MoratoriumPH101514 | Newton MA News and Politics Blog

Not a word about it in the Tab, although the Globe’s Ellen Ishkanian was there and did an article for the October 19 Globe West, but it was standing room only in the Aldermanic Chamber last week for the October 15 public hearing on Alderman Amy Sangiolo’s proposal for a moratorium through year-end 2015 on demolitions of single- and two-family houses. It may feel, as Obama once said about health care I think it was, that ‘everything has been said, and just about everyone has said it,’ but if you want to hear a lot of passionate people, here they (we) are, all three hours of us. This audio seems to be working. (Not all do; the yourlisten website is rather unpredictable) And there are tracks, so you can skip to your favorite people/topics, though I don’t get many characters of description, so these blurbs are just clues.

39BarbaraRd constructionSm | Newton MA News and Politics BlogYou can read Amy’s Memo to Zoning & Planning, and follow along with the audio of Amy’s presentation, and the sort-of rebuttal by Eve Tapper from Planning Department. I say ‘sort-of’ because they seemed to agree there was a problem, but the solution was Zoning Reform. And a lot of the houses in her pictures were really hard to see. (Just sayin’, being a photographer.) Amy’s presentation now has all the house by house detail on size and price changes, for those who don’t believe their own eyes.