RightSize Riverside — the Auburndale group that has been fighting to stop redeveloping the Riverside MBTA parking lot — issued this statement on Twitter regarding efforts to preserve undeveloped forest at Webster Woods.
Anyone catch the Mayor’s newsletter to save Webster Woods? Funny how the Fuller’s live across the street from a trail-head to Webster Woods. How lucky are they. Preserving their front yard from development, forever! And we pay for it! #NewtonMA #WebsterWoods
— RightSizeRiverside (@RiversideSize) September 19, 2019
Just so there’s no confusion about what we’re talking about. Here’s Webster Woods..
And here’s the Riverside parcel…
I’ve been in Singapore for the last couple of weeks and I’ve never followed the history of the issue, but I wanted to ask a possibly inappropriate question nevertheless:
Given that the land was previously owned by a synagogue and is now owned by Jesuits, is there any remote chance that ethnic tribalism might be coloring politicians’ and citizens’ actions and opinions on this issue?
Not sure if I’m allowed to ask that…
@Michaeel – I don’t know about that …. but there does seem to be something odd going on in the Webster Woods discussion.
Personally, I’m enthusiastic about preserving these woods. That said, there are significant issues worth debating about that decision. Fignewtonville brought up a few of them.
What’s a bit bewildering to me though is how the preservation of Webster Wood keeps getting discussed as if its central to these other unconnected issues – NewCal, Riverside. What’s next “If we can preserve Webster Woods why can’t kids play football?” “If those woods can be preserved in Chestnut Hill why can’t my street be repaved in Waban?”
BTW I would have said those woods are in Newton Center or Thompsonville rather than Chestnut Hill … but our village boundaries are indeed mushy.
@Michael: I think this is the last thing on anyone’s mind.
@ Jerry O’Reilly, I think what is germane between Webster Woods and the Senior Center is the willingness of the Mayor to use eminent domain in the case of the former, but not the latter.
I was at the Parks and Recs meeting Monday night when the issue came up and Josh was very clear that the city wasn’t entertaining that. Josh did draw the distinction between an amicable vs un-amicable use of eminent domain, suggesting the a hostile use of eminent domain was completely off the table. And yet clearly the use of it with BC is not amicable.
The city is so dug in on Abermarle AND the idea of a multi-generational rec center in spite of the clear lack of community support.
I have identified two excellent options for a new Senior Center. One is the Citizen’s Bank Building across from Newton Center Green. It checks all the boxes and IF the city could negotiate it that would be perfect.
The second is the old Container Store at The Street.
Neither would be cheap, but if the city got creative, leveraging tax breaks in addition to $$, they could potentially make one of those happen. But they seem completely dug in on Abermarle and not open to any option that involves private property.
I was going to snark, because this kinda begs for snark, but there’s a deep truth to this RSN tweet.
Until we lift zoning restrictions in Chestnut Hill, Waban, West Newton Hill, &c., the impact of the housing demand that’s fueling Newtonville’s developments, Northland, and Riverside is going to be felt in those neighborhoods. There should be intense development in those neighborhoods, but there should also be substantial development in every other part of the city.
It is ironic that neighborhoods that have been immune to recent development get the benefit of eminent domain.
It’s also ironic that RSN fails to note that Webster Woods is pretty damn close to much bigger existing buildings than are proposed anywhere else in the city. The Towers for Riverside, perhaps?
Maybe snark would have been the right mode.
I’ll call two sides out.
To say that RightSize Riverside as a whole or a majority wants to preserve the parking lot isn’t accurate or fair. There was a smaller community-supported redevelopment plan with Normandy, after all. It won’t get easier to get to a plan at Riverside by misrepresenting any of the sides of the discussion (residents, city, developer).
To pit preservation of Webster Woods against plans for development, and make the issue personal about the Mayor, is also shortsighted and unfair. We are still one city. Preservation of pristine forest should be a city priority when it is possible, and Webster Woods and the surrounding land is a regional resource. Webster Woods preservation has a healthy constituency. Should the Mayor ignore this opportunity/issue because she happens to live next to it?
We’d be better to argue these complex issues on their merits, using facts, avoiding personal digs and stereotypes, and weighing their costs and benefits.
Preserving forest and planning a development are fundamentally different things, affecting people’s lives in fundamentally different ways. Let’s understand each other more and cut out the pettiness.
