every effort was made to mutually support initiatives through multiple means. This type of single-minded purpose, which in practice, becomes the homing beacon for a wide-ranging and mutually supporting set of initiatives is very much like the process that miraculously surfaced in Bogota. The transformation of Bogota from a city of despair and desperation to one of hope and optimism was based on holistic, practical, bottom-up thinking and carried forth by a series of strong charismatic leaders.

Mr. Penalosa's vision emanates from a what he calls "Urban Happiness", which could best be summarized as a "people first" perspective. To understand how to achieve urban happiness we first had to come to grips with a few basic truths, which Penalosa proceeded to lay bare with simplicity and clarity. Each of them providing a theoretical foundation for the next:

1. Adam Smith doesn't work in cities.

In other words, everyone working to maximize their own benefit doesn't equal the best outcome for the public at large. To redress this balance is government's job. Those with little income or resources also lack political power, which is why "democracy" alone, does not work to the advantage of the disadvantaged. In the end, maximizing the benefit of all brings the greatest amount of prosperity to the community by raising standards of education, human potential fulfillment, health and contentment.

2. There is a basic conflict between people and cars in a city.

How is it that we accept as normal the constant threat to our lives, our children's lives and our freedom of movement from the automobile? Given free reign, the car took over the most congested, and once pedestrian dominated spaces of our villages, central cities and neighborhoods. In developing countries the inequality of this is even more pronounced, as the percentage who own cars is very small, yet their tyranny over the environment is no less total. The answer is not to give everyone cars. As populations increase, density increases, infrastructure and land costs are prohibitive, the environmental and energy costs laid bare etc. the "American sprawl" model is revealed to be a domed strategy. Practical mass transit solutions are essential. A variety of modes, all given equal weight, dignity and investment are necessary to ensure continued circulation, public health, equity, access and preservation of a public life.
In our relatively recent history, we have allowed the private automobile to dominate and harass all forms of life. Cars aren't necessarily bad, but they belong some places and not others. People are social beings and we have allowed the automobile to destroy our public life.

3. Our greatest public spaces are our sidewalks.

How easy it is to take this vital resource for granted, yet, when is it that we "run into" our neighbor? Do you get to stop to chat when you are whizzing by in your car? Do you get to have unexpected encounters when all your social exchanges must be planned ahead of time or worse occur via the mediated environment of the computer screen? If we don't have pleasant walking environments to "draw us out of our houses" and give us a reason to spend time in the presence of others, how will be feel a part of our community? How will we be exposed to diversity and retain our humanity and humility?

4. The way to judge the success of a building is whether or not it creates a pleasing experience for the pedestrian.

How many architectural models get evaluated from the "birds eye" perspective? Or how many drawings of buildings get presented to planning boards that show a building in isolation from the perspective of a passenger in a car in the middle of the road? What do these models and drawings tell us about the experience of that building as we walk past it? Nothing. The pedestrian environment is about details, scale, feeling comfortably protected yet not closed in. We have plenty of examples of pleasant pedestrian environments here in Brookline, thanks to our historic commercial areas. Too bad new building designers can't seem to internalize and utilize these lessons.

5. Cities are for people.

While trees and other natural elements are very welcome and soften the hard edges of the city, cities are about human interaction. As many studies have shown, (most notably by William Whyte and Jan Gehl) people are attracted to places where other people are. We might want to sit in the shade under a tree, but we want to be able to see everyone there, we won't go sit with our back to the "action". To put it simply, having a plaza, in the European sense of the word makes more sense than trying to recreate a forest in the city. Like the automobile, this is a case of having the appropriate environment in the appropriate place. When we need isolation, quiet and communion with nature in a different way, we go elsewhere, to our sanctuaries, national parks, etc. In the city, we enjoy liveliness.

6. People behave the way they are treated.

A better way to put this might be that when people are treated with respect, they are free to respect themselves and each other. By concentrating on providing services, facilities, parks, etc.that benefit all members of society, you help equalize opportunities and improve conditions for the community as a whole. This also extends to the psychological and cultural transformation that occurs when you elevate the pedestrian or bicyclist by protecting them and making it easy for them to enjoy getting around, rather than what is the usual case of treating the person on foot or bike as an obstacle to the car and making them feel not only threatened physically, but psychologically and socially inferior.

7. We are all equal in the public realm.

By mixing in public places, we are better able to remember our essential equality. Also, being exposed to diversity in a non-threatening way can help us remain open to new ideas and new ways of being. This is a fundamental principle that F.L. Olmsted believed in too. By providing public parks that were equally enjoyable to all classes and gave access to activities and settings that before had only been the province of elites, he hoped to ease tensions between classes and help integrate new immigrant populations into the community. This access was, Olmsted believed a fundamentally humanizing and health giving force that was a right and necessity for modern life. He also believed it was a key element to maintaining a functioning democracy.

8. Pedestrians and Bicyclists are not second class citizens and they deserve infrastructure investment, not making do.

After seeing Mr. Penalosa's slides of those wide dedicated bike lanes and separate walking paths, that were obviously carefully laid out to gently curve, provide views and access between key public facilities I could not help but contrast that with what we have here. How many fine days did I struggle to access the narrow strip of the Charles River Bike Path, just to get some exercise and a glimpse of the river...For most of the way, the bike path is bordered by Storrow Drive with its roaring cars, and the path itself is packed with cyclist, walkers, dog walkers, skaters, baby strollers, tourists, etc. it is an obstacle course because of the mix of users, so much so that one cannot really ride freely. Yet for this bit of scenery and access we are grateful. Everywhere else, it is only constant vigilance that keeps us from getting killed and we put up with it.....

9. If pedestrian and bicycling facilities are provided, people will use and enjoy them.

Many transportation professionals still view pedestrians and bicyclists as an after thought and do not plan roadways, sidewalks, intersections or new developments with them in mind. Some of this is just institutional inertia, some political will from the car driving public, but it becomes a chicken and the egg kind of problem. While the numbers are small, it seems easy to treat the pedestrians and bicyclists as an after thought, however, this is a self-fulfilling proposition. If facilities are built and planning done to make environments that are pleasant and safe to use, people will flock to use them. This has been proven through the ciclovia events, or "car-free" days that were sponsored in Bogota and other cities. Here we have our Sunday closing of Memorial Drive and our Bike Beacon St. day. When a facility is given over to bikes and people they happily take advantage! It becomes a question of shifting the balance in how we allocate what is a public resource, and an increasing valuable public resource at that, our streets and sidewalks. It is not an all or nothing proposition, but the balance is so far skewed towards auto use that just moving it a bit seems a momentous undertaking.

10. Waterfronts should be made available to the public and enjoyed by all. Not for roads, cars or private access.

Water is precious and soothing and in a city especially waterfronts can be the most beautiful settings. Unfortunately, highway engineers like to route roads next to rivers, etc. because the land is available and there are no intersections. This has cut off access to many cities most precious resource and we must take it back. In Paris they even bring in truck loads of sand and put up beach umbrellas on the roadway next to the Seine to create a "beach" in the summer and the citizens flock to it. Public access to water ways must be protected through laws as well, which prohibit the closing of beach access, etc.

One wonders how Mr. Penalosa and his predecessors where able to gather the necessary political support to begin their visionary reforms. But we are grateful for the example it has given us of enlightened leadership and planning.

The Year that Was

2008-12-31T15:40:00.005-05:00

I usually hate those "let's look back and sum up" stories we get deluged with at this time of year, but I find myself reflective and drawn to do just that as I look out on the second (or third?) big snow storm of the season.

We all weathered our share of adversity and it doesn't look like it will end anytime soon. If you didn't lose your job yet, you likely know someone or several people who have. You watched your IRA or 401(k) if you had one, lose almost half it's value or maybe you were a victim of the Madoff scandal. But what really stands out for me is the way we all reached out for each other and kept on keeping on. Somehow our community felt more like a community.

The morning after Barak Obama was elected I went down to Coolidge Corner to do some errands and the air was electric with relief, joy, potential, pride. Everyone smiled at each other. Strangers talked about being proud to be an American again, finally. I went to the hardware store and someone was there asking about American flags, and this was someone who did not look like they had flown one for quite awhile. Young people saw a reason to be involved again, a hope that maybe there was something worth working towards or for. All that bad news that's been heaped upon us is not smothering us, it's a challenge. A call to arms. Our talents, strengths, skills, hard work and perseverance are needed and will have a channel to be funneled through.

We had some pretty momentous and heated debates on local issues too. Article 15 and the revolutionary concept that there was such a thing as too much parking was a teaching moment, one that seems to need to be repeated again as 2 Brookline Place enters the final phase of their permitting. I was thrilled and proud that Town Meeting passed it. The Article 13 debate was a low point. There seemed to be so many disingenuous sound bites, lack of real discourse and meaning....it just devolved to such a point I felt it wrong to even have a vote on it at that point. I have been working on a "Growing Smart" post ever since, stay tuned...

At the Minot Rose Garden we held a ribbon cutting, celebrating the installation of our fabulous, gorgeous fence, thanks to the Brookline Community Foundation, many donors and the Parks and Open Space division. It's always such a celebration of community to get together in the garden and express our gratitude and appreciation for all it brings to the neighborhood. On that score, our call for artists for our up coming art show at the Brookline Arts Center brought submissions from more than 60 artists. The caliber of the art was phenomenal and the show, coming up this February 9 - March 21 will be fantastic! I love the idea of getting all those artists together, who have the garden in common. I can't wait. Rose garden art in the dead of February.

Another highlight as far as I'm concerned was the creation of the town's Climate Action Committee. What a great, committed group of folks and we are just getting going! It's an honor to be a part of this effort, and while the subject of climate change is perhaps our greatest challenge as a species, it is a positive to be part of those seeking solutions and actions. It's nice too how with our new president and some very good new State legislation, (the Green Communities Act and the Global Warming Solutions Act), it feels like finally we will have the wind at our backs, all of us working towards the same goal. How long has it been since we've felt that way?

Brookline, like the rest of the country and the world has experienced a seismic shift, unlike anything I can remember, but rather than being a disaster, it feels like an opportunity to build a better, stronger community.

[where:02446]

Finding a Better Balance

2008-10-29T11:00:00.003-04:00

Greetings. Sorry for the long absence, but like the rest of you, I have been both very busy and preoccupied with the cataclysmic changes roiling throughout the known universe. It is both a frightening and yet exciting time. Before the full magnitude of the "crisis" was made manifest, I was stopped in Coolidge Corner by someone with a BATV camera, who identified himself as someone from the TAB. He asked me to pontificate about how the financial crisis was playing out on 'main street', and more specifically, my house. Feeling somewhat cavalier at the moment, I opined about the opportunity for new ways of thinking and doing. How chaos frees us from complacency, in a sense because we do not have stability to lose by trying new things. I still believe that. I also believe that we must find new ways to do things, and as the ranks of those who have nothing left to lose grows and the threats from climate change mount the demand for change will swell into a tsunami. But enough of grand theories. Back to the home front.

I came here to write about what Dick Benka has characterized (in last Sunday's Globe article about our new Economic Development Director, Kara Brewton) as "one of the festering issues in town--the tension between development and the neighborhoods". Festering indeed. Boiling over might be more accurate. Neighbors have been driven to the extreme action of banding together, hiring a lawyer out of their own pockets and filing lawsuits. This has happened repeatedly. It might be easy to simply dismiss this as typical "nimbyism" or an unavoidable consequence of building in Brookline. But I don't think it is at all that simple, nor is it inevitable. Clearly there is a lack of honest dialogue and trust. We talk around the issues. We talk in sound bites and platitudes and everyone gets frustrated, thinking the other "side" simply doesn't listen or understand. Despite plenty of "process". Well guess what. It is every one's job to communicate in a new way to make themselves understood. To talk truth about what it is they are really concerned about and what's behind their motivations. That would be a good start.

These lawsuits can't be good for anyone involved. They cost the town money, eating up vast amounts of town staff time and effort. They create an unfavorable environment for development, causing a self-defeating situation for those who favor development, sending the message that it is especially difficult to build in Brookline and adding additional costs for project proponents. Costs that might have been directed more constructively towards amenities we truly value and invested in building the types of projects that will actually add value and benefits to the community beyond mere tax dollars. But more on that later.

As for those bringing the lawsuits, they don't seem to be having much success either, except perhaps making a very expensive point.

The reasons for this situation are complex and deeply rooted. But, one thing is for certain, regardless of your opinion or viewpoint on the subject, continuing on in the same way, holding dear to our entrenched "core beliefs" and willful compulsions will only lead to further conflict and more importantly for the future of Brookline, bad developments. At the very root of the problem is a focus on short term gain. The realities of real estate financing dictate this approach on the part of the land speculators and builders. This is to be expected. The problem is, the Town has fallen victim to this way of thinking as well. We have seen the ramifications of this modis operandi playing out in the financial crisis, and in fact the analogy to that situation offers some interesting insights. A few days ago we watched Alan Greenspan confess that his "theory of the way the world works had a fatal flaw", that in fact investment banks, left unregulated, did not act in a way that ensured their long term viability, let alone take into account the effects of their actions on the larger economy or the public in general. No kidding. In the same way, we cannot count on private developers to be thinking about the long term costs and benefits of their buildings on the community as a whole. That is a public sector job, our job. The point is, someone needs to do it.

Applied to planning and development decisions the impacts of this short term focus are multifarious. While no one would willfully choose to discourage a growth in Brookline's tax base, it is an open question whether or not the single-minded pursuit of commercial development (and housing development for that matter) at any cost is in fact going to have the desired effect in the long run. Why do I say this? Besides the immediate costs associated with lawsuits and ill will alluded to above, I maintain that there are substantial and numerous costs and long-term impacts attributable to new development that we are not accounting for that make the "accounting" a bit more ambiguous. In addition, there are many potential benefits and economic "generators" that could be included in new developments that would have long term, multiplier effects that are also not accounted for when assessing the "value" to the community of a given development. For instance, locally owned businesses contribute a far greater proportion of their income to the local economy both directly and through their communty intimacy and support of our many cultural and non-profit organizations. Mixed use development, near transit reduces the need for auto ownership and travel, engenders community interaction, fosters cultural engagement and is attractive to many young professionals, thus benefiting long term environmental quality, building community and increasing Brookline's relative attractiveness to new residents. It is, after all ultimately the future citizens of Brookline who determine her character, cultural capital and potential for innovation and adaptability. It is with these future citizens in mind that we must make all of our decisions.

Why is it that "substantial amounts of community process" fails to achieve the goal of community consensus and doesn't generate the hoped for feelings that we are furthering our shared civic goals? The principle problem with our Design Advisory Teams is the fact that they are concerned primarily with "design". As if all the questions about a particular development can be solved by changing the facade material. If we are lucky, we have talented architects on the DAT, but still, many fundamental issues about size, scale, use, function, public benefits, etc. have already been made, This is in fact and after-the-fact proposition, despite the fact that it happens before "formal applications have been made". This is because the legal parameters of what is allowed have already been determined, and as long as the developer adheres to these, they will be able to build what they want. The DAT can tweak the look of a building's facade and maybe, with a willing developer get a few more concessions, but ultimately it is all too late. The time to figure out how much of what type of development is desirable is well in advance, before someone has invested the time and money in coming up with a proposal. The community has not been involved adequately in making these fundamental decisions, in adequate detail. Here is where new thinking and dialogue is critical. Both "sides" must speak the truth with respect and a true desire to communicate and compromise.

Many of you are hanging your head and moaning now, saying, but we just went through that agonizingly long "planning process" to write our Comprehensive Plan, or the even more painful Coolidge Corner District Planning Council. But, our zoning does not implement key provisions of our Comprehensive Plan, and, as the CCDPC tried to address, it was not detailed enough. Many issues remain unresolved in terms of our current zoning, as it relates (or doesn't) to community goals. The evidence of this are the continuous efforts at amendment through Town Meeting Warrants, etc. On the commercial side, we need to re-evaluate the particulars of how our key commercial development parcels are zoned and what might result from their development as is. Then we need to engage in a highly interactive process of visioning about what we do want, using professional techniques that will engender problem solving and allow real solutions to emerge. (A key difference from what has been done thus far). What would benefit the community and still be potentially buildable from an economic stand point? The solutions will grow organically out of a deep understanding of our community. Not just the physical space, but the cultural and social interchanges that add vitality to life in Brookline. We need to identify the kinds of amenities that will attract new businesses, customers and residents. Asking ourselves questions such as: What kind of employment centers could possibly do well here? Are they the kind of developments we wish to see and can we comfortably accommodate them? If so, what can we do to encourage them? Are the benefits of employment within our borders worth an investment of this sort? How can we build on the vast capital of capable professionals who already live here, as well as existing businesses, such as the large number of design professionals living and working here?

For a case study, let's look at 111 Boylston St. With any development on Route 9 an immediate issue is traffic. Sadly, we lack the transportation planning capabilities to adequately assess the true impacts of a high intensity auto-oriented development like a medical office building (see my previous post Traffic: Route 9 and Beyond), let alone look into the system wide functioning of our transportation infrastructure. Suffice it to say, this development, in combination with general background traffic growth and additional regional development results in significant growth in traffic volumes. Delays will increase. Intersections that accommodate the required turn-arounds will fail. The upshot will be increased cut-through traffic on Walnut and Davis and other neighborhood streets. Increased pollution and accidents. Increased costs for roadway maintenance, police enforcement, health care, traffic calming and a decrease in both the quality of life and value of residential properties affected. Major transportation infrastructure improvements will be required, costing substantial sums. Any remaining roadway capacity that exists now will be "used up", making additional development of this type all the more difficult. All of these costs along with many others need to be carefully considered when weighing the value to the town of this development.

This is a commercial development, but it is unclear whether it will serve, employ or be owned by Brookline residents. We have not asked ourselves whether or not it makes sense to put this type of development here, or what other types of development might have made more sense. We relied on the "private market" to make this decision for us. Had a more thorough planning analysis been made, we could have tailored our zoning to encourage local businesses, or mixed uses, and have better defined an appropriate building mass, setting and public realm design. Such a design would better incorporate all new developments in the area into an overall scheme that takes the pedestrian and alternative transportation options into account. A more energy efficient building would also be more attractive to future tenants and have a longer life span in an energy scarce future. As we all know, the private market does not have our long-term community wide prosperity in mind. Nor does it take into account the "external costs" that are born by the public in general, Brookline taxpayers, or the nearby neighborhoods.

The impacts of the shadow caused by the height of the building is just one of the negative consequences brought about by a lack of forethought about the implications of re-zoning this and other parcels along Route 9 would have. The shadow is graphic and has a powerful immediacy, but is only a first order, direct impact. The neighbors' lawsuit is based on the notion that the Board of Appeals decision was "arbitrary and capricious". It was the Board's job to determine whether or not the Public Benefits given by the developer, in this case, some physical improvements for Davis Path and Boylston St. Park as well as a small cash contribution for the intersection improvement at Washington St. and High St. were, in fact adequate "compensation" for the increase in height allowed for the building. It is not necessarily that these public benefits were not well intentioned, nor that they are necessarily not actually good things for the town. But, those bringing the law suit have a point. The Board's decision was a forgone conclusion. The Board of Appeals had accepted the idea that the "benefit" of allowing the development outweighed any negative impacts articulated by the neighborhood residents. This despite the fact that one of the conditions of granting the special permit is that "the use as developed will not adversely affect the neighborhood." Left out of the Board's deliberations were the many more negative "externalities", some of which I have identified above.

But, the greatest negative of all is the opportunity cost of what we could have had! This structure, and others like it, such as 1285 Beacon for instance, will be with us for a long time. Traditional economic development strategies promulgate a view of the world where municipalities or regions are in competition for development investment dollars. In some cases these strategies go so far as to grant tax subsidies to lure development, almost always losing fiscally in the process. In our case, we simply grant the right to build on our few remaining precious parcels suitable for commercial development. In a similar vein we seem to believe that we must allow what, in some cases seems to be an excessively tall and massive building footprint, and an anything will do attitude in order to "attract" development. The claim is made that we must do this in order for the projects to be economically viable. I find this hard to believe. While we cannot simply "get the project of our dreams", I do believe that had we had a better idea of what we did want, and what would be appropriate, before a proposal was on the table, a much better and still economically viable project could have been negotiated.

