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Board approves two contentious single-family proposals in West Roxbury
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Why mayor's office opposition?
What reason did the mayor's office and aides to City Councilors Matt O'Malley and Michelle Wu give for opposing the second project?
Not sure about Wu but ...
On small projects like these (as opposed, to, say, 50-story towers downtown), the mayor's office usually listens to residents, so if a lot of residents are opposed, it'll be opposed, too. Ditto for O'Malley.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say Wu's similar, but her office usually doesn't express any opinion one way or another on most matters before the zoning board (of the four at-large councilors, only Essaibi George has an aide who comments on lots of proposals, although she didn't on this one).
Here’ s one reason Counsilor Wu would help her friends
Go to the office of campaign finance put in Mark Cohen ( lives on Maple Street West Roxbury and one of those opposing) as the donor and add Michele Wu as the candidate, 01-11-2021 he gave her $900 and then another $100 on the same day?? That alone is questionable then you can also view that he and his wife have contributed over $2500 to Concilor Wu. Ms Wu believes in transparency in government, is this how she will lead the city as mayor?
You can also check Mr Cohen’s wife - Margaret Mainzer Cohen to see he donations to the Wu campaign. She was just elevated to some board by Governor Baker that deals with Casino gambling. A little research will show you of her concerns of neighborhood people as she chairs a Back Bay Business group of wealthy investors.
https://www.ocpf.us/Reports/SearchItems
Why is the Mayor's office
even allowed to weigh in on such matters? It's a neighborhood issue, not a citywide one.
Look at the neighbor names
Look at the neighbor names objecting and it is pretty clear why the councilors opposed. These two neighbors seems to have objected to nearly
every project nearby. It’s the old “not in my neighborhood” mentality.
Meg Mainzer Cohen should be careful that her corporate clients don’t find out she doesn’t REALLY support development, and the other opposer should re-examine the articles he’s written about supporting multiculturalism when it appears he won’t support a hispanic family living in his neighborhood.
Is this the same Meg Mainzer
Is this the same Meg Mainzer-Cohen who is the President of the Back Bay Association, which consistently has opposed anything that takes away, even temporarily, a single parking space on Newbury St, even if it benefits the businesses?
Yes
According to Adam's write-up above:
"Mainzer-Cohen, who routinely deals with proposals for large and tall towers in her work as president of the Back Bay Association, told the board."
Wow what a giant waste of
Wow what a giant waste of time and money this whole process is because our zoning is so f*cked up. The zoning should allow by right the types of buildings that already exist in a neighborhood.
I used to make that argument
I used to make the argument that zoning ought to allow by right building to match the average of what is already in the neighborhood, but that approach has two flaws. First, it tends to increase density, as property owners whose buildings are smaller than average expand to meet the average. Second, it doesn’t let us ever change our minds about what type of buildings or level of density we want in a neighborhood.
1. Adding a little density is
1. Adding a little density is not a bad thing. Given the housing crisis, it's a very good thing in fact.
2. People in the mid-20th century changed the zoning to make much of what exists today illegal. There's nothing preventing people from doing that again in the future should they choose to do so.
sheesh
Jack up this noise by an order of magnitude for every proposed multifamily development and you have a pretty good idea of why there's a housing crisis.
"Local control" and "neighborhood input" sound good and all, but boy I dunno...
Agree 100%
This variance nonsense is why nothing gets done in Boston.