Greg, I don’t believe RightSize Riverside wants to preserve what is a parking lot at Riverside. They simply want to scale down the proposed development to what they feel is the “right size”.
I love the idea of savings Webster Woods, but why through eminent domain. As I recall, when the City used eminent domain with the houses near Zervas it left a bad taste in people’s mouths.
And, BC according to the Boston Globe (thank you expanded reporting) is NOT happy about this development. Newton and BC have to live together and get along.
And taking parkland for NewCal isn’t my choice.
I have only lived here for 20 years. Before the Newton Free library was built, what was in that location (just wondering)
@NewtonMom: I wouldn’t put too much stock into BC’s “unhappiness”. Everyone is getting ready to negotiate a deal.
Mike,
RSN have wrung concessions out of
the Riverside developer resulting in less housing, less affordable housing, less money for open-space improvement, and less tax-revenue-generating commercial space. And, they still promise to mount a referendum campaign.
The smaller, community-driven plan resulted in, wait for it, the parking lot. It wasn’t economically feasible. Plus, from a climate, social, and economic justice perspective it was terrible. Too little housing.
The formulation “X wants Y” is nigh on useless. You can’t know what people want. At best, you can know what they say they want. Or, you can draw an inference what they want from their words or behavior.
Can’t know what’s in their hearts and heads, but the accumulated evidence seems to suggest a parking lot.
@Greg
Saying they are trying to save a parking lot is dishonest and divisive.
Sean, I agree, and I did “draw an inference what they want from their words or behavior” by looking at a past agreement.
The Normandy developer, the community, and the city agreed to the previous plan. While it might not in hindsight have been economically viable, I assume Normandy thought it was at the time. 600k+ square feet in that original development is not just a parking lot.
None of that is a statement on what the size of the project should be now, or whether it’s adequate for particular needs, or what negotiating tactics are good or not. I personally am hopeful we get to an economically viable project that’s great for the local and larger community and the developer, and I think that will be substantially bigger and better than the Normandy design.
That’s besides the point. This is about fair representation. Issues have nuance, and mutual respect and meaningful discussion depend on listening for it. Twitter simply doesn’t have the bandwidth for nuance. Blogs seldom do.
@Claire, eminent domain should be used as a last resort when all other avenues have been explored.
NewCAL is still early in the process as compared to Webster Woods. The appraisal work, getting a legal team, talking to BC about purchasing the land required to make Webster Woods whole, etc. has been done, and they are not interested in talking at all. So we aren’t left with any other options except to explore eminent domain.
For NewCAL, sites are still being evaluated, and no recommendation has been made. At this stage, putting eminent domain as an option for NewCAL when other avenues haven’t been explored doesn’t make any sense. It will take the pressure off of making the difficult decisions and compromises for siting NewCAL wherever it ends up.
@ Nelson, to be clear I am not interested nor do I support NEWCal. I support Newton having a first class Senior Center dedicated to Seniors. If they would narrow the scope limited to a Senior Center, it would open up a lot more option. I am not advocating that we are at a point where we would considering eminent domain. Heck there isn’t even a privately owned location on the table.
The NEWCal Committee/Working Group have indeed made a recommendation. Albemarle. Parks and Recs instructed them that they need to come back with at least two other option for them to even consider Albemarle and that the other 5 Newton Parks are completely off the table
@Sean Roche
We have to get at the root cause of the housing demand; unsustainable office development in Boston, with incentives for businesses to move into Boston. The demand for housing is caused by this unwise development in an area soon to be flooded many times a year, and some of which will be underwater in 40 years.
Save Webster Woods. Please do. NI’m all in favor of preserving green spaces — that’s what makes us the Garden City. Or has until now with all the massive development proposals we are being set up for.
But I do think people have a point that the Mayor has been buffered in her own home from the impacts of all the developments she backs for the rest of us. And now she will personally benefit disproportionately from the Webster Woods eminent domain taking she is backing for her neighborhood. That doesn’t seem right.
There’s an easy solution to her conflict of interests. I suggest the Mayor move to Newtonville and personally enjoy the impacts of all the development she (and Susan Albright and Brenda Noel and Bryan Barash) prescribe for us poor sods who live in the wrong side of town.
I understand why Brenda Noel supports development— she has written about how she (who lives in a single family home) thinks single family zoning is a tool of racism. (And in her last campaign accepted a $1,000 campaign contribution from Robert Korff, the owner of Mark Development). I just don’t agree with her.