The fact that these projects are proceeding in these extremely difficult times and that housing values are holding their own and perhaps even still rising, testifies to the fact of Brookline's continued desirability as a place to live and do business. We are selling our selves short. It could have been so much better. Clarity of purpose, coupled with a deep understanding of Brookline's unique character and the characteristics that make it so, a reverence for her value, a vision of a workable future and top notch design adherence could go a long way towards achieving the goal of more appropriate development.

I know many of you will simply write me off as naive at this point, but I have seen countless examples of quality begetting quality. And we are quality, at least we were, and we are in danger of losing it. By knowing what we want, being clear and specific about it, demanding it, we will get it. In fact, this clarity would be a relief to all involved, including developers. The endless, nebulousness of our "process" could be shortened, with clearer guidelines allowing the initial proposal to be both closer to the ultimate goal and responsive to the particulars of the site. I am painting a picture here where, any future developments are in fact more in tune with Brookline's spirit, culture, physical layout and sustainability goals. Achieving this is what we need to do to make the process work, because it surely is not working now. It is a fundamental change in approach that will in fact require a commitment of resources, some new planning techniques and a willingness to be open to new ways of thinking. Being known throughout the region as the place to find, build and buy into a quality built environment that supports a vibrant forward-thinking community is what will ensure our long term prosperity. We need only value ourselves adequately, not giving in to the least common denominator. We are desirable enough to be in the position to demand the best. This will only have a synergistic beneficial effect, attracting new, progressive builders and residents, and therefore truly begetting economic development.
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What would Olmsted do?

2008-09-09T20:50:00.003-04:00

Once again we have been reminded about the staggering import of the work of F.L.Olmsted, his sons and the landscape architecture firm he established and ran from his home and workshop here in Brookline. Luckily for us, Olmsted's handiwork is abundantly present in our own environment. On Sunday, September 7th the National Park Service and the Organization of American Historians hosted a stimulating panel discussion at the Arnold Arboretum featuring four scholars: Charles Beveridge, Editor of the Olmsted Papers Project; Ethan Carr, Landscape Historian, University of Virginia; Alexander Garvin; Architect and Planner, Yale University and Delores Hayden, Urban Historian and Architect, Yale University.

Their charge had been to discuss ways to better utilize the vast archives of materials currently being cataloged as part of the Fairsted renovation project, as well as envision ways to engage the public both on and off site to engender a better understanding and appreciation for Olmsted's vision, values, skills, and perspective. They had many fascinating ideas. Not surprisingly, a rallying call was raised to digitize the plans and photos, etc. relating to all 6,000 projects. Ethan Carr suggested a Wiki style gathering of feedback on all those projects whose fate or status remain unknown.

Charles Beveridge spoke eloquently about the shear genius of Olmsted's talents. How his attention to detail and understanding of human perception, psychology, everyday life, patterns of behavior and their relation to landscape and spatial relationships all coalesced to help him create not landscapes but rather forms that built a structure for the life of the city to fill in around them. Olmsted's designs incorporate a deep understanding of what humans find beautiful in nature and offer a variety of experiences and views, paced at a perfect rhythm. Even just one of his well thought out ideas, such as the separation of modes when designing pathways, still have lessons for us today.

Delores Hayden wanted to give visitors to Fairsted an understanding that this was the "Place where their place was created" A kind of Meta understanding. Could the site somehow communicate the transformation that occurred as Olmsted's parks were being built? An era that saw our cities go from crowded, dirty, fetid places to more spread out and breathable habitats. Could we explain the massive and cascading impact on the development of the American landscape and our suburbs that Olmsted had. What was the actual site work like while the parks were being created? The hundreds and hundreds of men with shovels it took to move the earth. How about the technologies of the office. The hand drawing and model building, the pace of life, the hand correspondence. All evoke the cultural gestalt and bring to life the realities of Olmsted's achievements.

But Delores really grabbed my imagination when she raised the challenge of finding ways to interpret and communicate Olmsted's work in both the political and social context of its day and to encourage visitors to consider how current day political attitudes and realities differ. What do these differences say about us as a people and our views about public benefit vs. private gain? While there seems to be universal admiration, gratitude and enjoyment of Olmsted's parks, why is it so hard to make public investments today?

Ethan Carr spoke about Olmsted's ideological legacy and also called for interpretation. Our modern world is much more crowded. It is not necessarily a given that green space or access to nature is a necessity. Is there a "Public" for which to speak and plan for in the same way it was conceived of in Olmsted's time? He opined that government could no longer be counted on to provide parks or maintain them, thus the rise of multitudinous "Friends of " groups and stellar groups like the Central Park Conservancy.

There seems to be a lack of understanding in the fact that, when done well, public projects such as parks, civic spaces, public transportation, art, infrastructure, civic buildings of grand eloquence, and a cohesive well designed public realm, elevate the culture, spirit, energy and economy of the entire enterprise of the city. Despite the fact that over and over again we see the beneficial effects, in both direct (escalating property values near new transit lines or parks, etc.) and less direct ways (increased cultural activities, in-migration of young new talent, attraction of more creative property developers and employers, etc.).

Coincidentally enough, an intriguing article appeared in the Ideas section of Sunday's Boston Globe, entitled "Growth Factor: How Big Government Helps the Economy Take Off". A carefully documented presentation of the evidence that, despite the commonly held belief to the contrary, the size of government and high taxes do not slow a nation's economic growth. In depth study of other rich, high-tax countries revealed a higher standard of living as well as robust and growing economies. A cursory reflection on our health care crisis and lack of affordable day care to take two items will illustrate why this might be so. In fact, the article states that, "contrary to the romantic claims about the nation's laissez-faire past, American history is a story of government intervening, time and again, to support growth." But I digress.

After the panelists made their presentations members of the audience were invited to respond, making comments or asking questions. A lively flow of ideas followed. When I spoke, I first described my personal experience of being a researcher at the archives and what a thrill it was to view the actual plans in the very place they were created by the Olmsted firm. The totality of the experience was truly awe inspiring. It was a privilege. Then, I stated my interest in the challenge of interpreting Olmsted's legacy in a wider context of landscape history and planning, politics and public policy. I suggested that as we face planning and design questions we should ask ourselves, "What would Olmsted do?"

I am quite sure that his thinking would have evolved and he would have new and ingenious solutions to the modern concerns of climate change and non-renewable energy dependence. Of course we can't really know what he would do today, it's a bit like speculating on what Jimi Hendrix's music might sound like today had he lived. We know it would have been original and musical, but what would it sound like?

I do know that had Olmsted not grown disillusioned or cynical, he would still believe in the benefits of access to nature and the cultural benefits of public gathering places. He would have advanced his thinking in terms of environmentally sensitive site design. Transportation would have become more of an issue. The devastating environmental, social, health and economic impacts of suburban sprawl were not something Olmsted foresaw. How would his designs have evolved to adapt? His was a holistic perspective and I am sure he would have sought ways to engender life that better integrated people with their environment and each other along with ways to meet their daily mobility needs without automobile dependency.

In the current era, public investment for the civitas is made evident in those places that respond to the challenge of climate change by adopting innovative policies to encourage/mandate energy efficient building and design, alternative transportation, support for renewable energy, etc. will be the places that prosper. It is a feedback mechanism. These types of initiatives insure the ability to adapt and survive into the future and offer a roost for those looking for an optimistic place to pursue their own contribution to society.

To begin the process of interpretation of the archives, I asked the panelists if Olmsted every expressed concern or dissatisfaction with the shift of his work from large scale public projects to wealthy private estates. Their answers differed. Charles Beveridge talked about the purity of Olmsted's design objectives and his belief that they were worth doing as examples of "good design and techniques" for their illustrative status which could be adapted and copied by homeowners across the country. Delores Hayden said that Olmsted definitely had regrets and was greatly concerned about the shift in focus of his work, preferring instead to see a broader public have access to the product of his efforts.

In speaking to Delores Hayden afterwards, I was able to convey my admiration for her work to her. She told me she wanted to get a tee-shirt that said "What would Olmsted do?"

[where: 02446]

Traffic: Route 9 and Beyond

2008-08-23T14:30:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about traffic, or more precisely, traffic congestion, lately. I'm afraid I'm going to have to discuss the nitty-gritty details of traffic volumes, turning movements and intersection capacities, later on, but it's all for a purpose. Namely, to illuminate a possible future and to give us a chance to think about just what kind of future we would like to be planning for and whether or not the two correlate.

I spent the better part of a week forecasting and analyzing the potential traffic conditions on Route 9 focusing in on the section between Brookline Avenue and Cypress St. I began by looking at the traffic study done by the consultant for the 111 Boylston St. development. This study estimates the number of new vehicle trips likely to travel to the site, predicts their likely travel route and analyzes the function of the intersections these vehicles will travel through in year 2013. Building on this information, I have forecast and plotted the potential traffic impacts of continued commercial development at the other available sites along Route 9 in this area, postulating that it would be built-out to the full amount allowed under current zoning and assuming it were similar in use to the 111 Boylston St. development. This has been an enlightening exercise, one that has led me to some interesting conclusions which I will describe in more detail later.

All the while when I was working on my "build-out traffic analysis", I of course experienced traffic congestion without even getting into my car. Just going about my daily life, I experience the nearly constant problem in Coolidge Corner that culminates in the log jam of cars traveling north on Harvard Street blocking the westbound Beacon Street flow, long after the light turns green. This phenomena results in some colorful words and gestures, as horns blare and agitated drivers execute maniac moves. Pedestrians, defiantly responding to their walk signal, (for which they have patiently waited), trudge through the middle of this, unconcerned about the plight of the cars stuck in the middle of the road. Note that, I said cars, not drivers. Once behind the wheel, our isolation, anonymity and sensory deprivation often cause us to act and be treated in ways that would never occur if we were face-to-face. Riding a bike is another way I experience congestion without getting into a car. It is often a game of chicken, where one needs to constantly second guess what a driver might do and they all behave differently around a bike.

Just to add to the immersion factor, I have been reading the fascinating new book "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What it Says About Us." by Tom Vanderbilt. What this book lacks in depth it makes up for in breadth, and one is able to come away with a few over-arching conclusions, the most persistent of which is that despite all the tools and aids we erect to guide, regulate, enhance and protect ourselves, our human fallibility leaves us vulnerable, as we come up against our limited capacity to perceive accurately, evaluate risk realistically or act rationally. Driving is an unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unmanageable and therefore dangerous pursuit. Controlling it or managing it is only partially successful because of the random factors of human psychology.

My favorite line in the book was this, "Parking is the gate way drug to full blown traffic abuse." A phrase much akin to Fred Salvucci's "Parking lots are fertility drugs for cars." My favorite section was about Hans Monderman, the Danish traffic planner who understood that it was the world of cars that was the guest in the human world of towns and cities and that by removing all traffic signs and designing roadways for slower speeds he could insert uncertainty into the driving experience, forcing drivers to expect the unexpected. Therefore to travel safely they must interact with pedestrians, bicyclists and other cars in a new context of shared space. To illustrate his point he closed his eyes and walked backwards into a traffic square of his own design and as predicted, the autos gently pick there way around him. As for "Traffic's" lack of depth, the nearly 100 pages of detailed notes offer enough source material for follow-up to anyone seriously interested in any of the many many research topics he touches upon.

But back to Route 9. The Article 15 debate focused our thoughts on the potential traffic impacts from the 2 Brookline Place development, thanks to Hugh Mattison, the Article's petitioner. The Article called for lowering the amount of required parking for this new, large and traffic intensive development, urging a shift towards utilizing the adjacent transit resources, as was originally intended by Town Meeting. We tried to tease out the nexus between vehicle trips and on-site parking. Concerned citizens living nearby wondered just how much of that new traffic would travel on their streets, or how they would be able to get out of their driveway as cars stacked up at a newly installed signal. We heard consultants predict how many new vehicles will traverse our crowded roadways to visit and work here and which intersections will be affected. They described what intersection improvements were necessary to mitigate those impacts.

The bottom line was that, despite a significant underestimate of volume, (the initial estimate for 2 BP was a total of 2,800 daily trips, for a 260,000 sq.ft. facility, compared to the total of 2,400 daily trips for a 66,000 sq. ft. facility at 111 Boylston St.) the intersection with Brookline Avenue and Route 9 cannot handle the demand for left turns off of Route 9 heading to 2 Brookline Place in the morning. These vehicles, once on Brookline Ave, will then need to turn left onto Pearl St., a new traffic light will be necessary at this intersection. Pearl St. itself will be strained, as it is a narrow roadway with parking, frequent double parking and many exiting and entering driveways. It is acknowledged that the Gateway East roadway improvement, (a major construction project involving State and Federal dollars), which lengthens the jughandle and aligns Pearl and Walnut St. into a four-way intersection with Route 9 is necessary to accommodate the traffic associated with this project. This is because it will allow eastbound vehicles to turn left, directly onto Pearl St., thereby solving the Brookline Avenue/Route 9 intersection malfunction.

These problems are near-term and close-in and even if these congestion difficulties are successfully managed, there are also the further afield "ripple" effects of the additional thousands of daily trips added both to the through traffic volumes on Route 9 and spread out through many already congested intersections, such as School St./Cypress and Washington. More through travel on Route 9 means there are less "gaps" to accommodate increasing volumes of turning vehicles, as these two demands work against each other. The hoped for "fix" of re-timing the signal that is often suggested for failing intersections offers little hope in this situation as all competing volumes are equally high. Changing the timing to allow for a higher volume of a particular turning movement will add additional delay will to Route 9, causing backups through succeeding intersections. Other major developments are happening just over our borders too, such as the re-development of the site of the old Omni supermarket in Chestnut Hill which increase vehicle trips on Route 9 substantially. Brookline will also be impacted by additional Longwood development and building over the air rights of the Mass Pike in the Fenway. These additional developments were not included in the traffic analysis for 111 Boylston St.

As everyone recognizes, Route 9 is already a heavily traveled roadway, carrying as it does approximately 31,000 vehicles a day. Anyone who uses it regularly for commuting knows you are just going to sit there, spewing pollution, wasting fuel and contributing even more to global warming than you might otherwise have had to, had you not been delayed. All this congestion results in poor air quality, increased greenhouse gases, increased stress, and lost time and money (for both individuals and businesses), negatively impacting our health, environment and economy. Desperate drivers begin diverting through neighborhoods to seek a quicker route.

As one approaches the city on Route 9, the delays increase due to the combination of heavy through travel and the increased frequency of cross streets and driveways with high volumes of crossing and turning travelers. What began out in the suburbs as a controlled access four lane arterial has become something of a hybrid roadway, still with its median barrier, but the intersections are less like a highway intersection with exit ramps and flyovers and more like a city cross street. Yet the roadway is still needed to carry its high volume of through traveling commuters.

Into this setting, let us consider the consequences of developing or re-developing, the other G 2.0 parcels on Route 9 near Cypress St. To orient you that would be the Audy Gas Station, and the 303 Boylston St. site on the north side of Route 9 and the Volkswagen Dealer, a small Electric sub-station and the U-Haul on the south side. The rest of the land along Route 9 between Cypress and Washington is zoned either G 1.0 or M 1.0 (CAM) and was not included in my "build-out" analysis.

The rough estimate of additional peak hour trips associated with the build-out would be:

AM Peak Hour: 1, 037
PM Peak Hour: 1, 355

Peak hour in this case refers to the peak hour on Route 9, not the peak hour at the development site, which because it is a medical office building will be busy with patients coming and going all day. These numbers may be too high, because they are higher than counts taken locally, but I also believe the consultant underestimated the "background growth" when they did not include the large additional developments in the area and assumed a growth factor of only .5% per year in volumes. Perhaps high gas prices will help achieve this low growth level. While these numbers alone may seem distressing, what is particularly problematic is the fact that at any given time at least half of the vehicles coming or going will need to reverse direction in order to access or leave their point of origin.

Despite the fact that these sites are very near to the Brookline Hills T-stop, they are valued and perceived by potential builders as auto-oriented building sites. Our current zoning code, with its on-site parking requirements and separation of uses, encourages and reinforces these perceptions. The resulting proposals are then not surprisingly best suited to a suburban setting with good highway access and plenty of parking to accommodate everyone accessing the site via automobile.

In the case of the land near Cypress St. and Route 9 it was estimated that 65% of the people coming or going to the site would be from the west. So, in the case of buildings on the north side of Route 9 accessing the site necessitates a U-turn. The 111 Boylston St. consultant predicted that everyone would achieve this maneuver at the Walnut St. jughandle. This requires the reversing vehicles to swing around the jughandle then turn right onto High St. and immediately left onto Route 9 at the Washington St./Route 9 intersection. This intersection was already functioning at LOS D in 2007 during the AM peak hour. With the addition of 111 Boylston it is predicted to function at LOS E. With higher through volumes on Route 9 and/or High/Washington St. the LOS will further degrade. This is before we add in any additional development on the remaining Route 9 parcels. In addition to the limiting factors of high through volumes on Route 9 this intersection is severely constrained in another way. The closeness of the High/Walnut Street intersection to the Washington/High/Route 9 intersection means that only about 3 left turn vehicles can fit in the left turn lane. Two source lanes of traffic are competing for those three spaces, cars traveling north on High St. and those folks who are reversing direction from the jughandle. With high demand from both sources, it becomes increasingly difficult for the jughandle cars to ever get into this lane. The entire signal cycle length at Washington/High/Route 9 is 90 seconds. That means there are 45 cycles per hour. 45 times 3 cars per cycle and this intersection can "process" at a maximum (if everything works perfectly) of 135 left turns. The 111 Boylston St. study predicted a demand of 129 left turns here during the AM peak hour. The project developers for 111 Boylston St. are contributing some mitigation dollars to the Gateway East jughandle improvement, which is postulated to aid the functioning of this intersection by allowing more space for vehicles waiting to make the left onto High St. This is a marginal improvement to the basic limitation of the left turn at Washington/High/Route 9.

For my build-out analysis, instead of assuming that everyone who needed to reverse direction (east to west) would do so at the jughandle, I anticipated the capacity limitations of this intersection and assumed that half of the people (124 during the AM peak) would instead turn left at Cypress, (no easy trick either) then right on Davis and then right on Route 9. This circuitous route is not self-evident and diversion attempts will, until they are learned, result in circling and wandering before a new route is learned. This alternative route is likely to be used even more than this, given the degree of difficulty I have described at using the left turn at Washington/High/Route 9. Half of those not diverted to Davis are still going to be trying to turn left at the failed Washington/High/Route 9 intersection, or will be executing illegal U-turns or finding other routes.

For development on the south side of Route 9, those leaving the sites who wish to return to the west will simply turn right on High Street, right on Walnut and then either right on Cypress or continue straight. I estimated an additional 490 vehicles in the PM peak hour on Walnut. While these vehicle numbers may be high, they nevertheless illustrate the inevitable result of additional auto-dependent development of these particular parcels, namely, the reverse direction move will be accommodated on Davis and Walnut Streets, two residential streets that are already suffering the physical and environmental assault of too much traffic.

Other roadways that serve as limited access commuter routes, such as Route 1 in Dedham for instance while also accommodating intensive retail development has done so by providing an elaborate system of controlled access ramps, frontage roads and signalized turnarounds. Clearly, we are not looking to develop to this intensity, but it illustrates the elaborate engineering machinations necessary to accommodate the disparate functions of through travel, localized access and intensive roadside development.

Some would choose to simply disregard the needs of the through traveler, taking "possession" as it were of "our part" of Route 9. However, this is a short-term and self-defeating proposition. Mobility for commerce, such as delivery trucks, tradesmen, customers and employees are all essential to the fabric of our economy. By developing highly intensive auto-dependent commercial uses on these particular parcels we are causing a much greater problem than we are solving. As currently configured these sites are attractive to business because of the amount of traffic that passes by. This is why a use like the VW dealer, while we may not think it optimal, is at least in terms of function, sensible. It is seen by a lot of people, but does not "generate" a great deal of trips. Same goes for the gas station. Gas stations aren't destinations and pull their customers from the passing flow, thereby not adding to existing volumes. Audy's has its own difficulties with the driveway on Cypress being so close to the intersection, but that's another issue.

