This is a guest blog post submitted by Newton resident Richard Rasala, a retired Professor and Associate Dean in the Khoury College of Computer and Information Science at Northeastern.

 
On February 7, members of the Newton Corner Neighborhood Association (NCNA) attended the Ward 1 presentation by the city zoning planners.
 
At that meeting, we already saw many problems with the draft Zoning Redesign document, especially, with regard to Residence 3 (R3) zoning that especially impacts Newton Corner.
 
Since that meeting, the NCNA has met many times and exchanged many emails in order to prepare a document stating our issues and concerns.  It was our plan not only to describe problems but also to develop specific proposals to improve the draft zoning rules.
 
The full document with discussion and proposals is here
 
An extract of the document with proposals only is here.
 
For convenience, there is also a web site with these links and with links to the Newton official sites for Zoning Redesign and for the Washington Street Vision:
 
 
As should be clear from the full document, we see many problems not only with R3 zoning but also with the related zoning for R1 and R2 which are treated in a strikingly opposite manner.  We also see problems with the rules for multi-use buildings in Village Districts.
 
One of our major concerns is the necessity for spreading density and diversity throughout Newton so that we all share both the benefits and the burdens of a more populated city.
 
We hope that our document and proposals promote good discussion in Newton.
 
We also hope that those with better ideas will write them up and make them known.