Share your thoughts in the comments section.
Share your new year’s resolutions and predictions for Newton
by Village 14 | Dec 31, 2018 | Newton | 10 comments
by Village 14 | Dec 31, 2018 | Newton | 10 comments
Share your thoughts in the comments section.
September 13, 2023
Men's Crib September 13, 2023 5:20 am
I resolve to help our city council and community at large understand that if you want to grow commercial tax revenue, we need to build more housing and encourage alternative modes of transportation.
Newton employers are struggling to hire workers and new companies will not come here unless they know they can have access to talent. But workers can’t find places to live here and are stymied by a lack of housing options and inadequate public transportation.
This isn’t just about building more affordable housing — although that’s really important because hourly workers are especially challenged here — it’s about creating homes for folks who do not want a house with a yard and a garage. It’s about creating rental units for folks who have good paying jobs but aren’t ready or interested in buying yet.
I also wish I could say I resolve to help Newton create a new media entity that would cover our city. Our municipal government and schools are deeply under covered and we all suffer because of it. Blogs and list serves are great but they’re no substitution for paid, professional journalists. This is a big challenge and a big problem with no easy solution.
Completely agree. It’s not just about working professionals but seniors as well. The options for downsizing are extremely limited in Newton. That’s a very real problem and why we need large scale development in appropriate areas (e.g., Washington Street corridor).
My New Years Resolution is to spend every available minute of this coming year working to hear from residents (and business owners!) in the community I’m hoping to represent. And to always treat every person I speak to with the dignity and respect they deserve.
AND to lose 10 pounds! (All that walking should help)
Greg,
Essentially you want to turn Newton into Brookline, gotcha.
Or perhaps your ideal scenario would be Brookline but with cheaper housing? Please name a single city in the united states with high density, affordable housing (not just for low income) with top notch schools and low crime… it doesn’t exist.
The harsh reality is that you can only pick 2 of the 3 below
1. low crime
2. good schools
3. affordable homes
@Bugek: Brookline is a pretty great community. Excellent schools too. I don’t envision Newton becoming Brookline, but the idea doesn’t scare me either. Nor does affordable housing scare me. Why do these things scare you?
@Jeffery: Boston and Cambridge have been building housing. It’s suburban communities like Newton that are woefully behind. And remind me and I’ll dig out the statistics showing were Newton residents work. More residents work here than you may suspect.
But please reread my comment too. I said, if Newton wants to grow its commercial tax revenue, we need to build more housing so we bring and keep jobs here. And it’s not just affordable housing that we need. We need housing for folks with good paying jobs in health care, finance, technology, the life sciences and other sectors.
Budgek has a good point.
BTW, most people in Newton work in Boston. Should Boston create more attractive housing for Newtonians who are shut out?
Over the past decades young families bought homes west of Newton because the inner suburbs were built out with little land for new housing.
What people like Greg want is to push out those who have a life long stake in the community. He wants us to shove over and allow new growth on land already occupied. A possible idea but not at the rate Greg would like to see.
There are a variety of ways to increase the tax base other than dense apartment housing units. Many more of these places would require new school rooms, more teachers and rapid transit. Something Boston can not provide because it is a historic American city which must respect its historic past.
Yes let’s grow the Greater Boston region. There is plenty of room for everyone. Let’s spread out the growth. Newton can grow
incrementally, let’s not destroy its special place in our history.
Austin St. and Washington Pl. show us all we are off to a very bad start. I hope the rest of Newton heeds the failures in Newtonville.
Greg
The only thing that scares me is growth without accounting for the strain it places on schools.
Looking enrollment data for avalon and other apartments built we can see that the number of children is approx 30% of the number of units. Since these are rentals we can assume this ratio will remain constant as units turn over.
What scares me is being priced out of Newton as i get older because i can longer afford the property taxes because the new growth does not produce enough tax revenue. Just the unfunded pension liabilities scare me.. putting this ontop terrifies me
I can accept growth is there a clear plan to have tax growth to support it. Ie building several thousand units before any companies commit to move is a bad idea. We should partner with a small handful of companies first, get their signed commitment and then build housing units…
I agree with Coleen that we must remember Boston as a “historic city” with a “historic past”. It is a past that has left us haunted by the ghosts of housing discrimination, redlining, and exclusionary zoning. It is a past where the tools of urban planning were used deliberately to create a society of haves and have not‘s, with a white protestant ruling class and everyone else reaching for the scraps.
We must wrestle with this history lest we are doomed to prolong the effects of it. Newton has to decide what it wants to be – A liberal city that puts in the work to build a bigger table with opportunity for more people with greater economic and racial diversity – or a city that prefers equality through words rather than action.
Bryan,
Its very hard for me to believe that Newton’s history was so steeped in racism as you imply that it welcomed one of the largest Jewish populations since the early 1920’s…
Racism is everywhere… if you want to look for it