But, it doesn't have to be this way, there are other alternatives, which are more in keeping with the goals outlined in our Comprehensive Plan and in harmony with a more sustainable vision for Brookline. This corner, Cypress and Boylston St. has some of the bones necessary to become a walkable, mixed use "village" that takes advantage of its T access and allows nearby residents to fulfill some of their daily shopping needs without driving. Altering our zoning to more precisely define mixed use guidelines and to devise an overall vision for public realm amenities will allow an alternative vision to take shape. Thereby, reducing the negative traffic impacts on our neighborhoods and Route 9 itself and maximizing the value of our transit resources and residential density, making for a more effective and longer-term economic development strategy. These goals were loosely stated in the Comprehensive Plan and further refinement could help us articulate a creative and specific plan for a new neighborhood commercial area. The Town will be seeking a smart growth planning grant from EPA or other sources to do just that.

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What Kind of Housing?

2008-07-23T21:40:00.001-04:00

What on first blush might seem like an insignificant residential addition to an existing building near Coolidge Corner, has fanned the flames of a long standing debate. The request to "legalize" a four bedroom basement apartment has brought up many issues and concerns. The assessor's database lists the building as a three family. It is set mid-block in a row of attached three story walk-ups, some of which are condos, some rental apartments and others owner-occupied three-families.

This proposal could be an object lesson, giving us an opportunity to examine some deeply held beliefs; some ideals we may or may not prescribe to and some prejudices we may not like admitting we have. It also highlights some serious procedural problems that have simply made matters worse.

First off, we should look at the specifics of the proposal. The building is currently owned by an out of town landlord, who bought the building a year and a half ago and applied for a building permit to rehab the basement apartment, converting a 2 bedroom one bath unit to a 4 bedroom 2 bath unit. Amazingly, he was given the permit. Next door is another rental building. Two doors down, is an owner occupied condominium. All of these buildings are attached and were built together in 1920, and present a unified facade to the street.

Visually, the differences in ownership and occupancy are apparent. The condo building has a beautiful wood door and looks well maintained with fresh plantings gracing the stairway. The building in question's front door is the standard issue aluminum frame and the front yard has a short chain link fence bordering its weed-filled yard. The newly installed electrical boxes were mounted prominently on the front of the building and have already begun to rust.

The current owner of the building bought a three unit building. Of course he must have known about the then two bedroom unit in the basement, but the town didn't. Neither the current owner nor the past has paid taxes on a four unit building. The other similar buildings on this block that do have basement units have small one bedroom units, approximately 680 sq. ft in size. The proposed unit is 1, 848 sq. ft. The notice for the Zoning Board of Appeals Hearing on this application states that a total 5 Special Permits and 8 Variances are required in order for this unit to be legalized. Clearly, this should tell us something about how incompatible this intensity of usage is with the parcels' zoning.

Many residents in this neighborhood (myself included) have complained about the noise and destruction caused by roving bands of drunken students. This is a very real and disturbing phenomena. For those who live near to the party of origin, sleep is an elusive goal. While it is not possible to predict or dictate who will live in this basement unit or any rental housing for that matter, the proposed configuration of many bedrooms in a basement unit with as much parking as possible is geared towards that segment of the rental market. Families tend to seek out buildings with other families and professionals. They value quiet and they also value lots of light and air and are often willing to make do with fewer bedrooms to achieve these benefits.

The perception that the number of students living in North Brookline has increased in recent decades, is in fact true and is reflected in the 1990 and 2000 Census data for tract #4002 (roughly Precinct 2). The number of 18 -24 year olds increased from 672 to 1,078 which, as a percentage of the population is an increase from 12.16% to 18.37%. Meanwhile the number of adults aged 25+ declined from 4, 027 to 3,951, which is, as a percentage from 73% to 67% of the population.

Many individuals who support both affordable housing and the wisdom of building housing in proximity to our transit resources cite these reasons as supporting arguments for this particular conversion. This reveals a lack of attention to the particulars of design, issues of crowding and the functional ramifications to a setting that will come to bear in the immediate vicinity and beyond. Objections to density are usually a result of concerns about crowding, lack of open space, poor space planning and lack of usable and pleasant pedestrian/public spaces. These are issues that are real and will be a result of this proposal. It is an example of density done badly. A three story attached walk-up, as the building is now, and as it is zoned for, is a moderately dense residential setting, one that is adequately dense to support both public transit and neighborhood commercial areas and therefore is not an appropriate location for additional density. An average density of 13 dwelling units per acre, which is what the M1.5 FAR zone is, is a standard level of density acknowledged in urban planning practice as an appropriate target level for Transit Oriented Development.

There are other areas where additional housing density could be much more appropriately accommodated. Primarily, as upper levels in buildings within our business districts. This mixed use configuration has the additional advantage of maximizing the potential for non-auto transportation, due to residents' walking proximity to retail, services, employment and transit.

Another option is the adaptive re-use of existing large single-family homes, through the addition of accessory units, etc. This is something that the Housing Advisory Board is exploring as a policy proposal. This idea addresses several significant trends simultaneously, namely the increasing financial difficulty of maintaining a large home and the aforementioned diminution of household sizes and the need for more, smaller housing options. If the additional housing were located within walking of distance of transit and neighborhood business districts and parking were limited, another sustainable development goal would be met. While there are many aspects of this proposal that must be carefully thought out, I believe it identifies and foresees changes that will occur nonetheless due to trends in demographics, energy costs, economics, etc. It makes sense to get out ahead of the curve and manage the change, rather than having it simply overwhelm us. It would be better to allow and manage accessory units rather than lose a great deal of our housing stock and neighborhood character to teardowns. Without very well articulated formbased codes, new building may not be compatible with existing structures.

Adaptive use of existing homes and structures has significant energy and therefore environmental benefits. While it may be true that our older buildings are not as energy efficient as brand new LEED buildings, structures built before WWII are more efficient than anything built between 1945-2000. Existing buildings have a great deal of embedded energy, and their re-use avoids the destruction and construction of vast amounts of materials. If we can retrofit them with some energy saving materials and technologies, we will have made significant strides towards providing energy efficient and needed housing. We will also preserve our historic architecture where appropriate and maintain the visual qualities of neighborhood streetscapes, avoiding teardowns and incompatibly scaled infill.

We need to think a bit more clearly about just what we mean when we say affordable housing. What segment of the market is truly under served and what segment of the market would we like to accommodate? Who do we want to attract to Brookline? Is it in our best interest to invest in creating housing opportunities for long term residents who feel vested in their community? Is this a goal we can actually do something about? How do our policies and planning practices impact these personal decisions?

As someone who is directly impacted by the influx of students to my area, I do not see it as good town policy to promote the building of housing designed and configured to attract students. Besides the directly negative impacts to the neighborhood, there are consequences to the community from accommodating a larger transient population. It is true that we of course cannot dictate who chooses to rent a particular unit, but we can design our zoning ordinances and building codes, and enforce them in a manner consistent with, the intent to augment our housing stock with units suitable for the growing segment of our population in need of reasonably priced housing. Namely, working families, middle-aged singles, older adults, single parent households, etc. While there are opportunities and programs for low income rental and ownership housing, there is a lack of housing in the middle range. This is the population that is being squeezed out by landlords catering to students, and in terms of potential home owners, middle income residents are loathe to purchase or remain in areas rife with the high levels of student residents. Therefore, the influx of students to an area can dissuade a potential property owner from purchasing a home in that area. The homeowners still there have been dealt a blow to both their quality of life and their property's value.

Sadly, in the case of the basement apartment, some felt that because a mistake had been made in granting the original building permit, that the zoning relief should therefore be granted. While the property owner may have a legitimate complaint about this mistake, this is a separate issue from whether or not this intensity of use is appropriate for this site. This later question is the one before the zoning board of appeals and it is upon this and the criteria for granting special permit and variances, especially the impacts to the neighborhood, that must take precedence.

This occurrence has focused a lens on the need for consistency and diligence in permitting procedures and practices, causing many to feel a lack of trust and security. This is unfortunate and we should openly talk about and address this issue.

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Greening Brookline: One Condominium Building at a Time

2008-07-05T15:17:00.007-04:00

I live in a three story brick U-shaped courtyard condominium building. Built in 1940, there are aspects of old world construction that give the place its character like the hard wood floors, solid wood panel doors and archways between the rooms. There are also many "art deco" flourishes, such as pink and black bathroom tiles in many of the units, that owners have dealt with in a number of ways over the years. But there is a solidity and thickness to the walls, with their settling cracks and impenetrability that makes hanging art require a masonry drill bit, that you just wouldn't find in newer construction. All in all, for a 68 year old building, its doing pretty well.

For better or worse, 50 unit owners have made an investment in this place. We are stuck with the building and all its foibles and we are stuck with each other! For those of you who also live in a condominium, I know you are shaking your head in a knowing way. For nothing focuses the forces of democracy, nor reveals the depths of petty differences, quite like the joint ownership of ones' home!

Into this setting, comes the realities of climate change, peak oil, environmental concerns in general, and the need to rethink just about everything about how we operate. A similar scenario is being replayed at just about every other condo building large and small across town I am sure. In response, a small group of us have formed an ad hoc committee to tackle the "Greening" of our building. One or two trustees are members. Each of us has our pet issue. Natural lawn care, more recycling, energy efficiency, etc. The number one problem of course are the two extremely thirsty industrial-sized oil-fed boilers rumbling away in the basement. Since we all had to shell out a painfully large extra amount of cash just to keep the things fed this winter, we are in no position to hire "experts" or buy our way to any amazing solutions. No, this is a DIY operation, but we are gung-ho! Motivated and hoping to motivate others. Plus, we happen to know someone who is an "expert" who is equally gung-ho who offered to come take a look at our building gratis and to offer us an initial evaluation and suggestions (Thank-you Jim!).

First on Jim's list, of course, was the "low hanging fruit" of insulation. Our back doors need replacing or at least weather stripping and the single pane glass windows could be covered. Same goes for the bare water pipes in the basement and the skylights in the stairwells. We are planning an "Eco-day" fun work day, with refreshments to get this work done. A bit of camaraderie and elbow grease will be empowering, ultimately saving a bit of energy. Then of course there's the issue of windows. Some of the units purchased new windows as a group a few decades ago. Problem was, it was optional, so not all the units have them. It's unclear whether or not the Trust can mandate new windows, but at a minimum we are hoping for storm windows for everyone. The irony here is that our heating system is so uneven that some people freeze while others boil. So what you get are people opening their windows! even after they shut off their radiators. So, how do you justify sweating (no pun intended) the energy loss of the windows when you have this going on? Ultimately, we would be better off with individual heat/cool/hot water units, running on natural gas in each condo. These would be much more efficient and comfortable, but the conversion cost too high and the energy source not renewable.

We are looking into converting to natural gas, as an interim solution. It is at least cleaner, cheaper and domestic. The National Grid commercial sales rep and installation contractor have been positive and encouraging, as they run around like the energizer bunny trying to service the demand from all those beleaguered oil customers. Indeed, the entire Northeast's greatest and most pressing sustainability challenge is the need to transition from oil heat dependence. We are pushing hard to make this happen before the cold months return.

What about the roof? No one can agree about whether or not it lacks insulation. Should we get an official energy audit? But what really got us excited was Jim's vision of the future. Up on that big flat roof of ours, he saw solar panels that could capture the sun's energy to heat our hot water, (currently heated from those same oil-guzzling beasts). I'm hoping that next year is the year for solar here, as the State legislature has just passed its new energy bill. Included therein are provisions for both rebates, the ability to rent solar panels to own (minimizing capital outlay) and if we are lucky enough to generate extra electricity we can sell it to NStar! Solar panels proliferated across Germany once the government set the buy back price of energy high enough to make investment in the panels worthwhile. Jim told us that with the help of an electrician we could do some of the installation ourselves. We are eager to get started!

On the long-term horizon the vision gets interesting. Jim's idea? Geothermal, zoned for each unit, with solar augmentation. We have the unique advantage here of having a large courtyard where we could sink many wells. How feasible is this? We don't really know. There is one house in Brookline on Winchester Street that derives all its heating/cooling energy needs from geothermal, but it is essentially a newly constructed building.

Here is where our seven member group got into trouble. Suddenly, there were rumors running wild through the building that this group of eco-freaks were going to be assessing everyone immediately for a $1,000,000 geothermal energy system! Our manager declared he wanted nothing to do with us. The shrill emails flew and no one was being rational. Obviously we had a communications problem. Not too surprising. We only have one annual unit owners meeting a year, at the end of the year. No one knows what's going on. It's natural that fear and concern about such major decisions would cause anxiety and fear. So added on to our to-day list was getting every unit owners email and doing a newsletter. The newsletter can share all the research information we turn up, like our rate of recycling, or energy use statistics. We can educate and encourage. We talked about maybe needed a big meeting.

Many owners thought "going green" meant more expensive. Our objectives are focused on both short and long term cost control and adopting practices that will generate less waste, etc. To me, this lack of foresight and denial of reality is the most frustrating part of this. Doing nothing is not a neutral option, it is a recipe for continued waste, inefficiency, escalating costs and increased environmental damage. Any well thought out investment we make at this point to reduce our energy use or shift to renewable energy sources or remove harmful chemicals from our environment will have paybacks that far outweigh the cost. Even if you are not planning on living in your unit for long, which condo is more attractive to the potential buyer, the one that has got its energy needs secured for the future or the one at the complex that has buried its head in the (Middle Eastern) sand? Being able to market our building as a "green" building and have that actually mean something, will be extremely valuable to a great many people for a multitude of reasons.

Changing our cleaning or landscaping company to ones that use earth friendly practices and products could be challenging. We are just now researching our options. A significant obstacle in this regard will be the discounts given for multi-building contracts. Our management company manages many buildings. Being a lone wolf building with a new company could be difficult or costly or both, we shall see.

While we are trying to do as much as we can for ourselves, we are also hoping that as governments respond to the needs for energy evaluation and improvements there will be some assistance coming our way, both technical and financial. Until then, we will carry on, hopefully communicating and exchanging ideas to bring some positive changes. A clearing house of information between condo associations would be a useful thing, so we all don't have to re-invent the wheel!

Lessons from London

2008-06-11T12:40:00.016-04:00

I had the great good fortune of attending a lecture given by Nicky Gavron, former deputy mayor of London at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge yesterday. Her topic? London's comprehensive climate action plan. There were many valuable lessons here, most notably, the importance of leadership. Several of us from Brookline were there, David Lowe, Cynthia Snow and Bruce Wolff that I recognized, perhaps there were others.

She began her talk with some sobering statistics. The climate change we are experiencing now in the form of climate disruptions, etc. is from emissions released in the 1950's! The persistence of greenhouse gases are impossible to mitigate. Next, she told us that what was 1 year's worth of emissions in the 1950's are now released in 6 weeks. In sum, we have less than one decade to stabilize our emissions to avoid catastrophic consequences.

This was the extent of the doom and gloom however, because Nicky is a doer. In fact I think she thrives on the challenge of it all and is, with her former mayor and the rest of her staff and constituency, succeeding in remarkable ways. Like all successful strategies theirs is a top down and bottom up strategy. Multi-faceted and interlocking. Complex and chaotic. Marshalling the forces of the law, persuasion, co-operation, education, experimentation, data-gathering, pricing and procurement, all in the service of reducing carbon emissions, their climate change plan has improved the quality of life for London's 7.5 million citizens and spurred a new economic prosperity. London has the fastest growing economy of all the G7 cities.

This didn't happen overnight of course. It began with the 1992 Rio summit. In 2000, London directly elected their mayor who came in with the mission and mandate to respond in a substantive way to climate change. The mayor is overseen by a council of 25 elected representatives. 14 of these are from geographical districts. 11 are at-large. Two points seem important about this. A strong mayor is essential to keeping everyone on point and councils should have a good number of at-large members. This later one is so because there needs to be a strong non-parochial voice speaking for the overarching goal of carbon reduction and the livability of the city as a whole. I won't go into the implications for Brookline of these two points here, other than to say they are both ideas that have relevance and are worth considering as we face the daunting challenges of the 21st century.

Nicky believes that with their plan they can achieve a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2025. Their goal is a 60% reduction, which would be made achievable in their estimation if national policies included, carbon pricing, renewable energy investment and the removal of barriers (regulatory and practical) to local energy production. All this within the context of a population
increase of 1 million people.

Each listener had their own area of interest I am sure, and there was much food for thought. For me, I was eager to hear about their transportation and land use policies and practices. London has a strict green belt surrounding it, "hemming in" any future growth, (past foresight!) and has also adopted a policy of not building on any remaining open space within the core area either. Theirs is a strategy focused on co-locating transit access and development, "densifying" existing growth areas where transportation is available. Substantial investment in transit both from a "hard ware" point of view and on the customer service end of things preceded a highly successful congestion pricing plan. Now in its fifth year, the congestion pricing plan reduced the number of cars entering the center city by 36%. Congestion itself was reduced by 25% and an expansion of the program to the west is being considered. Significant reductions in accidents and pollution were realized almost immediately and retail sales figures have in fact grown in the core at twice the rate of the remaining area's average. I believe this must be because a less congested core is once again an attractive shopping destination.

Of those who previously drove 55-60% switched to buses or transit. There was no significant shift to off-pricing hours. There are many details that have made the program successful. A few key points are: 1) Draconian enforcement of the bus lanes, (no one parks in them, thus assuring decent service), 2) TDM is practiced at major employers, including personalized travel coaching , 3) All new revenues generated from the fees goes towards improving public transportation.

Ah, we here in the land of un-coordinated overlapping agencies, unplanned development and independent fiefdoms can, in many ways, simply look upon such logical and systematic action with longing and envy. But, hope does spring eternal. At the Q & A I had the opportunity to ask her if their transport strategies included any kind of co-ordinated parking measures. Here is what she said: 1) Well, it is incredibly expensive to park in London, I don't even know how much it is, because I haven't even tried it for so long. (Just the other night, our presenter, Jason Schrieber spent a great deal of time talking to us about parking as commodity, set the price right and travel mode choice will be altered, I would have liked to ask her if these were primarily private or public spaces), 2) Parking enforcement is a big issue in the boroughs (suburbs) out side of the charging border) where it must be strictly applied, (sound familiar?), 3) There are vast amounts of subterranean parking underneath London, (didn't get to ask her, but wondered if this was a result of the bomb shelters built in WWII?) so they could not really do much to limit parking, and 4) They are reviewing their parking requirements because they think they are too high especially for residential development in the boroughs where they are dismayed by the loss of yards to parking and have instituted a requirement for 10 sq. meters of open space per unit.

21% of CO2 are from surface transport in a city. Nicky then went on to tell us about the remaining 71% of emissions that come from buildings in cities and ways that they are tackling that. It almost all comes down to energy, mostly for heating and cooling. When I was putting together my talk about sustainable Brookline neighborhoods, I had the idea that the scale of our neighborhoods might lend themselves to small-scale energy production and distribution. Surprisingly, this is a keystone of the London Plan. The benefits to decentralism are multitudinous, including redundancy on the grid, ability to adapt technologies to specific environmental conditions, the potential of combined heat and power generation (where "waste" heat in the form of hot water is used locally), and energy savings from less loss in transmission, etc.

What was really exciting about their whole outlook on the energy technology front was that they took up the mantel of being the driver of innovation. By that I mean that they understood that because of the size of their city, they could, through requiring certain energy innovations such as levels of efficiency and on-site renewable energy generation etc. they could actually stimulate the market to innovate in order to meet that demand. She called it "leap-frogging". I think we would call it jump-starting. And she mentioned several times how we, in the Boston area are sitting in the hot bed of innovation and could surely benefit from just such an approach. Here, her faith in, at least the ingenuity end of things, is, I believe well put. By creating the market for the products, the government has secured the risk! Brilliant. Why wait for the 20 years the companies tell us it will take to make these things work, deploying the infrastructure for recharging, or refining endless prototypes, etc., etc. Here she has truly grasped the importance of the large cities, which , especially if they work in consort with one another, can play a huge role in combating climate change.

She mentioned too, the role for smaller cities, stressing that it is up to us. All the types of decisions that truly have an effect on CO2 emissions occur largely on the local level, such as: How energy efficient are our buildings being built and renovated? How well-coordinated are land-use and transportation decisions? What behaviors can individual households change to reduce emissions and how can we support those?

Most convincing was her belief in the fact that aggressively addressing climate change and thereby securing her cities energy security, mobility and prosperity, she was securing its long-term viability and livability.