So how much will the eminent domain taking cost? Where is the money for that going to come from? Which school funding need won’t be funded? Which street won’t be paved? Which other need won’t be met?
Again – I’m all in favor of keeping the Garden City green and livable (unlike the development-mad folks like Bryan Barash who thinks it is our moral civic duty to convert and model Newton after Cambridge and Somerville to assure that Greater Boston has adequate apartment housing stock.)
So maybe the Mayor would like to make a hefty charitable contribution to the cause given the direct benefit to her personal real estate property’s value?
I’m just askin’….
@Abe- We’ve been over this- the money came in via my website and was immediately returned. The way OCPF records transactions you will see it as a receipt and the return as an expenditure. I don’t take money or support from developers, PACs or money that was raised to support ballot questions. Folks- I have office hours this morning from 9:30-11am- at Central in Newton Centre- please stop by if you want to talk more!
Now back to the topic at hand-Webster Woods.
@Abe you hit the nail on the head. Many of us on the North side perceive the emphasis on development on the that side – including enclosing currently unenclosed rec space with a 2 story building – as an inequitable burden on our neighborhood. And as Steve Jobs once said, “perception IS reality”. Someone said the mayor lives in a house valued at 10 million. If that’s true, how many sf is that and what’s the carbon footprint of that house? Sheesh. Anyways, I’m all in favor of purchasing the woods. I don’t know about the eminent domain stuff. Seems adversarial, probably is.
Let’s hope Edmands Park is never sold off to a developer or to BC, which as I understand it, wanted to get a piece of that park to expand their lacrosse field and were taken to court by local residents and stopped ( I don’t know all the details). That’s 30 acres of woods near Newtonville that deserves equal protection.
Brenda Noel- I hear you on the correction needed. I have posted a correction in the other thread (the one about VIDEO of your debate with challenger Lisa Gordon). Since folks don’t necessarily follow all the V14 threads, I am reprinting that correction below for those who follow only this thread:
“Correction needed. I have been told offline that Brenda Noel returned the $1,000 donation that Robert Korff (Mark Development owner) gave her. If that’s true, then kudos to her for being strategically wise enough to try to remove the particularly black mark of accepting such a large and tainted campaign contribution from the public record.
But it sure says something that Korff (who has the perfect legal right to finance the candidates he likes and who do what he likes — such as Donald Trump) tried to lavish such a stunningly large contribution on Brenda Noel’s campaign before he realized it would be way smarter for him to lay low with campaign contributions.”
Read more: VIDEO: Ward 6 City Council forum between Lisa Gordon and Brenda Noel | Village 14 https://village14.com/2019/09/20/video-ward-6-debate-between-brenda-noel-and-lisa-gordon/#ixzz60ALKrtov
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I was struck by the weasly “Funny how the Fuller’s live across the street from a trail-head to Webster Woods” in the RightSizeRiverside tweet above.
Somehow that sounds a lot more nefarious than “while the Fuller family lives more than a half mile away and on the opposites side of the four lane Hammond Pond Parkway, she still has an interest in preserving this unique resource.”
@Jerry Reilly
Did you find Greg’s headline similarly weasly?
You seem to be a pretty fair-minded guy.
@Paul – Yes, somewhat weasly but not in the same league as the tweet
@Jerry Reilly
I’m genuinely confused. Just looked up Fuller’s house and it abuts Webster Woods. What exactly was your concern?
@Paul – I’m quite certain you’re mistaken.
@Paul – I’m guessing you’re mixing up Hammond Pond with Webster Woods
Perhaps that’s confusion all around- it’s not an area I know well- and superficially it looks like one contiguous green space.
At least we found a better spot for NewCal!
Paul, they are contiguous but split by the 4 lane road.
I think the point is at least somewhat valid, although not from a personal benefit to the mayor (she is too far away for it to have an effect on her property values, views, etc.). But the mayor clearly must pass by the Webster Woods multiple times each week. Proximity brings concern and knowledge.
But I found the tweet annoying because it did made me think the mayor was right on top of the woods, which would bring up a NIMBY aspect which I don’t think exists here.
And the headline is unfair, as well. No one I’ve talked to wants it remain a parking lot. Just because this particular plan might not work for them doesn’t mean they don’t want it developed. (not saying their desired wish for limited development makes economic sense)
Perhaps the headline should state “save a parking lot (for the forseeable future)