For anyone wishing to learn more about London's Climate Action Plan here are some useful links:
The London Plan (the over-arching policy document)
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/strategies/sds/index/jsp

The London Climate Change Action Plan:
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/environment/climate-change/ccap/index.jsp

Congestion Charge Impacts Monitoring Fifth Annual Report (warning for data junkies only)
http://www.tfl.gov.uk.assets/downloads/fifth-annual-impacts-monitoring-report-2007-07-07.pdf

UN Climate Action Programme piece: (Excellent essay by Nicky about role of cities)
http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/features/article/the_role_of_cities_in_tackling_climate_change/

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Anatomy of a Parking Space

2008-05-18T08:03:00.006-04:00

The standard dimensions for a perpendicular parking space are 9 ft. x 19 ft., with an additional 24 ft. of pavement required behind the rows for access and egress. Parallel parking spaces must be 9 ft. wide and 24 ft. long. So, each car requires 216 to 279 sq. ft. of pavement to park. That is a lot of space for one vehicle that often carries only one person. That is also a lot of land to cover with an impervious surface. At the dawn of the auto age America seemed a vast and limitless reservoir of both space and land and we quickly set about dispersing ourselves.

We even felt compelled to accommodate the auto within our cities, riping through neighborhoods and destroying the fabric of our human scaled street networks to build parking lots and roadways, in an attempt to merge the vital hearts of commerce with the freedom and easy access of the automobile. The strategy was of course doomed to fail. The landscape became one of ramps, roads and parking lots. Once out of our vehicle the human body is met with the cold gray concrete of parking decks, or we must walk along side the empty threatening space of vast expanses of parking lots. A visit to Detroit, center of the automotive universe, holds many lessons on how not to build a city. They are struggling to overcome the past and have made some significant steps in the right direction, especially with their new waterfront park, but have a long way to go.

We are now beginning to have an intelligent discussion about parking in Brookline. There have been some surprising revelations. (Surprising to me anyway!) and I feel there are also some serious misconceptions. A major concern many people have centers around cars parked on residential streets. Everyone has a different theory about who these cars belong to and why they are there, but there is an intense dislike of them. I have heard the sentiment "I don't want Brookline to look like Cambridge or Somerville or Allston" from many people. Apparently these individuals perceive the big difference between these communities to be the presence of cars on the street. No one sees the irony in the fact that they all want to own cars and drive them where they want, but don't want to see them in parking lots or on the street. Personally, I think one of the biggest differences in the look of these various communities is the number of street trees. The other is the quality of the housing stock. But back to this fixation on the number of cars parked on the street. At first I thought this had to do with residents not being able to park (or their visitors) in front of their home because of these interlopers. But I don't think that quite gets at the heart of it. It is more about an idealized image of what a Brookline neighborhood is supposed to look like. And it doesn't have cars on the street. Hence the overnight parking ban. We have achieved what we wanted there, but the result has been another problem.

Free parking for commuters. Without good enforcement of our two-hour parking limit, it seems many have found it convenient to park all day and take the T or walk to their work destinations. I don't see this where I live, but it is apparently a big problem around Brookline Village. Where the breakdown in logic occurs is when people think this problem is related to the amount of legal parking provided in the Village. No amount of paid parking in the Village will make a dent in this problem. For one thing, the free parkers have no interest in paying for their parking. For another thing, the demand is infinite. If we attempted to accommodate the demand for commuter parking we would only be inviting more and more vehicles into our already overburdened, congested roadways and neighborhoods, further degrading an already dangerous and conflict ridden environment. The only answer is good enforcement of the two-hour parking limit.

Flowing from this "get them off the street" desire, there is a powerful seduction to the "out of sight out of mind" solution of "stuffing the cars in a big hole in the ground", aka the underground parking garage. If we just build enough spaces in the underground garage, we will be able to put all the cars in it and our streets will remain "unsullied" by the nasty cars cluttering them up. There are a few serious flaws in the logic here. First off, cars do not levitate to the garage. They must make there way there, twisting and turning, pushing and squeezing through our over-crowded intersections and roadways, playing chicken with each other because of the double parkers too lazy to park properly and worse, playing chicken with pedestrians and bicyclists who are just in the way. Crowd enough of these vehicles and people into the same confined system and conflicts escalate, its a matter of physics. Your big garage is a magnet, pulling more and more vehicles into the spot you had hoped to remove them from.

Highway engineers had to face this conundrum long ago. There truly is such a thing as induced demand. They learned that you cannot build your way out of congestion. Once you make it flow better, everyone wants to use it and you are back where you started. It is a treadmill that never stops. The best you can hope for is to strike a balance. That's why the Big Dig wasn't bigger. It is hopefully big enough. It was meant to be done in conjunction with improvements to transit, so that we could move as many people as possible with our excellent mass transit. There is real efficiency there on every level.

The strongly held view in Brookline is that we must accommodate all the "demand" for parking on site for each new development or else there will be overflow into the neighborhoods or worse the dreaded circling and searching for parking. We have never had a handle on just how to predict what that "demand" is, hence our current debate that will surely continue about just how many parking spaces are needed at 2 Brookline Place. It is a much bigger question. The parking rates in our zoning code are flawed to say the least, being based on suburban locations and related only to the square footage and use of a building, variables which are often poor predictors of a businesses activity level. Rates are just not the way to go. A more nuanced approach is necessary, one based on the realities of each situation. But I won't go into all the details here, only to say that demand for parking, like any other commodity in the market place, is in fact dynamic. Just as drivers respond to the free flowing new roadway in the induced demand example above, parkers respond to the availability of easy/cheap parking when deciding whether or not to drive, take the T, walk or bike.

The other day, I was walking home from my appointment in the Longwood medical area and a fellow next to me on the sidewalk, with his Beth Israel Deaconess ID tag dangling from his belt on his cellphone said, "I can't believe I was so stupid to drive in today". Exactly. Tomorrow he won't be so stupid. I'm not making this up, this really happened.

There are some who believe that our traffic problems are actually caused by people driving around looking for parking. Traffic volumes are up because people are out driving their cars to and from their various destinations. There are a few stubborn individuals who refuse to park more than a few feet from their destination and they will either circle, idle or double park. For the more flexible individual, accommodation is almost always available, as our recent parking utilization study of Coolidge Corner revealed.

For those who hold this view, if everyone could just drive up and park right where they wanted, we would have free flowing roadways. Those roadways however would have to be so big we would have to obliterate the very destination buildings they seek to serve. I suggest they spend one day with a traffic planner running intersection analyses to see that the actual number of cars on a roadway is the determining factor for how much delay will be experienced and that there is a point at which the capacity is exceeded and delay becomes infinite. In other words, it doesn't matter how big those parking lots are, the cars won't be able to get there!

Another serious problem with the on-site disappearing cars scenario is that it precludes the provision of shared public parking. There are many benefits to shared parking, which I have written about previously. It is vastly more efficient, allowing us to dedicate much less land/space/resources to parking and it engenders social interaction and good urban design, all positive goals for Brookline.

If you are at all interested in any of these issues, please come to the upcoming parking forum:

Better Parking = Better Brookline
Monday, June 9, 2008
7- 9 pm
Old Lincoln School Auditorium

Speakers are Jason Schrieber, of Nelson/Nygaard, a national leader in Transit Orient Development, Travel Demand Management, and parking management.

Al Raine, former Chief of Planning and Development for the Dukakis Administration and now National Practice Leader for Transit Oriented Development with DMJM + Harris. Al Raine is a Brookline resident and member of the Economic Development Advisory Board.

There will be a question and answer period after the speakers.

The forum is sponsored by: Brookline Planning Board, Brookline Transportation Board, Climate Change Action Brookline, Brookline Conservation Commission, Economic Development Advisory Board and Brookline GreenSpace Alliance

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Tale of Three Neighborhoods

2008-05-01T21:55:00.001-04:00

I've lived in Brookline for twenty years this year. That's longer than any other place I've ever lived, even my home town. During that time, I've inhabited three different abodes, each with its own unique character. But what has really made an impression on me is how different the daily experience of my neighborhood has been in these three places. This, in turn has got me wondering what it is about these three different settings that should make for such different realities. After all they were all in the same town, and in terms of the physical characteristics of my space (some variation on the one or two bedroom condo) they aren't all that different from one another, and yet, there are so many differences when it comes to the feel and tone and pace of life. From the daily rhythm of my neighbors and their patterns of behavior, or the noises I hear, such as the amount of bird song I notice, to the amount of traffic on the streets, all are drastically different.

My first place was a two-bedroom condo in a 1920's courtyard building we rented on Washington St., right next to the amazingly preserved Victorian "gingerbread" house, just up from the intersection of School/Cypress. This location had lots of advantages. It was equidistant to the Village and Coolidge Corner, and the Library was so convenient. My T stop of choice was Brookline Hills, accessed via a pleasant walk through the charming residential neighborhood off of Greenough. I loved watching the ever changing porch displays of window boxes, front yard gardens, flags, etc. as the season warmed. It was a nice way to start and end the day. The courtyard had a nicely overgrown archway entrance that gave it a bit of separation from the too busy Washington St., which we soon learned carried almost all of the firetrucks dispatched in town. One night several of them came to our place as the carriage house behind our building that had been the store house for unlimited junk for too many years burned to the ground, taking our car, which was parked near it, with with. That was the same night of the big fire on White Place. I got to witness first hand our famed "top notch" services, and was grateful for the fine work of our fire department.

But as for neighborhood feel, I have to say, the court yard building itself and the other adjacent buildings, just did not have it. We knew our immediate neighbors in our building, but did not see many people coming or going. Because of this we did not often have the opportunity to stop and chat, that all-important casual encounter that slowly builds ties in more cohesive neighborhoods. Our park of choice was of course Emerson, which on a hot summer night was a favorite haunt after getting a frozen fruit Popsicle at the very convenient convenience store at Cypress/Washington. While our unit was deep within the U of the court yard, we did still hear the constant stream of cars on Washington that did not still until late at night. Being next to the Victorian house meant that we had a beautiful display of maple leaves filtering the sunlight into our kitchen and mitigating the pavement out front. It was a comfortable and pleasant place, like many buildings of its era, with the small tile in the entry way and solid marble steps.

People did not loiter on the sidewalk out front though, and I think this must have been because of the traffic. Maybe visiting both the Village and Coolidge Corner dissipated our loyalties and we did not build up that same kind of familiarity one has going to the same places on a more regular basis. We lived here four years, as we saved for that all important purchase, our condo.

Shopping for a condo in Brookline, is of course an education. We looked at dozens of places. We had become sensitive to those "neighborhood" issues and would go back at night to check the noise level, etc. Of course you never really can tell until you move in...but you do start to look and pay attention, and you can never find that one perfect place, as you have to choose from what's out there when you are looking. But we took our time and ended up buying a place at the corner of Beaconsfield and Dean Rd. This place "had it all" actually more than we were looking for. A roof deck, a fire place, a balcony, an elevator (for only 4 floors!) and a garage, with automatic door opener and direct access to the building. The building had been rebuilt to replace the one that had been destroyed in a gas explosion in 1985, hence all the modern amenities, and no gas. Across the street was the Jean B. Waldstein park. The best feature of which was the laughter of the children sledding in the winter that would float up to our window, the sunset through the majestic trees were a treat too. The T access was to die for and the car simply sat in the garage. The Star Market was a two minute walk, the rest of Washington Square not much further. I often took walks on Fisher Hill, I felt the remains of the Longyear museums' formal garden were my secret sanctuary before the condos came. Oddly enough, no one else did. One day I was shopping for a present for my Dad at a flashy gift store at the Atrium Mall and the woman behind the counter said "You're the woman who I see walking in my neighborhood!" That's how unusual my activity was I guess. I was rather persistent and did not let bad weather deter me. I subscribe to the dictum that there is no inclement weather, just inappropriate clothing choices.

I relate this anecdote to illustrate some features of this neighborhood. While I loved having the Park across the street, this park was mostly an activity park and I did not find myself hanging out there much. There were plenty of ball games, tennis, dog runs, etc. but its steep slope down into it and lack of welcoming seating areas did not create good gathering spaces. So in this regard, it did not seem to help create a cohesive neighborhood spot. While obviously some people walked to Washington Square, etc. the foot traffic seemed confined to Beacon St. Again there was not much loitering on the sidewalk. I took it upon myself to plant some planters to grace our buildings' front door and while I was out there doing that, plenty of people stopped to chat. But our building didn't have a stoop and people didn't really sit out there or spend time out on the sidewalk. If we had a porch or stoop, that would have made a big difference. The other conclusion is most people will not walk somewhere, just to go for a walk the way I did. Dog walkers do, and they often have a social interaction pattern of their own. But for everyone else, they need to be going somewhere or doing something. Without those draws, you won't get life on the streets. Our nearest gathering spots were in Washington Square. So, as much as I found many things to enjoy at this location, I did not have a strong sense of living or identifying with "a neighborhood".

My third spot, where I live now is on Browne Street. Once again I am in a U shaped courtyard building. Our courtyard is big, with beautiful 100 year old maple trees, and it takes a few moments to traverse the walkway from the sidewalk to my front door. This simple fact often brings me in contact with my neighbors. They are out of their cars, even if they have just parked out front. There is a walkway that is protected from traffic and is comfortable to stop and chat on. The people living in this building are welcoming. Is it a self-selecting phenomena? or just a function of the fact that the design of the building allows us the chance to get to know one another in an easy, casual way? Across the street is Winthrop Square park, containing the Minot Rose Garden and a children's play area. A constant stream of people, mostly mothers and children during the day and elderly in the afternoon flow to this place the minute the weather even nears 50 degrees. BU students stop as they pass on St. Paul St. On the weekends when the roses are in bloom the place is packed. Here I see an amazing mix of people chatting to each other or just sharing the space together. The ethnic and cultural diversity in this neck of the woods is pretty amazing. This is a well used park and a true meeting place for the neighborhood.

Browne Street itself doesn't carry much traffic, as it is short and very local access only. So, in terms of traffic noise, this is by far the quietest place I have lived. The birds in the tree outside by window wake me up. The quite street helps make the sidewalks the kind of place you want to stop on, so when you see your neighbor, you feel comfortable spending a few minutes catching up. And here is the biggest difference. There are lots of people out walking on the sidewalks! We all have somewhere to walk to, namely Coolidge Corner or the park or library and there are enough of us that there is some kind of critical mass. The routes we take are pretty predictable too, so this enhances the chance of us seeing each other. So, here, I do feel I live in a neighborhood, this place has achieved that illusive definition.

Changing Me to We

2008-04-11T19:56:00.010-04:00

Perhaps you have seen or heard about the logo developed for Al Gore's new endeavor. It is a visual pun on the words me and we, showing an upside down m, which becomes a w before the letter e, all inside a green circle. Like this.

His new organization is called wecansolveit.org. I am reminded about the power of symbolism: an individual, transformed into the collective we, encircled by green. While on some level we may think it overly simplistic, childish even, to reduce a call to action in response to a global crisis to a few letters in a circle, but the power of direct communication cannot be minimized. If a simple idea can be grasped, internalized and function as an inspiration, this is the stuff of cultural shifts. Think of the peace symbol, or the flower being stuffed in the barrel of a gun and what these images meant to the anti-war movement in the Vietnam war era.

The logo spoke to me of the profound change in thinking that will free us from the tyranny of excess, waste and hyper-consumption that has sapped the earth and our cultural of its creative life force. It says we are all in this together. It isn't just about me and what I want today, but rather how do my actions impact the greater whole and how can I contribute to making things better. The Hummer and the gated community may keep the "others" at bay for awhile, but when the water (or oil, etc.) runs out, it runs out for everybody at some point.

And the funny thing is, this turns out not to be about sacrificing, or giving up, but rather it's about relearning self-reliance, getting creative and conscious again. It becomes a relief and is empowering and I believe the American people are ready and yearning to apply themselves if only given the chance. The opportunities for innovation are stupendous. This could be the flowering of a time of unprecedented creativity, a giant leap forward. Perhaps a logo reminding them that me and we are two sides to a whole will do that.

Who among us did not cringe on some deep fundamental level when, after the horrible events of September 11, our President, who, at a time when the country most needed guidance, leadership and a moral compass, instead told us that we should go shopping? How utterly humiliating this was. Not only were we to once again seek the false and fleeting balm of some new gadget or toy, but we were to turn to this at this time of crisis, as if this is all we know how to do. Does this sound familiar? As our "economic stimulus" quick fix checks will soon be hitting the mail box as we once again are encouraged to bury our heads in the sand.

The "we" way of thinking doesn't mean that humans, and our basic needs and wants will or should change, but what it does mean is that in finding news ways of doing and being we will discover greater opportunities for more genuine interactions, meaningful work, greater artistic expression and reestablish closer ties with each other and the natural world. These are all things that have been missing in our lives as a great many people sense.

To bring this down to a more local level, perhaps you read Edith Pearlman's eloquent essay about Brookline's Town Meeting form of government in the April 7th Boston Sunday Globe? As we draw near to that time again, I would like to ask each of you Town Meeting members, and everyone who serves on a board or commission, to keep in mind the "we", which in this case includes the Town as a whole as well as future generations of Brookline citizens and beyond. As Edith put it in her essay, "The ideal representative is the one who closely identifies his own self with the town, even to the point of conflating them -...The good of the municipality is expected to trump that of the individual or the precinct"

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Sustainable Brookline: Next Steps

2008-03-23T19:41:00.010-04:00

The February 10th Sustainable Brookline Conference was a great beginning. Gathering together with a common purpose facilitated focused thinking on specific measures, as each group communicated their unique perspectives on potential sustainability measures. It was clear that much thought, discussion and hard work had gone into creating the many important and valuable suggestions.

But more importantly, there was a deeper understanding that grew as the ideas were voiced around that table and a vision of a more sustainable Brookline took shape. All of our measures are necessarily interconnected and the ability to foresee (at least to some extent!) the impacts and reactions of each requires both a depth of understanding and a willingness to think beyond our usual ways of doing things. Tremendous efficiencies will be gained through combining some of the initiatives and allocating resources and responsibilities strategically. There is a depth of commitment that is a natural outgrowth of lifelong passions for many of us and the context of the enormous challenge of climate change was bringing us together in a new ways. Working together holds the promise of synergistically increasing our effectiveness and creativity. Continued communication and information sharing will be key to realizing this potential.

While many in attendance were loathe to create yet another committee, or to make an existing committee responsible for advancing the "sustainability agenda" it is nonetheless apparent that some sustained effort at continued coordination must be maintained. It was suggested that this take the form of a virtual community, which may well be an ideal solution. It was also noted that certain interests were not represented at the forum, such as local food activists, and other town boards. This only highlights the fact that the rubric of sustainability touches every aspect of policy, planning, our economy and culture.

Innovation and leadership in response to climate change has blossomed around the country at the state and local government levels. The reasons for this are two-fold. Obviously, we have had an appalling lack of leadership at the federal level. But, for many types of initiatives the nimble, location-sensitive, bottom up strategies, tailored to local culture and preferences have the best chance at being appropriate and will more likely be adopted and integrated into life-styles for the long-term.

Success in moving forward towards a more sustainable future is dependent upon unleashing individuals' and organizations abilities to perceive the long-term consequences and interconnections of their actions and to stimulate creative problem-solving. We need a way to stimulate "sustainable thinking" when we are going about our usual town decision-making processes. How might this be achieved? How about having a "sustainability coordinator" who would draw up a list of questions with considerations and general goals for each department, which would have to be answered before any purchase, policy, plan or budget decision could be made. Of course this list of questions would need to be tailored for the department in question. In addition to the list of questions, suggestions, input and feedback from those doing the job should be sought. This will likely yield the greatest benefit. A one on one conversation with the co-ordinator would ensue. None of this is regulatory, it is just a way to get the wheels turning in a different direction, instead of just doing everything in the same way because we always have, we can stand back and re-evaluate. Rather than beginning by imposing strict mandates that more often than not miss the mark and have unforetold negative consequences, why not instead propose general goals and objectives and see what kinds of ideas people come up with.

Just as federal grants programs stimulate research and innovation, we could use local grants to bring learning, excitement and fun to the challenge of sustainability. In the realm of product and business development how about having a Brookline Community Foundation grant that would be awarded to a promising business idea based on using locally sourced or recycled materials to create something that fits into a sustainable lifestyle framework. Part of the grant award could be expertise in business development or marketing donated by local professionals. I can imagine a great many young Brookliner's having a field day with this challenge. It would be a wonderful way to generate local economic activity, local sustainability awareness, and encourage some of our home grown talent.

On a grander scale, we are faced with the challenge of our antiquated and cobbled together zoning code whose provisions run counter to many features we might seek in a sustainable community. I have written previously of one of the most obvious of these, our excessive parking requirements. There are many other features of a livable community that a well crafted code could help us achieve. Some of them are focused on creating the kind of public realm we wish to live in, others are more systemic, looking at larger issues of infrastructure investments, open space protections, etc. Instead, as evidenced by the recent spate of Town Meeting warrants and serious conflicts that continue to arise, we are left to deal with each new proposal as best we can, while lacking an appropriately detailed vision or overall direction. A sustainable community is first and foremost a livable one.

How do we solve this conundrum? I see the problem as a fundamental lack of dialogue, communication and understanding. While many see the failure of our recent planning efforts as evidence of either our inability to work together or be productive or a failure of the entire endeavor of planning, I see it rather as a need for professional help. And I don't mean another consultant who comes in and tells us what we should do. No, the kind of process I have in mind is a very participatory and iterative process of developing plans know as charettes. While I don't want to get into all the specifics here, as I am simply outlining an idea, the point is there are professionals and methods that facilitate community led planning initiatives, and were we to go through this process of learning and making the hard choices and debating the trade-offs for ourselves, what comes out at the end is something that we all can own and that will help us craft both a sustainable Brookline and a community that honors our past while accommodating the future.

As a long term resident of Brookline and a professional planner, I am convinced that we must do something different along these lines. We have too much to lose and the pressures for new development will only increase as the desirability of our location continues to become enhanced, as oil prices rise, large single family homes on large lots in the suburbs become more untenable etc. This trend can work to our advantage if we are well prepared and manage this new growth to enhance our community.

1285 Beacon Revisited

2008-03-09T12:13:00.011-04:00

Now that we've dissected what is wrong with this building from a design and pedestrian experience point of view, I still can't leave it alone. For there are other serious shortcomings in terms of its function and contribution (or lack thereof) to our local economy and community. These shortcomings boil down to parking and the proliferation of chain stores in Coolidge Corner.

This building houses 21,000 sq. ft of retail space, which is divided amongst its various tenants as follows: Health Club: 12,000 sq. ft., Staples Copy & Print Shop 4, 800 sq. ft. , unleased retail space, 4,200 sq. ft. Like communities all across the country, our zoning ordinance contains parking requirements that are based on the premise that the existence of these stores will "generate" the demand for a certain amount of automobile travel, destined for these destinations. Someone, living somewhere, has the desire to go to Staples to get those copies made. In the case of our zoning code, we have assumed they are going to satisfy that desire via an automobile. To accommodate this "demand" a certain amount of parking has been provided. In this case that amount is 49 spaces, enough to handle 49 independent decisions to go to these three businesses in a car, at any given moment.

However, it would occur to even a casual observer that these establishments exist steps away from one of the most heavily used T stops on the entire MBTA system, as well as being smack dab in the middle of a dense residential area. Therefore anyone wanting to go to these stores who lives within walking distance of the T or the store does not have to drive a car. However, by providing all this parking we are not encouraging the use of these alternatives, instead we are accommodating excess cars at the expense of the environment and the community. In terms of these particular stores it seems particularly unlikely that patrons will come from distant places, given the ubiquity in the area of Staples and health clubs, etc. already.

Another problem with the parking is that it was built on-site for the exclusive use of the buildings' patrons. What's wrong with this? It is inefficient and anti-social. Let me explain. The assumptions behind on-site parking are 1) People making the trip to Staples are just going to Staples, as if it were set out in a field somewhere by itself. They are not coming to Coolidge Corner to take care of a number of errands. They are in a hurry and will come in, transact their business and leave. If they are going somewhere else nearby, they are expected to get back in their car and drive there, requiring yet another parking space at this new destination. This is the dominant thinking behind almost all planning and parking rate regulations.

Assuming we are trying to achieve an appropriate balance between maximizing alternative transportation use and providing the minimum amount of parking necessary, what parking we do have must be used in the most efficient way possible. Shared public parking, located in such a way as to be accessible to the majority of businesses within a district is vastly superior to private parking. It allows for "park-once" behavior for multiple trips, reducing both the overall amount of parking spaces needed and the amount of travel necessary. Shared public parking also accommodates the ebb and flow of demand needs, variations in hours of operations, differences in peak seasonal fluctuations, etc. Static dedicated parking lots have none of these efficiencies.

What is special about Coolidge Corner is that it was built before the automobile dominated our built environment. We have the perfect model for how to build "walkable urbanism". However, our ordinances do not allow us to do this. Instead, we are struggling to graft on the ultra-convenient auto-access model of development onto a pre-existing, dense pedestrian oriented commercial district. This is a recipe for failure. You cannot have it both ways.

Boston NOW, the newest free commuter paper, named Coolidge Corner as its Editors Choice for best Outdoor Shopping. The operative word here is Outdoor. An on-site private parking garage, such as we have at 1285 Beacon, makes it possible to patronize the businesses at 1285 Beacon without ever going outside. While this makes it possible to avoid inclement weather, it also makes it impossible for you to have a chance encounter with your neighbor, or to see a notice on the light pole for a garage sale, or to appreciate that new piece of public art, hear that snippet of Chinese being spoken by the pair next to you on the sidewalk, or have gotten that boost from the smile the young woman gave you, just because, etc. In other words you do not get that experience of being part of community. We are drawn to commercial areas like Coolidge Corner precisely because of these experiences and feelings. It is not just about buying and selling. Serendipity and spontaneity are given an opportunity to enter our life. If we had left our car in the shared lot half a block a way and walked, or better yet taken the T or walked , we might have had some of these encounters, Parking in the private garage is convenient and dare I say, boring.

And it is in the realm of human interaction that we can truly appreciate our locally owned and operated businesses. While the direct economic benefits are well documented (I have heard estimates as high as .45 out of every $1 spent at a local business goes back into the local economy), the social benefits are incalculable. Consider the value in terms of continuity, trust, and simple human connection brought to your life from the local shop owner who can look up what special ingredients your grandmother ordered for a holiday dinner. Cherished childhood memories of favorite treats or pass times are passed on to the next generation. We know them and they know us. There is trust. This counts for a lot in this day and age.

I experienced first hand the difference in community involvement from our local businesses when I was fundraising for the Minot Rose Garden restoration. I visited most of the businesses in CC and spoke to many of the owners. While some of the national chains had awakened to the fact that they too had a role to play in being active local participants, for many of them I was told to write letters to corporate headquarters, etc. Only our local businesses welcomed the opportunity to sell our note cards or display our brochures, again coming down to a personal connection. They support many valuable cultural organizations and contribute in so many vital ways.

Most would agree that keeping and promoting our local businesses is a positive. Buying local is our most powerful consumer tool. In terms of sustainability the more locally sourced and produced our consumables are, the better off we are. Perhaps, local manufacturing incubator facilities would be a good investment, along the lines of the shared commercial kitchen facility that allows start-up food based businesses to bypass the necessity of outfitting or renting a full commercial kitchen.

But what can we do on a town policy level to help achieve these goals, and how does this relate to 1285 Beacon? For one thing, by having to build all that on-site private parking (which is excessive and inefficient) the cost of building is greater. This cost ultimately gets passed on to the tenants in the form of higher rents. Lowering the parking rates could help in some small way.

But we need to lower the bar even further, by creatively allowing start-up retail establishments to keep their overhead down. Perhaps by rehabbing a larger space and dividing it into smaller spaces. Or allowing push carts. Or maybe even making locally owned businesses on the first floor of a new retail development a Public Benefit incentive, along with the bonuses allowed to developers for affordable housing or open space. If we had some sort of all season food market, local retailers could easily sell their offerings, without an excessively high rental rate.

In New York city a neighborhood merchants group (I believe its the East Village) are sponsoring a free public transit train to their destination. Other communities are experimenting with "Local Business Supporter" cards. In this scheme, members pay a one time membership fee and are issued a card. This card entitles them to a 10% discount whenever they spend above a certain amount. That 10% can either be pocketed by the member or donated to the local non-profit of their choice. This is a way of systematizing a relationship that often informally occurs. It would encourage local shopping and solidify the mutual support between shopper business owner and community non-profits.

These are just a few ideas. This is a complex and difficult issue that many communities are grappling with. In terms of serving some of our basic necessities it is not always a bad thing to have a national chain, again the right balance is key.

But it does make one wish we had brought something new and local to our block with this new building. Instead we will be gazing in at the back of copy machines, and because of some mix-up with the elevation and construction plans, there is an elevator and stairs to mount as soon as one enters the door.

[where: 1285 Beacon St., Brookline, MA 02446]

What's Wrong with this Building?

2008-02-22T20:38:00.015-05:00

A new structure has become part of our streetscape. 1285 Beacon Street, next to the Post Office is a two story structure with 21,000 sq. ft. of retail space. On the first floor is Staples. We are unable to miss the identity of this tenant, as the ubiquitous red and white glowing Staples logo/sign and its equally constant companion Copy and Print Shop signs are firmly affixed to the buildings' facade. I won't get into the wisdom of the Staples corporate logic in choosing their locations other than to say, in my estimation there were already two other Staples within walking distance from my abode... Above the Staples will be a healthclub. Below the building, 49 parking spaces will allow those who wish to, to drive right to their destination and park, in defiance of the sites' location, within steps of the T and surrounded by dense residential neighborhoods.

But, parking and the chain storification of Coolidge Corner are surprisingly not the subject of this blog. What I find most disquieting is the building itself and its designs' utter lack of sensitivity to either the context of its setting and its down-right hostile pedestrian interface. Let's first look at how the building "fits" with its neighbors. Beacon Street as a whole is on the National Register of Historic Places. This has of course not saved us from getting some monster buildings in the past, but it highlights the fact that the corridor's history has a story to tell about how Brookline came to be built the way it is and how, in its architecture we can read the progression of taste and lifestyles through exemplary examples of housing types built to be the best. This should at least cause an architect designing a new building destined to reside here to be thoughtful and considerate of context.

It is hard to see any evidence of that thoughtfulness in this building. It appears instead to be some sort of amalgam of 60's fads, with the geometric angles formed by the triangular window with a wedge of black polished granite and 1920's art moderne represented with the rounded window on the end of the building, metal window casings and the flush mounted "art decoesque" light fixtures. The yellow rough stone seems to be chosen to contrast with the smoothness of the granite, but is an uninviting material in and of itself. The roof is flat and there is no detailing or ornament happening at the roof line. Over all it looks as if it were designed to look good from across the street as you drive by, with no regard to the traditional red brick, gabled entrance structure of the post office next door, or the predominate style of architecture on Beacon Street as a whole, the bowed front townhouse made with red brick or stone. Next door, across Charles Street, is the beautiful Elizabeth P. Sears house a Colonial Revival built in 1889. Now, of course one would not expect this new building to mimic or reconcile all these divergent and powerful influences. But surely, with just a minimum of restraint and effort, a structure could have been designed that would have been both distinctive and harmonious.

But I concede that my comments so far are to some extent matters of taste, and perhaps there are those of you who love this new building! After all we do already have a jumble of styles going on and is some cases it actually works.

What I find most unsettling is the experience of walking past the building. Every building creates the public space around it. Here is where this building has failed its Beacon Street mission miserably. The smooth shiny solid granite slabs, forming a sharp angle (see photo above) as you approach from the west are nothing but hard and cold. There is no detail to attract your eye. It is an expanse of stone. The scale of the windows and granite "accents" is all wrong. It was designed for a distant viewer only, not someone walking by. Then there is the matter of the doors and windows. The first door is recessed, which makes it much more inviting, but the other door further down the building is not and therefore functions more like a window. The windows are too high off the ground to begin with. Because of the declining grade of the street, by the time you reach the end of the building the windows are very high. You are eye level with the window sill, with nothing but a rough stone wall with a fire hose connection pressing in on you. The cold hard materials of the building are overwhelming your experience.

All of these details may seem small. But the effect they have on how we relate to the building and its contents are profound. How comfortable are we standing on the street window-shopping? Do we feel welcomed or threatened. Does the store and its merchandise reach out to us and communicate with us as we pass, creating a feeling of community? These are basic biological responses.

Now is we compare these features with the features of those buildings elsewhere in Coolidge Corner we identify the significant differences. Just what is it about the design of the shops along Harvard Street or elsewhere on Beacon Street that make it so pleasurable to walk along the sidewalk to window shop, see friends, shop, etc.? Look at the pictures of Paper Source and the portion of Harvard Street north of the Arcade above. In both of these cases and throughout the district shop windows are positioned low, not more than 1 to 2 ft above the ground. Doorways are recessed and frequent, making the entrances easily identifiable and increasing the display area for the store. A pleasing rhythm or "articulation" of the building frontage is created, and even if the store itself is large, frequently recessed doors helps break-up the frontage wall, maintaining this visual and spatial rhythm. The awnings add a nice softening touch too, and help shops express identity. We are fortunate to have inherited these older buildings in their setting of a tightly woven street grid.

If we implemented a few basic building guidelines, our new structures could continue to create the inviting and visually stimulating human scaled shopping area we enjoy elsewhere in Coolidge Corner. We could prevent another building with the types of problems we see at 1285 Beacon Street from occurring again in the future. For instance, by specifying the maximum height that store front windows should be located off the sidewalk, (for instance 12" - 24"), requiring entryways to be recessed by at least 2 ft. and specifying that recessed doorways would occur approximately every 20 ft. new buildings would have those key features that are all important to creating the look and feel of a pleasing walkable shopping district. Build-to lines would maintain a consistent building frontage line and height maximums would ensure a human scaled proportion between building and street. Perhaps we would include specifications about window proportions and dimensions to avoid the problems of scale we see at 1285.

These types of prescriptive requirements would be welcome by both those designing the buildings and those reviewing those designs. It is all clear. We know what we want and the developer knows what we want, so they do not need to dread the never ending process of vague objections.

These types of ordinances are called form-based codes because they focus on the form of the building rather than just the use and basic mass of a building as traditional zoning does. This is in recognition of the fact that the form of the built environment creates our shared public realm. This is a seismic shift in how we regulate building and is a valuable tool that helps us create human-centered environments. If we wish to build a better Brookline, we should consider adopting this type of building ordinance.

[where: 02446]

Sustainable Brookline Conference

2008-02-16T14:37:00.010-05:00

Last Sunday a gathering was held at Wheelock College, called Sustainable Brookline. Coordinated by many individuals, most notably the ad hoc Steering Committee for a Sustainable Brookline, its stated mission was to "develop a coordinated strategy for making Brookline a truly sustainable community". Over 60 members of our community gave up their Sunday afternoon to meet, discuss and plan future coordinated actions. Don Weitzman of the Climate Change Action Committee ran the meeting with supreme efficiency, ensuring that everyone present was able to participate and the ideas continued to flow.

Many groups and individuals were represented. Each presented up to three "actions" that would bring Brookline closer to sustainability. Many, many good ideas came forward, some were clearly predictable, doable and valuable such as expanding recycling programs to businesses, others were more innovative and perhaps challenging to implement, such as the Conservation Commission's Green Streets program that seeks to manage storm water flows with vegetation. Building, energy and vehicle efficiencies were all pinpointed by numerous groups. Many spoke of the need to promote alternative transportation including bikes, transit and walking while reducing auto-dependence. Hugh Mattison spoke of the need to interest young people in street tree stewardship through a tree buddy program. The GreenSpace Alliance stressed the education of youth too in it's presentation, clearly thought was given to the need look ahead.

Our actions are intermeshed and carry rippling repercussions. Some of these connections were identified at the conference. Transportation Board policies impact the Bicycle Advisory Committee's planned bike routes. Implementing green building standards will redirect a building contractor's business. As my previous post outlines, our zoning ordinances' requirement for excessive parking has far reaching impacts on the livability of our community. Future discussions will hopefully bring into focus the benefits of promoting localized economies, food production and social structures.

And yet, the purpose of the gathering was no doubt in response to the growing awareness of the need for action to prepare for the changes that will undoubtedly come our way. Sitting in a room full of "environmentalists", (an antiquated term I feel because it now has a history of adversarial politics and "holier than thou" attitudes that have not been particularly constructive), took me back to the original Earth Day, I vividly recall participating in it. I was in grade school, I pinned a "Give Earth a Chance" button on my shirt and we cleaned up our play yard! It seems almost ridiculous that a species living on the planet had to have an Earth Day at all, but there it is, I guess we did. The river just down the street from my school churned and foamed a putrid green with the effluent from the paper mill just upstream. It eventually got cleaned up. I am sure everyone around me had similar memories. I recall too, learning in college courses about the true impacts of our industries and way of life. We studied natural resource economics, world food systems, community environmental field studies and resource dispute resolution, all trying to bring reason and humanity back to the center of things.

In truth we are all in this together, going along for the ride. We are all both part of the problem and potentially part of the solution. It was inspiring to see so many dedicated individuals who were truly trying to put forward positive solutions. I salute each and every one of you.

Perhaps future generations will read over the minutes of our meeting and think, "thank goodness they finally started to get their act together and tried to do something." Or perhaps they will say, "it was too late and they just didn't know it, and the things they talked about didn't make any difference anyway". There were those voices at the conference who urged a more drastic reaction and response. (Like what?, they didn't say.) Fear and panic do not seem very useful. While others spoke of the need to process and adjust. So in the end, I believe it was the middle road that was taken. A call for action within the state of things as we know them, never losing sight of the need to continually push ourselves for further progress.

While I do not have faith in technological solutions alone, as some do, I believe in our ability to adapt, change, evolve, and innovate. Solutions will be combinations of things more intertwined and complex than we can imagine, an infinitely dispersed network of problem solvers will come up with a great many things. So I guess I am a glass half full person. I thank the ad hoc committee for organizing the conference and look forward to seeing the progress we make working together towards a sustainable Brookline.

[where:02446]

If We Build it They Will Drive

2008-01-31T12:39:00.002-05:00

While there is no shortage of opinions in this town, one thing we pretty much all agree on is our affection for it. We might differ on a few particulars, but the list of things we all rattle off about what we love about Brookline usually sounds remarkably similar.

It is somewhat disheartening then to see the escalating divisiveness and animosity around issues of planning and development. This is not surprising and our community is certainly not alone in finding ourselves mired in controversy. These are big questions with huge impacts, and depending on where you live and how you are impacted it can feel as if the livability of your neighborhood or the financial future of your family depend on the outcome. There are of course laws, procedures and techniques all designed to take into account everyone’s concerns and lead us to just and equitable solutions. I honestly believe we could all come to a remarkable degree of consensus if we could just ratchet down the rhetoric, evaluate some alternatives objectively and think in terms of the overall good of the town and it’s long term future. It’s just not easy.

With our unique governmental structure we do not have a big bureaucracy to do the job for us. All of you who serve on town boards, attend meetings, voice opinions, volunteering your time, you are our bureaucracy. We need a lot more of you. We need new voices. We each bear a unique burden of citizenship that we have inherited by becoming members here. As citizens we need to adopt policies that reflect our collective goals for the future.

There is one set of policies in particular that is resulting in unintended negative consequences to our town and its future. I believe if these negatives were fully revealed, the majority of Brookline residents would not support the policies. I am referring to the amount of parking that must be provided for new and redeveloped housing and businesses. The required rates are set way too high. Now I know parking is one hot issue in this town, but bear with me here.

Let’s talk about the businesses first. Our code requires 1 parking space for every 200 – 350 sq. ft of retail space. This creates a level of parking adequate to service a store out in a field somewhere in the boonies where all the customers are going to drive to that store and the store is the sole destination of that trip. We all know this is not the case in Coolidge Corner or anywhere along Beacon St. Now our code does allow for some reduction for transit accessibility, but not enough. A more transit friendly rate would be 1 space per 1,000 sq. ft. Requiring on-site parking for each building makes compact development impossible, such as the type of building we enjoy in Coolidge Corner now.

Now let’s talk about housing. The parking requirements per housing unit were recently (2000) raised from 1.5 – 1.8 per unit to 2 to 2.3 per unit (even for studio or one bedroom units). This, despite the fact that according to the 2000 Census Brookline has the 4th highest rank in the country (43.03%) of non-auto commuters for communities between 50,000 and 250,000. Many people cite Brookline’s T accessible location as their reason for locating here. If we maintain adequate neighborhood services, it is entirely possible to live car free in Brookline as many have chosen to do. There are many individuals who do not or cannot drive or own a car and their numbers will only grow. A recent analysis of auto-ownership near Coolidge Corner reveals that 82% of the households have 1 or 0 autos. We are building more parking than residents need.

Transportation costs are the second largest household expense. One way to reduce that is to live in a mobility enhanced location such as Brookline. Our parking requirements add significant costs to new housing, reduces the possibility for on-site open space, encourages driving, burdens our overcrowded roadways (which, by the way are deteriorating and expensive to maintain), and severely limits our ability to provide a variety of housing types and price points. Young professionals are seeking an alternative to the auto dependent lifestyle, but they won’t find it here if we continue to build for the car rather than the alternative transportation user.

Many think that putting the parking underground takes care of the problem. Out of sight, out of mind. The only benefit to this is not having a surface parking lot. We will still have that many more cars on the road, overwhelming our already congested streets, causing more backups, delays, and road rage. More autos bring many negatives; the pedestrian environment is degraded, it’s harder to cross the street, there is more pollution and noise and conflicts from cars turning into driveways across sidewalks. There will be less space on the roadway for bicycles and more car/bike conflicts. The cumulative effect of these conflicts will discourage walking and biking.

Our excessive parking requirements have far reaching environmental impacts as well. First, they encourage driving. In the age of global warming this is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. Vehicles account for 30% of our nation’s CO2 emissions. We cannot adequately reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by driving hybrid cars. For one thing, as population grows, VMT (vehicle miles traveled) will continue to increase. As gas mileage efficiencies increase, the limiting effects of high gas prices will be mitigated, thus causing drivers to drive more. No, the only way to reduce the CO2 from vehicles is to drive less and the only way to drive less is to build in such a way as to facilitate transit and other alternative transportation modes for a greater portion of our travel needs.

If we want to be consistent with the values of environmental sustainability, preservation of open space, enhancing our pedestrian environment and providing a variety of housing types and values then we need to reduce our parking requirements.

[where:02446]

Logical Conclusion of Parking Regulations not Logical

2008-01-07T19:37:00.000-05:00

I know what you are thinking, here we go again with the parking! But the truth of the matter is that the parking requirements that are incorporated into our zoning ordinance are just as influential as the building size and use requirements in determining what kind of development we will end up with. In addition, the method of applying the standards and reviewing each parcel and building proposal in isolation, treating it as if it were it's own universe yields a disjointed and dysfunctional public realm. But back to the subject at hand. The parking requirements.

Each requirement taken in isolation may seem reasonable, but the effects are profound and far reaching. For an area like Coolidge Corner we have to ask ourselves what kind of place are we trying to build? The standards we have set are more suitable for the suburbs. They are the norm and have been adopted throughout the land, and we can see the results. The building in isolation surrounded by a sea of parking. These regulations are based on a standard number of automobile trips that are "drawn" to a certain type of building, this is known as Trip Generation and is based on all kinds of science. Build an office out in the suburbs and a certain number of cars will come and go on a given day because the people working there have no other way to get there! It is fairly easy to predict then, based on the size of the building, how many auto trips will come and go. From there we can come up with a formula for a minimum number of parking spaces per a unit of building square footage, and voila a parking requirement.

By requiring developers to provide on-site parking for every new building, be it housing, office or commercial we are subsidizing and encouraging driving and increasing the costs to both build and ultimately occupy those homes and businesses. In an area rich in alternative transportation options this makes no sense. Those in need of affordable housing and small businesses looking for affordable rents could benefit from the infrastructure expenditure savings realized through a relaxation of excessive on-site parking requirements. In terms of the affordable housing household the savings are two fold. The unit is cheaper because they aren't buying an amenity they do not need (excess parking) and because they are living within close proximity of transit they need not spend such a large portion of their income on automobile costs.

In addition to the cost savings the benefits to the environment, both in terms of reduced pollution and energy savings and the livability of a humanly oriented public realm cannot be overstated. By reducing the pervasiveness of the automobile in our environment we remove a huge source of stress for the pedestrian. Citizens are coming to realize the joys of mingling with others in a relaxed public setting. This increased awareness has spread through the growing publicity surrounding the many successfully created public spaces in cities and towns around the globe. Brookline has the perfect setting for creating such a place and those who are raising their voices to demand such a place are speaking for future generations and the public in general.

This is not an either or proposition. There will still be people who will need to drive to Coolidge Corner. However, we need to plan for parking for the area as a whole and not force each parcel to provide on-site parking. This destroys the economics and walkability of our core commercial district. Lets see if we can't get a little more creative. We should do everything we can to make walking, taking the T and biking attractive fun and convenient. We should not subsidize and encourage driving. We should not destroy the street scape and pedestrian environment just to accommodate the automobile.

Until we come to grips with the ramifications of our unacquainted parking requirements. The reason we have heard of only one development proposal for the Centre Street parking lot, a nine story hotel, is because a hotel has a much lower on-site parking requirement than does commercial, office or residential uses. And still it must be completely out of scale (9 stories tall) in order to be economically viable. Do we really want to sacrifice the benefits to our community that other, more locally usable commercial establishments or affordable housing might bring, just to meet an outdated, inappropriate parking standard?
[where:Brookline, MA 02446]

Pedestrians an Afterthought?

2007-12-15T20:54:00.000-05:00

You've got to wonder what they were thinking. The design of the new Beacon Street must have looked pretty impressive on all those drawings. Despite the excessive intuitive lane weaving that the driver must somehow have the precognition to execute, the autos for the most part seem to have been accommodated. After all that's what the highway department thinks its job is.

But what about all the other life that goes on around and across and in the road? It is, after all those of us who cross Beacon on foot, take the trolley, walk or jog along the sidewalks, ride a bike, shop, talk to our friends, window shop, attend Arts Festivals, tend our front yards and sometimes just sit on our front stoops to watch the world go by all on or along side historic Beacon Street. Just how much thought was given to the way all of this was going to work out?

If the intersection at Harvard and Beacon is any indication, not much. Stand on the southeast corner of this intersection and watch as the streams of pedestrians weave and dodge there way around the two huge signal boxes placed directly in the middle of the obvious travel path, not to mention the many poles, etc. These impediments are so intrusive, we are forced to dodge each other dodging the boxes and poles! Yes, we can manage I guess, although I think people in well chairs or on walkers would have a hard time of it. But managing is not the point is it?

This crossing should have been designed and planned to be plenty big, wide, clear and with a good flat surface and if we were really lucky it could have been aesthetically appealing with some nice T signage thrown in. Doesn't anyone know how to plan for pedestrians? Didn't anyone think about the amount of people on foot that cross this street daily. My experience with the St.Paul Street T stop has not been much better. Here we have crowds of people with suitcases destined for the Holiday Inn getting off onto a strip of asphalt only to find that they must circle around on a narrow little circuit of patchwork pavement wrapped around a few poles, signal boxes and planting beds. Again, no real thought was given to accommodating numbers of people or making it easy, convenient or pleasant. My friend Susan Bartek tells me that the narrow passage way was actually much smaller and it was only through her quick action as she watched this error being committed and called it to the attention of the Town and T that some slight accommodation was made. Pretty incredible that this kind of ineptitude is still going on.

In this day and age of global warming we should be doing everything we can to make walking, biking and riding the T the preferred transportation alternatives. Part of this means making sure the effort is made to design and build functionality for all transportation modes, especially when masses amounts of time, energy and tax dollars are being expended.

This seems to be a case where better, professional expertise in the form of design review and oversight were needed. Whether or not this was a failure of attention or a simple lack of staff resources, it revels yet another instance where the complexities of the governance we are in need of has outstripped our ability to provide it. And I'm afraid this seems to be happening on just about all fronts at once. Ours is a complex, dense and in many ways urban community and we are not really managing change let alone planning for the future adequately.

[Where: 1319 Beacon St., Brookline, MA 02446]

Rumors of the Death of the Book

2007-11-24T15:36:00.000-05:00

This topic isn't exactly Brookline related per se, although I'm sure we have more than our fair share of heavy reader and authors per capita than just about anywhere. So here comes another gizmo we are supposed to want to carry around with us and use, the Kindle. It's supposed to be so much like reading a book, we can get lost in the experience, just like we do when we read.....The great minds at MIT worked for a decade devising E Ink, which is much more like ink on paper, rather than looking at a backlit screen. There will be a wireless all-pervasive "whispernet" cellphone network that we use to download our books from Amazon. We can climb a tree and download a book at the same time!

Do you detect a note a sarcasm? I am showing my age I guess. How many books do I need access to at once? To actually read? One of my big problems with the Kindle is its exclusive network and control of content. Can you get books anywhere else and read them on the Kindle? Or is this world domination a la Amazon? At least with an IPod it supports multiple file formats and you can source music files any number of ways.

Another big problem I have is browsing or serendipity. How many of you have wondered into a great book store or yard sale for that matter and stumbled upon a great book you never knew you were looking for? How will we find these if the physical objects don't exist? Amazon recommends X because you liked Y is just not going to get it.

I know, books are an environmental nightmare and this is the digital age after all. The Death of the Book is Inevitable!! This is what "they" say anyway. I wonder. We always get this idea that its a zero sum proposition, when in fact, it might just be that we have another way to read, with both formats remaining viable for different purposes.

After listening to a very interesting discussion on WBUR with Steven Levy (author of this week's Newsweek article The Future of Reading) and Sven Birkerts (author of The Gutenberg Elegies) a friend gave me a copy of the Newsweek article. In it Levy says "Talk to people who have thought about the future of books and there's a phrase you hear again and again. Readers will read in public. Writers will write in public...the notion of the author as authoritarian figure gives way to a Web 2.0 wisdom-of-the-crowds process."

If you ask me this is completely missing the boat. Being an author isn't just about the ideas. Sure, in the research phase of project, get all the input you can. The more ideas the better. But its the process of making connections, winnowing, the content. Then its the craft. Do you think the group process would have made Shakespeare better? Any writer worth their salt knows its sweating bullets, editing, editing , editing that makes something good.

When we read something it is that we want to experience another persons vision, or get some idea of how they think or share their view of the world? How could this happen if everything written was a group effort? There would be no cohesion. Maybe I'm missing something in what they are predicting.

Digitizing books has obvious research benefits (searchable databases, universal access etc.) and I'm all for that. But does that mean technology will necessarily improve upon the book? Maybe not, but perhaps we won't have a choice. I don't know about you, but it sure seems like the future sure is coming faster than ever!
[Where: 02446]

Beacon Street Finishing Touches

2007-11-06T20:03:00.000-05:00

If you are a construction junkie or a little kid who likes watching big trucks moving dirt and pouring pavement, you've had quite a year. The Beacon Street project finally hit Coolidge Corner full force for the past few months, and each time I've ventured to the corner on foot I've stood in amazement at the scale and monumentally of the action going on. It's also been a challenge wandering into the street or onto the bouncing plywood planks as we attempt to frequent our usual places of business. These maneuvers seemed nearly impossible for many elderly and mothers with strollers, but they still tried, as the rest of us tried to help them! I also stood, quite saddened and stunned, when I went to go to Rodney's bookstore and found it gone. It was a treasure trove to me.

I admit, I haven't been completely tuned into the whole project, mostly trying to remember not to come home on Beacon in my car the few times a week I'm out in it. I can't say I really know why it was that this massive undertaking was considered necessary. Granted one of the big improvements on the functional side, in my opinion, is we will no longer have the angle parked cars backing up into the travel lanes. I was once stopped in a line of cars backed up from the Harvard/Beacon light and someone in a parked car started to back-up. Now, this seems normal, they are just getting ready to move when the traffic clears, but no. I soon realized that this person was either blind or not looking and was continuing to back-up into my car and I had no where to move to, my only resort was my horn. It took a good five long blasts until the apparently blind and nearly deaf person finally stopped within an inch of my car.

The bike lane is a good idea, although it would have been much better to have done it without gaps. But all those traffic lights seem like a few too many. I'm all for safety at intersections and if it helps the pedestrians, great, but I remain skeptical on that score. We should be at the point in our thinking that we accommodate all users of a roadway, no longer seeing it as the exclusive domain of maximum velocity moving automobiles, but rather a part of the fabric of a living breathing community. The name for this new (or actually old) way of looking at streets is called "complete streets". The pedestrian/auto conflicts at Beacon/Harvard have really been escalating in the last few years, as the cars get stuck in the middle of Beacon or don't want to wait for pedestrians as they try to turn right. On this score, I'm not sure the new project will be much help. As I crossed Beacon Street from the Southeast corner, I noticed a strange offset to the route we were guided on which sent us directly into a large (5 ft tall) switch box as we crossed the T stop. I hope this was just a construction fluke. Otherwise this is a case of not considering the pedestrian.

Coinciding with the completion of the Beacon Street project, the new commercial building next to the post office is nearing completion. The one good thing about this new building is all the glass. It will at least not be a harsh, solid wall. Sadly though, it will be a Staples. Generic, utilitarian office supplies, which are readily available at two other nearby locations does not stir the soul.

But what has really grabbed my attention now is the "jewelery" of the project. It's like after your house rehab gets done and now you are putting the furniture, the rug and pictures into the room. It becomes livable again. One day we see a mountain of dirt with a squadron of interesting looking mid-sized trees and the next day they are planted in a row between the T tracks and the roadway to the east of Pleasant Street. Nice, I hope they live. At least we have gotten some rain. So many of the new trees I saw planted this summer in and around Washington Square looked as if they will not make it. But as a whole, the plantings look nice and I am hopeful that the overall effect will be leafy, green and softening as they grow.

How about those snazzy new light posts. They have a nicely detailed curving arm in a glossy black paint, with an elegantly egg shaped glass. They are lovely, but they get lost in the forest of poles! Are we really going to have the jumble of sizes and styles that we've got going, or are they (please!) going to take down a few of the old ones. As an example of what I'm talking about, check out that little traffic island at Beacon and Pleasant Street. There are the thick short poles with the multitudinous traffic signals on them. These we are stuck with, but they add a lot of visual clutter just by themselves. Then there are the new street lights, great, wish we could see them. Then there are the old street lights, the pole is a composite stone and the light fixture is your standard issue interstate highway lamp. Then, (yes there's more!!!) there are the sixties era square black shades with white globe lamps meant to look smart and dress up the traffic island (which was always trying to convince us it was meant to be a public space as evident from the presence of a bench). There are more of these black square retro lights scattered about in Coolidge Corner. My guess is they came in with the Center Place development, which with its mirrored facade is looking pretty dated these days too.

The design of the new light posts is nice, but if there is no consistency of use, their effect will be one of creating chaos rather than making a design statement. The look of the street "jewelery" such as the plantings, signage, lighting, benches, building facades, etc. will set the tone for all of Coolidge Corner and will have significant impacts on how welcoming and pleasing it is. Consistent design standards are needed and would be welcome to both developers and regulators alike. I wonder if we will get our historic cast aluminum street signs back? Are they really still thinking of posting both signs, the historic and a new street sign on the same post? This would be disastrous and silly. These details could be the most important part of this massive project, I hope they pay attention and reduce the chaos.

An Information Rich Environment: What will it Say?

2007-10-03T11:26:00.000-04:00

We will soon be living in an age when we will carry devices or (horrors!) wear implants, that will read information from objects in our environment. I for one am very concerned about just what the nature of this information will be. Like all of our new technologies, these new developments hold both great promise and potential peril.

As someone who has studied and written about natural systems, the built environment, urban history and landscape design, I have often dreamed of the day when this type of information was readily accessible to people in their environment. Think of it. As you passed over a river on a bridge you could access a video showing the formation of the river valley through geologic time, or you could see the water shed depicted on a three dimensional topography map. Wouldn't this help us appreciate the fact that what someone puts on the ground 100 miles up stream eventually gets carried down the river and out to sea? Or what if we could call up a database of indigenous plants and animals from any geographic location, to help us identify the local wildflowers or sort out which were the invasive species? I have always felt that a greater awareness of a locales membership in a larger bio-region would expand our understanding of ecologic interdependence and give us a broader interpretation of the idea of home.

In terms of the built environment we can learn fascinating details about the development of a region or community, from historic industries to building types and social customs to school cultures. The opportunities for real knowledge are endless, and it is possible that our experience of our environment can be enriched and enhanced. Real-time data could offer us insight into our energy consumption, the patterns of movement within our city, or the efficiency of our recycling efforts, for instance. The data rich possibilities are only now being conceived. Of course, it is also possible that all of this information overload will yield only a mediated experience and our devices and individual information consumption will serve only to separate us from any real interaction with our surroundings. We will have to know how to find the proper balance and to share and interact in a real and meaningful way. It seems likely that small-scale economies, personalized service, public festivals and spaces, etc. will become even more cherished rather than less so.

But, as we all know, the world of commerce sees the potential in these technologies too. There have already been experiments where targeted ads have been sent to individuals' cell phones as they pass certain stores. Does this seem intrusive? Yes, I believe most of us would say yes. There will be those few who say they welcome the information, but more advertising is not something most will be asking for. The discouraging part is what the most popular choices are. Are we condemned to suffer the tyranny of the masses? As the current media consolidation phenomena continues, we are told time and again that we are getting what we ask for. But the truth is we aren't given a choice. This argument is getting old and tired. It is being used to justify everything from McDonalds to McMansions and it just rings hollow. If the choices are elevated we will make better choices.

If we are given a menu of information choices, let's hope we choose those types of information that expand our understanding of our place in the world, the natural environment and history, and not simply distract us with more consumerism and isolating entertainment.

Zoning - A Social Contract

2007-09-03T15:11:00.000-04:00

Once again there will be some zoning changes proposed for Fall Town Meeting. In general, I agree with the direction these changes are going, they are aimed at protecting existing neighborhoods around Coolidge Corner from the very real threats of loss of homes through demolition and new building that is excessively dense in relation to their surroundings. These twin goals aimed at protecting the Coolidge Corner neighborhoods arose from the lengthy and inclusive planning processes that gave us both the Brookline Comprehensive Plan and the Action Plan for Coolidge Corner. However, on the way to implementation, (drafting the zoning changes), these policy initiatives' intent have been subverted and subsumed by other special interests.

As a result of vocal opposition from a few homeowners and real estate and development interests, the Zoning By-Law Committee has failed to fulfil it's public mandate and instead have proposed modest changes which fall significantly short of stated policy goals. Without getting into the technical specifics of the proposals, I would like to comment generally on some of the issues raised by those who oppose more substantive changes and to point out some of the real costs and missed opportunities suffered by the people of Brookline and those living in the affected neighborhoods of adopting this approach.

Objection to implementation of more substantial changes seem to focus on the loss of the opportunity for individual property owners to sell their property for prices far in excess of the current home's value, based on the extra value attached to the property to be gained from building to the maximum development potential. They do not tell you that this is what they are talking about. Instead, they will say that the proposed zoning change would "reduce the value of their property". This is not true. The value of their existing property (for taxation or market value estimates) is based on what is currently built. So what they are really fighting for is their right to "cash in" by selling their property for tear down and redevelopment (at a much higher density). They consider this some kind of basic right. But what about the resulting impacts on their neighbors, and the town in general. What about the very real possibility that their actions will actually lower the property values of the remaining homes in their neighborhood. Think about it. A few individuals are fighting to protect their ability to sell to a developer who will choose tear-down and denser redevelop, but because of the widespread impacts this choice has it is not an individuals choice, and here is where we need to understand the public and social contract function of a zoning ordinance.

In every arena of human interaction, we have developed laws and rules that identify what most reasonable people think are appropriate limits and compromises on the continuum between individual freedom and public protection/benefits. Zoning came about to ensure certain basic protections from the harmful impacts of noxious land uses. Since that time zoning has evolved to ensure stability and uniformity by identifying very specific uses and dimensional requirements for each property within a given zone. Many feel the protections don't go far enough because they do not deal with many features of buildings and streetscapes that contribute to the character of a particular neighborhood. Just meeting the zoning requirements does not insure a new building will fit harmoniously into an established neighborhood setting. This realization has led to the creation of new types of zoning ordinances such as "form-based" zoning, which requires new buildings to more closely match the form of surrounding buildings.

In many cases, communities find themselves in the unfortunate position of having large areas that are "over-zoned" , thereby allowing new buildings that are much bigger in scale than existing ones, creating the very real threat of new building that is disruptive, intrusive and detrimental to that illusive yet tangible neighborhood feel many of us cherish here in Brookline. This is the case in many Brookline neighborhoods and dealing with this issue was at the heart of the policy objectives identified in our Comprehensive Plan and the C.C.D.P.C. Action Plan.

As with any law, regulation or rule, there are pros and cons, trade-offs and gray areas. In the case of reducing the allowable maximum building square footage to better match existing homes, one of these gray areas is that of additions. My calculations show that the possibility for current homeowners to add (up to an additional 1,000 sq. ft.) onto their existing homes could easily be accommodated while still meeting the overall objective of retaining appropriate scale and neighborhood character.

I believe the majority of citizens in Brookline (especially those living in those neighborhoods near Coolidge Corner where the greatest development pressure exists) would favor a zoning ordinance that retained existing building scales and neighborhood characteristics, if it were written clearly and carefully, was fairly applied and included enough "wiggle room" to accommodate modest additions and change. We have witnessed some really inappropriate new building (1 Somerset comes to mind) and many individuals who have never thought twice about the import of zoning are left scratching their heads. Yet, we don't seem to be able to have an informed and intelligent discussion about these issues. In this way, the social contract is invalid from the outset because is was not developed as a reflection of the public consensus.

They tore the blue house down

2007-08-11T19:04:00.000-04:00

I had seen the letter from the zoning board of appeals. Someone wanted to build something on Green Street. I made a note of the address and went to see what structure we were talking about. It was a large blue Victorian house, next to the Temple. I knew it as an alternative high school, with its small sign that said "Beacon High School" with funky cars parked out front and somewhat outrageously dressed students. I remember thinking that the house, while maybe being a bit run down, was a handsome structure with great potential. I assumed the new construction would be a rehab and reuse of the existing structure because it was, after all, a nice old house. Wrong.

One day last week the green construction fence went up around the house. The next day, a front end loader was ripping off huge chunks of the back of the building. I stood on the sidewalk and my jaw dropped. I still held out hope that the ripping would stop and that the front part of the blue house would be spared. The next day I walked by and the front end loader was on top of a tall pile of debris, dust was billowing in large clouds. The house was no more. I was stunned and saddened and wondered how this could have happened.

What will go up on the site of the Big Blue Victorian? Will it be a bland, stark box, built to the edge of the lot, harsh with no trees or greenery? A structure with no beauty or ornament, no front porches or attractive roof lines? One that maximizes the square footage and therefore profit potential of the lot now made available? I am not hopeful.

I should have gone to that meeting. But for me, night meetings are virtually impossible. So where does that leave the concerned citizen? How are we to keep track of these proposed changes to our neighborhood? The letter announcing the zoning board meeting did not mention demolition. I had naively had faith that the zoning board would press for preservation and adaptive, sensitive re-use. In other words the right thing, being sensitive to the neighboring homes. Did the people living across the street and next door go to the meeting? Did they know that one day they would wake up and the blue Victorian they had gazed out their windows at for years would be reduced to a pile of rubble.

How quickly and easily the destruction happened. The machinery made a home seem like a pile of tooth picks. As I stood on the sidewalk, stunned, looking at pile of wood boards that were once a home, dreading what was to take their place, I wondered if anyone else cared. I could not help but lament my lack of attention to that letter about the meeting I couldn't attend. And I could not help but think there must be a better way to inform citizens about these important decisions and to allow us a chance for input in a way that is more straight forward and convenient than the tedious and arcane zoning board meeting.

They tore the Big Blue Victorian down. [where: 74 Green St, Brookline, MA 02446]

Which Brookline are we Talking about?

2007-07-25T13:39:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a lot of head shaking and wondering out loud lately. Wondering how is it possible that seemingly well-intentioned people could just not get it. Take the case of our illustrious Commissioner of Public Works who seems to think the farmer's should be made accountable for the opportunity cost of the parking revenue the town would have got if we could only park cars instead of host a farmer's market! http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Centre+Street,+Brookline,+MA
+02446&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.310334,77.695313&ie=UTF8&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1. That market adds so much good for the citizens of this town on so many levels it would be worth it if we had to pay the farmer's to come sell us their produce! Then there is the Economic Development Advisory Committee who seem to be under the impression that three sites in Coolidge Corner should, will and must be developed to their absolute maximum income generating potential even if this means building at a scale exceeding current limits by four times. Why bother drafting plans, involving the community in a lengthy process of identifying goals and objectives and having ordinances if at every turn these guidelines and rules are overrun and ignored as they have been time and again? The list is growing longer, the St Aiden's project , the ZBA handing out variances for the asking, lax building code enforcement, and more isolated, bloated one-off development proposals on the drawing board that will bring in a few more bucks but don't have a lot to offer the community in the long run.

Meanwhile, we have yet to articulate a vision for a truly prosperous Brookline in the future. What will assure out continued success as a community is investing in those public amenities that young families look for, like farmer's markets, arts organizations, parks, developments that create usable and attractive public spaces, pedestrian amenities and retail establishments that are a mix of the useful and practical and fun and unusual. All supporting an environmentally responsible, non-auto dependent lifestyle. We have the basic structure already, it would not be difficult, but we could make some major mistakes and ruin our chances.

Brookline is a desirable place and we don't need to go begging to developers to get growth at all costs just to pay for needed services. Where is our self-respect? Developers will tell you that it is not so much regulations that they object to. What is worse, is long drawn out open-ended negotiations, where no one can say what it is they want just what they don't. Change happens and it would be a lot better if we were prepared for it. Instead, we get various committees, working at cross purposes, coming up with proposals which are not part of a long range vision for a vibrant, vital Brookline of the future. We should ask, what will this add to the quality of life of our citizens? They seem to be working on mandates that come from.... where?

How is it that our elected and appointed officials and municipal employees keep getting it wrong? How is that they seem to completely not understand the necessity to nurture and support those things that are critical to maintaining and enhancing the quality of life for Brookline's citizens? I have thought about this long and hard and I think it comes down to this. They live in a different Brookline. Their Brookline is a lot more like a typical suburban community. Single-family homes with yards, a garage, a quite street. They drive their car to Coolidge Corner, they don't walk through crowded neighborhoods or try to sleep though yet another student kegger next door. They do not understand that for those of us who live in the denser parts of town, those public amenities like parks, the farmer's market and the senior center are our yards, porches, living rooms and vacations. The public realm is truly that, a shared space that makes occupying a small condominium bearable. If they understood these experiences perhaps they would have understood from the beginning that tearing down a historic Kennedy family place of worship, heritage trees and a reasonably spacious yard and replacing it with a massive towering stack of subsidized housing was too much to ask. We love the same things about Brookline that they do, only for us they take on a much greater significance in our daily experience. Being able to safely cross the street on foot in Coolidge Corner should matter more than moving a few more cars faster.

The Affordable Housing Question

2007-07-09T16:22:00.000-04:00

Affordable housing has been in the local news again, raising many questions with few clear answers. There seems to be only a general consensus that there is a lack of affordable housing and that we should try to do something about that. However there is no clear agreement about how to go about this, or what would be considered affordable and for whom. Several approaches have been either pursued or suggested, each with their own potential results both intended and unintended.

The State's answer (40B) was to encourage developers to build affordable housing by granting subsidies and allowing them to ride roughshod over local land use ordinances. Locals often invariably object and with good reason. Inserting out-of-scale, extremely dense buildings into existing neighborhoods is a direct assault on the quality-of-life of a residential area. The local zoning code was developed with preservation of appropriate scale and density in mind. The principle problem with the 40B approach is that it does not allow for the appropriate placement of large scale dense development. Only through vigorous opposition did the neighborhood manage to scale back the St. Aiden's proposal enough to save the historic church structure, the on-site heritage tree, and achieve a density more in line with the neighborhood. Still, this was at a steep cost to town in real dollars and now many are questioning the wisdom of the undertaking in light of the fact that the beneficiaries of the low cost housing will not be middle income working families but rather those who qualify for subsidized housing. The range of housing options therefore has not been broadened, only the quantity of existing options at the top and bottom of the affordability scale augmented. Do we as a community have a moral obligation to provide this housing? Is this the most effective way to spend those funds we do choose to spend towards bridging the affordability gap? While it may achieve some of our goals, I have to think there must be other more creative ways to address this issue, such as subsidizing mortgages for first time buyers, allowing more "infill" within existing housing stock to address the growing need for smaller units for singles and smaller households.

Others (see Leonard Bernstein's letter to the editor in the July 5 Brookline TAB) have suggested that the problem lies with restrictive height and density limits, which he feels should be raised and that by so doing we would see an increase in affordable housing in Brookline. I am afraid this would not at all be the outcome of "upzoning". Mr. Bernstein suggests that the area around Coolidge Corner would be a suitable location for this increased density and that in fact those who have worked to "conserve" his Coolidge Corner neighborhood are to blame for the lack of affordable housing and should be ashamed of ourselves.

The most recent zoning changes proposed in the Coolidge Corner Planning district consisted of changing the zoning for some existing three family dwellings from a multi-family zone to a three-family zone. This was done to remove the financial incentive for tearing down the existing three family building in order to build a bigger more lucrative building. A developer has every incentive to build housing at the top of the market value, to gain the highest rate of return for their investment. The resulting new housing would therefore be more expensive than those units they replaced and the new building would be out of scale and context with its neighbors. It was this incentive for developers to build at the top of the market that the State's Chapter 40B seeks to counteract.

When the three-family zone was coming up for its first vote, Brookline voters became the recipients of a very targeted negative letter campaign that claimed that such a change would cause property taxes to rise. The source of these letters turned out to be a national organization representing small land lords. Perhaps there was an affected property owner who wanted to sell for top dollar.

As Americans we are in fact very conflicted and confused about property rights and development. We often don't think much about it or have a strong opinion until something impacts us personally. Most people do not have any grasp of the processes involved in getting something built and probably assume that there are far more checks and balances, long-term strategizing and thoughtful consideration given to development decisions than there really are. Attempting to achieve a public benefit (in this case affordable housing) within a market driven system requires direct government intervention of some sort. Finding an effective mechanism remains illusive.

Brookline Today

2007-06-21T11:37:00.000-04:00

I've just finished reading Our Brookline Our Stories, the book put together by the Council on Aging for the Brookline 300 celebration in 2005 (was it really two years ago already?). What really stands out is how choosing Brookline as a home had a profound influence on the arc and fulfillment of people's lives. While it may not be true of other places to the same degree, Brookline's shared strengths and sense of community have supported and aided many individuals, helping them achieve personal goals and nurturing dreams. Brookline provides a complex web of interweaving supports, from the uplifting physical environment to the availability of intellectual stimulation and thereby continues to draw those who value these things. Thus creating a self-perpetuating cycle that brings continuity and commitment to our town. What everyone who chooses to invest their residential dollars here understands is we are buying more that the four walls of our home, we are buying a place within a special community.

And yet I also am left to wonder about the difficulties that new generations face as they chose to make Brookline home. Many of the families portrayed in the book seemed to be decidedly middle class, making a go of things in Brookline through hard work and determination. They were able to buy a house and prospered by staying put. They were invested in Brookline because they were building a life here and so were their neighbors and local business owners. They all knew each other and this built trust and a feeling of safety. Mobility and rootlessness are features of modern life and threaten to erode communities around the globe. Will those who can buy the best simply go elsewhere rather than staying put and working through the sometimes messy business of local governance? Does the value of a strong and supportive community mean the same thing to them? The vast income divide opening up in our world today widens the culture gap and makes the prospects of a truly harmonious diverse community more fraught with challenges. The haves demand luxuries and top of the line amenities, hiring out all domestic duties and living mobile information intensive lives, while the have nots struggle to make do with aging housing , limited access to technology and sky-rocketing transportation costs. Brookline is unique in its attempt to embrace a diverse population. As several stories in the Our Brookline book told, this was not always the case. While our values have banished discrimination, economic divides erect barriers just as divisive. Can we succeed in building a community where all of our residents are valued and given equal voice?

Involvement in public affairs is encouraged and valued in Brookline, but who are those that govern? I feel gratitude and respect for those that serve the town, and we are the beneficiaries of a great deal of talent and expertise given selflessly. But I also wonder how truly welcoming and accessible our political institutions are for those who are less familiar with its inner workings. I was dismayed at the dismal voter turnout for our last local election. In my precinct, near Coolidge Corner, which includes many condominiums and apartments, the turnout was around 5 % of registered voters. Are we really hearing from those living with less in Brookline? What impact does the more fluid rental population have on our neighborhoods? If individuals care so little for the future of their town that they can't be bothered to vote, will they be involved in other ways? Perhaps they simply believe things are going well enough that they don't need to pay attention, but apathy allows at best complacency and at worse corruption and just plain mismanagement.

The Comfort (and Necessity) of Long Term Thinking

2007-05-18T14:59:00.000-04:00

I often find it comforting to contemplate change over a long arching span of time. This seems to have the effect of smoothing out the rough bits. It helps me cultivate patience too, which is something one needs in abundance when trying to affect change to something like the built environment where change happens at a seemingly glacial pace.

I think this is why I love learning about Brookline's history. Great change has occurred in successive waves, brought about by bold visions, stirring endeavors and accidents of fate. Sometimes the changes brought ugliness and new problems, other times they achieved their intended purpose for renewal. As things were happening there were moments of panic and despair, courage and hope, failure and great success, yet all these individual stories blend to yield a picture of a community of people working together, whose lives were touched by a shared sense of place. Understanding all the human endeavor and natural forces that have brought us to the present makes us take very seriously our task as temporary stewards and admonishes us to think long term in our decision-making.

We are finally hearing about the logic of long term thinking for business. Couched in the profit motive and self-interest the argument can still be made that long term success can only be had with strategies that eschew exploitation of both natural and human resources and embrace self-sustaining and nurturing practices. It seems so obvious, and yet these principles, for decades have been the polar opposites of many business decision-making protocol. It has finally become obvious to the many, that we can no longer use up and abuse without regard for the consequences. Of course there have been many among us who have been saying this for many decades, who are now cautiously optimistic about this seismic shift in thinking. The same could be said for government policies, which in the recent past have sadly seemed to be more about getting re-elected next fall than making wise long-term policy. But I get beyond my point.

It's a simple tool really. When your car breaks down, or your plumbing explodes and the phone company's automated voice answering menu doesn't have an option that fits your call and you are about to pull your hair out, take a moment to think about what your neighborhood might be like in 10, 20 or even 50 years. And don't be afraid to dream big, think about all the things that make it a nice place or would make it even nicer. Will you, or those who are still here, even remember this bad day? Those folks back in 1898 had a great many obstacles to overcome too and yet they built beautiful homes and parks that we are still admiring today. When you are contemplating yourself as a part of this human community that inhabits this place we call Brookline gather courage from all those who have walked here before you and will walk here after you.

This Memorial Day there will be a guided tour of our own Old Burying Ground on Walnut St, from 12 to 2 pm. This is a chance to contemplate just how long that span of time is back to the days the first European settlers came to Brookline, and how much things have changed. Others find a similar comfort in contemplating geologic time or our place (speck) in the vast Universe. But for me, I have a hard time really connecting to those more abstract concepts and it seems to take that shared connection to our particular place on the planet to help me live in the broader continuum of time.

Brookline's T.O.D. perfect for Sustainability

2007-05-05T13:56:00.000-04:00

Through the good fortunes of history North Brookline has a land development pattern that in contemporary planning parlance would be touted as Transit Oriented Development. It was the simple fact that much of our building occurred before the 1920's and the dominance of the automobile that dictated a pattern of concentrated development accessible by foot and rapid transit. The idea of T.O.D. today is to build nodes of density within easy walking distance of transit stops in order to minimize our reliance on the automobile. Ideally these nodes would include a variety of land use types to add further trip synergies, such as offices, convenience stores, frequently used services etc. These are not new ideas, but in the face of the real and pressing need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and to retool our domestic living arrangements for changing demographics, Brookline stands out as an example of a community with much of the basic structure in place for moving forward towards the sustainable community of the future.

Urban planners around the world are struggling to craft municipal codes that would allow builders to retrofit our sprawling, land and resource wasting suburban environments into nodes of mixed-use density. Most municipal zoning ordinances would not allow traditional town centers or denser transit oriented nodes to be built today. These codes focused on separation of land uses, thus prohibiting the mix of uses that foster street life. Large lots and setbacks set buildings far apart, using up vast tracks of land and in a commercial setting making access via automobile the only option. Concentrating development near transit has the added advantage of leaving valuable open lands for preservation or farming, uses that benefit the public to a much greater extent than do 5 acre private lawns or asphalt parking lots. The planning and zoning tools of the past are primitive and left us with minimal protections, leaving communities vulnerable to the results of short term financial decision making, with little or no regard for context, long term use or the resulting public spaces. In addition to the wholesale reworking of our antiquated zoning codes, planners are becoming aware of the need to address the nuances of designing the public spaces, or as the title of one of my favorite books puts it "The Spaces between Buildings", which are in fact impacted by every design detail of both the adjacent buildings and the other streetscape elements.

A reawakened public and the municipal officials that represent them are coming to understand that they must speak up and ask for the kind of quality development that will be an asset to their community for the long term. Additional requirements are not necessarily a negative for developers. What is a negative is ambiguity. When developers make proposals that the community finds unsatisfactory, the community may try to stall and are reluctant to give their approval, but if they cannot clearly state their objections or preferences everyone is frustrated. Clarity, foreknowledge of expectations and even handed application to all proposals would be welcome by developers. We deserve quality development that makes sense for the long term goals of our community and we have a right to ask for them.

Further Comments on the Proposed Robotic Parking Structure

2007-04-13T19:18:00.000-04:00

I appreciate that Mr. Brown took the time to read and respond to my previous guest column in the TAB about his proposed robotic parking garage for Coolidge Corner. Discussion and dialogue are always good things. However, his response indicates that he has fundamentally misunderstood the reasons for my objection to the deck itself and most importantly to its proposed location.

The site in question, an oddly configured piece of property behind the Coolidge Corner Theater is valuable, not because of what it is now, but because of its location and what it could become. Strategically linked to Beacon and Harvard Streets with pedestrian passageways, this piece of land and the adjoining existing parking area could become part of a pedestrian friendly mixed-use retail and public gathering place, something the Coolidge Corner District Planning Council has clearly identified as a priority. I believe the future vitality of Coolidge Corner is dependent upon supporting, expanding and enabling its best features, namely our unique local businesses and relaxing pedestrian environment. These features will draw people from far and near who are seeking authenticity and interaction in an increasingly mediated and isolated world. Customers need to be able to get to the businesses, this is what is axiomatic, not that they must drive an automobile and park it directly in front (or back) of their destination. We need to get creative in looking at how to better support all forms of transportation to Coolidge Corner.

The site now may be a bleak parking area at the back of a building, hardly desirable, as Mr. Brown points out. But joined with the adjacent lot, and through careful design, judicious plantings, pedestrian amenities and linkages and careful control of service vehicles, a uniquely compelling place could be created. Even if the site remains a service drive that is simply screened on the edge of the civic space it is still not an appropriate location for the large imposing deck. Bringing heavy vehicle traffic into this space is not compatible with a public gathering space, and as I stated in my original column there are some serious traffic flow consequences with this location as well. Far from being anti-progress as Mr. Brown suggests, those with an alternative vision are looking towards the future, one that is supportive of community life and in the long term responsive to the challenges of climate change.

For the immediate future, we have existing parking alternatives that have not been fully utilized. As Mr. Brown notes, I am lucky enough to be able to walk to Coolidge Corner from my home, a distance of a little over ¼ of a mile. If he can acknowledge the convenience of this, how is it then that parking at the Webster Street hotel and walking across the street, is too much of a hassle for everyone else? The Transportation Solutions study told us, through empirical methods, not anecdotal stories, that we have additional parking capacity still to use in Coolidge Corner, and that better information and management would maximize its use. While traffic and parking are continuing challenges, they require comprehensive technical study and creative solutions that include both management, and policy solutions as well as possible capacity expansions.

There are many questions to consider about the technology of the robotic parking garage as well. Just a few of them are, is it suitable for short term parking, which is what we need in Coolidge Corner? Are they noisy? How reliable are they? All the decks I have seen are at least 80 ft. tall. Can they be built shorter? In our haste to solve a perceived parking problem, let us hope we do not act in a way that will disappoint the future generations of Brookliner's.

Increasing SUV's Excise Tax - Article #16

2007-04-06T14:57:00.000-04:00

Town meeting member Andrew Fischer has put forward Town Meeting Article #16, which calls for a doubling in the excise tax rate for Sport Utility Vehicles and Light Trucks. While I doubt that the financial burden resulting from this change will cause many people to change what they drive, I do agree with the principle behind the proposal. The fact that we have whole classes of vehicles on the road today which continue to be manufactured and sold that are exempt from Federal Clean Air Fuel Efficiency standards is scandalous. As the dire consequences of our binge on cheap, government subsidized fossil fuel consumption becomes ever nearer and more apparent the folly of this policy lapse looks more and more like the pathetic act of denial that it is.

There is not much we can do on the local level to try to correct this policy gap. We can't ban these vehicles from our roadways, or set our own fuel efficiency standards. Instead, by focusing on increasing the taxation on vehicles that are both heavier and more polluting than passenger cars, we are identifying the additional costs to the environment, infrastructure and human health that these vehicles cause and passing them on to the operator of the vehicle. Indeed the basic problem with our current methods of assigning values to economic productivity and worth is that the market fails to account for long term costs and the general costs often born by society at large. Individuals use up and profit from consuming resources that in fact belong to everyone. Therefore, if these vehicles truly cost more than other vehicles in terms of wear and tear on our infrastructure, air quality degradation, climate change acceleration, etc. then those that consume these additional resources should compensate the owners of those resources, the public.

Of course the real goal of these types of pricing mechanisms is not to collect money, but rather to use the pocket book to motivate a change in behavior. I don't think the change effected by this article will be great enough to cause a mass abandonment of SUV's , but it is nonetheless significant in the message it sends. I have heard SUV owners say that they are being unfairly punished, because they have very good reasons (such as a large family) why they have to drive such a vehicle. Of course the many generations of families who grew up just fine without an SUV might beg to differ on this point. I am sure we will see more and more economic incentives of this kind as we struggle to adapt and change to a more durable and sustainable economy. Congestion pricing for instance, has shown itself to be very effective at reducing peak hour congestion. Again the ultimate goal is not to simply force people to buy their right to pollute but rather to put a truer cost on an activity and ultimately to stimulate innovation and behavioral shifts.

This proposal is timely and targeted and deserves our support.

Public Participation: Making it Work

2007-03-25T13:54:00.000-04:00

When I first moved to Brookline (1988), long time Boston area residents kept telling me things like "people in Brookline are so active in their local politics", or "they are so involved". I found this both encouraging and a bit intimidating. On the plus side, it meant that people cared about the place that they lived, enough to speak out and work at protecting or improving it. What intimidated me was the thought of long held political alliances and networks, power structures that were deep and too secretive to penetrate, leaving little room for the new comer to get involved.

Before coming to Brookline, I had worked as a land use planner in Vermont, where the Town Meeting truly is a small group of citizens debating issues grand and petty. While we strive for this level of intimate democracy, we have our unique substitute form of it, which I for one support. For the most part, I have found that there is a very high level of local involvement and concern in Brookline and yet, as the process of planning for the future of Coolidge Corner has revealed, it could be a whole lot better.

A great deal of the problem is the process itself. We have laws and institutions set up that dictate how and when notifications get posted and meetings get held, all to ensure that the public knows that in this case, decisions are being made about the future of development in Coolidge Corner. In an attempt to capture a diversity of viewpoints while developing policies, a committee was formed with representatives of various constituent groups, such as business owners, the GreenSpace Alliance and neighborhood representatives. Working with town planning staff, the group studied existing conditions and attempted to forecast future scenarios. Consultants were hired for special technical analyses, where needed. Meetings were held, some of them public. All of this is as it should be I suppose, but what seems to have happened is you end up with a few strong voices leading the discussion in a certain direction, with the conclusions already formulated. Input, from the public and the consultants both, is accepted and listened to, but may or may not be acted upon.

A draft plan is written. It is long. It is filled with technical jargon. Citizens are told about the plan and asked to submit comments. I am a professional urban planner, and it was an effort for me to read this plan and interpolate what the implications of its mandates were for Coolidge Corner in the coming decades. I can't imagine too many busy people, no matter how dedicated, concerned or intelligent, taking the time to do this unless they perceive some threat to their personal situation. Some do, and they write comments or attend the public meeting and have their say, and if their experience was like mine, they may be asking themselves if they were heard at all or if it made any difference that they came. Because the public involvement is in fulfillment of a requirement of the process, it occurs to you that this was its purpose.

I do not mean to criticize the work of either the planning staff of the Town of Brookline or the dedicated citizens who have made the sacrifice to work so diligently to develop the Coolidge Corner District Plan. They have done a remarkable job given the constraints of time and staffing they have to work with, and they did not create the process I am commenting on, so please do not think I don't appreciate your service to our community.

Nonetheless, if you asked people on the street if they were concerned about the future of Coolidge Corner, I am sure a majority of them would say yes. Yet, they may not even know about the process underway or what the possible impacts of a change to form-based zoning (one of the proposals in the draft plan) might mean to their neighborhoods. Perhaps they don't really need to, until these issues come before town meeting, but I can't help but feel we are missing a great opportunity to engage a diversity of talented individuals, whose combined insights might lead us to unexpected and delightful new solutions.

We witnessed another potential pitfall of this lack of engagement last fall, when a last minute scare letter went out to homeowners telling them false hoods about the dire consequences to the town tax base and their property values of a proposed zoning change coming before town meeting. Turns out the group had their own special interests at heart, but their timing made an informed discussion impossible, and their letter achieved its goal of casting doubt on the proposed zoning change.

There are examples from around the country of communities who have overcome apathy and time constraints to successfully harness citizen participation in the planning process. It can require substantial resources and additional staff, such as in the case of holding "design charettes" such as what is being done in New Orleans in Katrina's aftermath. But perhaps in our case it does not need to be such an intensive effort. Technology being what it is these days, I can imagine a website that could display different development scenarios that people could vote their preferences for. What about the youth of our community? How about an essay contest about Brookline in the future, or a video or short story submissions website about characters and activities in the Coolidge Corner of their dreams? Most of those ideas generated will of course be impractical or illogical, etc. etc. but remember that all of the great creations on the planet started out as a dream. We should find ways to engage people's creativity.

On a less ambitious course, a little more effort could be made to simplify and "translate" the draft plan proposals into examples that people could easily relate to, and comments could be solicited via a website, making it easier to participate, rather than requiring citizens to read a 70 page document and then attend an evening meeting or compose a formal letter, in order to have input.

A great deal more dialogue is needed. It is not enough to say "we want to change the parking requirement to this, what do you think". There are always opportunity costs for choosing one course of action over another. Technology could be deployed here as well, with a blog on the town website posting proposals with explanations, pros and cons and asking for thoughts.

Yes, we are lucky to have so many concerned participants in town government, but we have so much talent in this town, wouldn't it be great to find a way to tap just a little bit more of it when it comes to creating the Brookline of tomorrow?

Harold Brown's Proposed Robotic Parking

2007-03-03T20:00:00.000-05:00

Mr. Brown's proposal for a robotic parking garage in Coolidge Corner is no doubt well intentioned and generous. An effort to minimize it's visual impact has obviously been made by "tucking" it behind the Coolidge Corner Theater. The whole idea of going vertical by deploying the robotic parking technology attempts to accommodate many vehicles without devoting a lot of land area to it, in a sense attempting to let us have our cake and eat it too. If we replace the existing surface parking with vertical parking, we are in effect gaining some land area that could be put to much better use. These efforts reveal Mr. Brown's understanding of the concerns and issues inherent in providing increased parking in Coolidge Corner.

Unfortunately, despite these laudable goals and the application of advanced technology, the resulting negative impacts of going forward with this proposal will far outweigh the potential gains. No matter how small and hidden we try to make a parking garage we are still choosing to give over a key part of our public realm to automobiles, rather than to people, or new businesses and the impacts of this choice go far beyond the site of the garage. The planning process is still underway that seeks to identify the development goals for the town owned land that is currently the Centre Street parking lot. We must take the time to look at the overall site and how it's development fits in with the future we wish to see for Coolidge Corner. It would be premature to decide now to build just one little piece of the puzzle and it would lock us into a scenario from which there would be no escape.

On a very basic level, there are serious traffic impacts if the robotic structure's 130 spaces were built in addition to the existing parking. An additional 130 parking spaces and all the vehicle trips in and out of them. Imagine the driveway at the Centre Street parking lot with twice as many vehicles traveling in and out. The driveway is too close to the Beacon Street intersection and it would become extremely difficult to turn left out of the lot. Then there is the left turn from Beacon to Centre Street, already a nightmare, now double the number of people trying to make that turn. Now imagine you are trying to walk down Centre Street, but you have to wade through all those cars driven by desperate people trying to get out. Then there is the question of where would the cars line up as they wait to get into the robotic deck? With all those additional cars, right next to all those occupied buildings, we have to ask ourselves, do we really want to be concentrating all those harmful emissions here? Functionally there are some really serious problems, but these are not the only or even the most important reasons why the structure should not be built.

I am aware that many are convinced that we need more parking in Coolidge Corner. Part of this perception is tied into the issue of long term parking needs for employees working at Coolidge Corner businesses. This is an issue that is being addressed separately, and employee parking would not be located here. The recent parking study performed by Traffic Solutions concluded that rather than a shortage of parking spaces, what is really happening is we are falling short in terms of utilizing the parking we do have. The study notes that regulations are not being fully enforced that would improve parking turnover, thereby making more spaces available for patrons. Additionally, available parking often goes unused due to lack of driver knowledge. People go to look for parking at the few places they are familiar with and don't bother to find out about other spaces that go unused. Better signage and public education could go a long way to address this knowledge gap.

There is disagreement about parking availability, and people's beliefs are based on perceptions. What is really at the heart of this debate are expectations. If everyone defines available parking as being able to drive and park right in front of your destination, then there is a lack of parking. What people don't realize is that fulfilling this expectation implies a trade-off. If we choose to make providing ultra-convenient parking our priority, we are precluding other uses for the land and making the public realm in that central location more hostile to the pedestrian. It's a question of location.

If we build this structure on our one remaining prime piece of land in Coolidge Corner, we will not be encouraging alternative transportation or the use of the alternative parking lots we already have. If we have learned anything about the automobile and cities it is that places that cater exclusively to cars are not very nice places to walk through or near. If we want a commercial core that has a lively street life, one that is pleasant to stroll through and to window shop, to sit on a bench, or to spend time in our hoped for new civic space, it cannot be successful if all those people have to cross many busy driveways, or walk through parking lots or sit next to a parking garage.

If we can park a block away and walk, or better yet take the T, walk or ride a bike, we can have a commercial core that we will want to visit and spend time in. There is a self-fulfilling aspect to building parking at such a central location. If that parking space is there, people will drive, when they could perhaps have chosen not to drive. With streetscape amenities, vital ground floor retail and civic space, the area becomes one that is nurturing to relaxation and community life. This is what we would be giving up. What we want is to create is a commercial area that is so compelling people will want to come here even if they can't park in front of the store. If convenient parking were all that we had to offer, the customer might as well go to the mall. Shopping has become more than just shopping in our culture, people are looking for an experience and genuine human interaction, along with unique retail offerings. We are poised to provide this. People will come from further away because it will be inviting. Think about the vast number of people with access to the MBTA who are potential new customers.

Lowering our parking expectations is a long term proposition with great potential benefits besides just improved land use. There are the environmental benefits from people switching to the T to get here. New employees will self-select from the pool of those who have good T access for their commute. The Traffic Solutions parking study also showed that Brookline's current zoning dictates parking requirements that are one-third to one-half higher than rates in Cambridge, Somerville and the Institute of Transportation Engineers manual. We should lower the parking requirements. This will encourage use of alternative transportation, and it will encourage mixed use development, which could ultimately reduce auto-dependent travel as well.

Rather than just arguing about whether or not we have a parking shortage, we need to be honest about what we are really asking for and giving up when we want more parking behind the Coolidge Corner Theater. It is tempting to accept Mr. Brown's generosity, especially since the economics of developing the site are so challenging. Nonetheless, I encourage those who are planning for CC's future to keep their eyes on the prize and envision what that space could be, an asset for our community life and a place bursting with business opportunities.

More Than a Garden

2007-02-12T14:56:00.001-05:00

For the past few years I have been working to restore a public garden, the Minot Rose Garden, located within Winthrop Park at the corner of St. Paul and Browne streets. Like most things in life, the effort started small and was a simple instinctual response to the situation. The effort has of course grown since then to include a dedicated group of volunteers, the Town of Brookline, The Brookline Community Foundation, the Brookline GreenSpace Alliance, the Brookline Garden Club and many generous contributors. Through much hard work and perseverance, the rose garden is once again a place of rare beauty and a source of inspiration for its many visitors.

On some level, it is a very simple story, one of renewed life and beauty on a little patch of earth, but on the other hand, I can't help reflecting on the larger implications that have resulted from the transformation and to celebrate the spirit that it represents. A flourishing garden in one's neighborhood represents pride and demonstrates nurturing and care lavished on a public resource. What message does this send? It shows a respect and concern for the welfare of others and the world we share, thereby counteracting abusive, degrading and competitive messages that are often thrown at us in our hectic world. By providing a place of beauty and sanctuary for all to enjoy we declare our intent to bypass to prevailing cultural norm that reserves such places for those with the means to provide it for themselves.

It is the fact that this is a public garden that is truly remarkable. The trend towards privatization of public space is pervasive in America today. As the place-less suburbs became ubiquitous, the enclosed shopping mall took over as a substitute for main streets and town squares. But of course they really weren't substitutes because they existed for the purpose of selling and profit. The shift to the malls of the common social functions that used to happen on main street were in some cases unintended consequences, as in the case of their use by displaced teenagers as gathering spots. The mall management, of course, feels justified in exercising their role as regulators and they simply banish those they do not regard as desirable. The public, ultimately have no rights in a mall or restaurant or store. Where than are the basic functions of a free society to gather, discuss and meet to occur? Only in those places where we see others like ourselves? Where we must buy something to justify our presence?

One of the prime motivating forces that propelled F.L. Olmsted to advocate and design public parks was his belief in the benefits of social interaction in a peaceful and free setting. While many have criticized his views of the resulting social cohesion this interaction might bring as being pollyannish, I do believe it is vitally important for our culture to have places we can see and meet people in a spontaneous way that we would not encounter any other way. After all what is it that draws us to lively public places? We enjoy being with our fellows, feeling part of a community. The value of this type of interaction has become more important in the age of the Internet. We are rooted to geography because we are physical beings. We occupy a space and live in a neighborhood and are affected by and effect that setting. Those things, like a beautiful neighborhood park that we share, help us to feel a part of that and go a long way towards dispelling feelings of alienation.

Our public spaces are endangered and precious. As local budgets tighten, maintenance suffers. Several options have surfaced in response to this trend. In New York City, private money has been tapped. Of course this comes with strings that benefit the private funders, often imposing advertising and even buildings within park lands. This is a dangerous and unfortunate trend that does not accurately reflect the will of the citizens and gives away precious resources that cannot be recovered. This is an unacceptable option.

Here in Brookline, we've seen the remarkable spirit of local citizens pledging time, energy and money to protect, maintain and create parks and open space. We understand the value of our parks on a very visceral level and are willing to walk the walk. I have been truly moved by the actions of those who are willing to spend their precious free time working in the garden and by those many families and individuals who have been willing to tap their family budget to contribute to our effort to improve the park. This willingness to participate is a treasure we are blessed with. The personal benefits to be found when working with a group of like minded people in pursuit of a common goal cannot be overstated. I can say with great conviction that for those of us who have labored in the garden, the rewards far outweigh the sacrifices, and we have had many fun and pleasant interactions too.

To find out more about the Minot Rose Garden or volunteer opportunities, please email Linda at MinotRoses@aol.com

Can Brookline Adapt?

2007-02-03T16:13:00.000-05:00

Recently, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report that states that climate change, caused by human activity will bring profound disruptions to everything from rainfall, ocean levels, and food production to plant and animal diversity. Reminding us again that the consequences of our actions are coming home to roost. The ecological imperative for change is upon us as well as we struggle through another winter of painful payments to the heating oil companies. Our cold winters have made us dependent upon what is increasingly seeming like an antiquated technology.

How well-positioned is Brookline to respond to these challenges? What might Brookline as the eco-city of the future look like? One big problem is the age of our housing stock which exacerbates our reliance on heating oil. At my condominium, we have paid extra assessments last year and this to cover our staggering oil heating bills. Calling these fees temporary is merely a form of denial. We are also buying a new boiler and adopting new efficiency enhancing techniques of temperature control, which will yield some small savings. But I can't help but wonder at the folly of investing vast sums in a new oil heat boiler. But what alternatives do we have? How will we heat our homes in the future? Bio-fuels?

Like most buildings in Brookline our building is old and not that efficient. Some upgrades are available that will help somewhat, such as replacement windows. Which are easy to do but expensive. Other energy saving enhancements may require major reconstruction and investment. Unlike new construction, we cannot take advantage of all the new green building materials and techniques. On the plus side, adaptive re-use is ecologically efficient in its own way, avoiding the ecological consequences of manufacture, construction and demolition. Surely adaptive techniques, materials and technologies will be developed as their need becomes apparent.

Our greatest asset is our compact development pattern and the mass transit system that provides for our mobility without the necessity of using a personal automobile for each trip. We are extremely fortunate, unlike most of the rest of the country where widely dispersed development means complete reliance on automobile travel. As James Howard Kunstler writes, "American suburbia represents the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world." All sorts of infrastructure efficiencies flow from compact living, and the task for the future is to enhance livability in these settings. With more attention paid to the public realm we could have amenities that would allow individuals to, in essence, expand their living area through use of shared public spaces for recreation, access to nature, transportation and civic functions. The sharing of these resources would achieve benefits to social well being and community life as well.

New housing will need to be accommodated in areas already well served by transit and we will also hopefully see improvements to transit service in those areas that are currently now only served by infrequent buses at best. New nodes of density could perhaps be accommodated in tandem with transit improvements. We are fortunate as well that our existing density means Zipcars are available, allowing for occasional auto use without the burden of ownership. As gas prices spiked, I found myself driving less and less. It was a relief to have that option. I achieved this by seeking my recreation closer to home and relying more on the Internet for shopping. I'm not sure that this shift is really a net energy savings though. Is it more efficient to order a necklace from Canada that is delivered by UPS than it would have been for me to drive around to several stores looking for the item I wanted? It doesn't seem like it. Ultimately, the need to reduce transportation costs would lead to economic shifts away from global markets to a return to more locally produced and exchanged goods. Perhaps more "cottage industries" will spring up in our business districts, where we can imagine that creative reuse and recycling of materials will be employed in the making of useful household products.

Another great asset we have, is our own Allendale farm, and the other open space and undeveloped land concentrated mostly in South Brookline. The ability to grow food locally will become more important as well as the need to be better long term stewards of our arable lands. These trends favor the small family farm and community gardening. Perhaps many more Brookline families will find themselves involved in growing food for themselves and the local markets and restaurants. Will we dedicate more of our park lands for this? Or will we simply accommodate gardens in yards, roofs or containers?

Shifting patterns of rainfall seemed evident last spring. If this trend continues, our flood prone areas will expand, and structures in vulnerable areas will have to be abandoned. We will see changes to the cycles of our plant life, resulting in different growth patterns. The palette of trees, bushes and perennials we take for granted as well suited to our climate will change, perhaps requiring us to replant and plan for continuous change. This additional care and replacement could become too burdensome economically and physically for us to keep up with, bringing unwanted change to our beloved leafy environment.

Surely the future holds many unknowns and will probably be very different from anything we can imagine. One thing is certain though and that is that Brookline will always be home to many individuals with the capacity for creative problem solving and commitment to community, two qualities that have been in evidence since 1705 and will serve us well into the future.