James Freas, the deputy director of Newton’s planning department, is going to be headed a few exits west along the Pike. He’s accepted a new job as the Planning Director for Natick.
This is a huge loss for Newton as not only has James been the key driver behind Newton’s zoning redesign, but he is, to quote Steve Jobs “insanely great.” I’ve worked with James on a number of projects and he is thoughtful and direct. He’s the guy I turn to when I have questions about city planning in almost any context.
The planning department is undergoing some major changes, as James is the fourth big name to leave the department in just the past few months. Lily Reynolds, who handled community engagement, left in the spring, as did Rachel Nadkarni who worked with James on zoning and long-range planning. Economic Development Director Kathryn Ellis left for UMass Amherst in the summer, that role is being filled by Devra Bailin who is joining from Needham.
We’ll have to see what impact his departure has on the zoning redesign process.
Another loss. Congratulations to James, you’ll be missed! All of these people were smart and thoughtful, and particularly good about opening up the planning process to the community.
Wow! We’re losing one of the good guys.
Newton’s loss is Natick’s gain.
Thank you James for your service to our city. We’ll miss your wisdom, your expertise, your institutional knowledge, your ability to navigate challenging situations, your patience and your good humor.
Here’s a statement Barney Heath sent to his team today…
While James and Lily are true professionals and will definitely be missed, I hope the city will take this opportunity to downsize the planning department and spread that work to existing staff. I’m not aware of any other city of our size that has 29 professionals in the planning department. If there’s too much work for 27 people, perhaps they need to cut back on the ambitions of the zoning redesign. Is it realistic to re-zone each and every property in Newton all at once?
@Sarah
What makes you think 29 is too high? Somerville, which is smaller but comparable and is also doing zoning reform, has (by my count) 48 employees in their Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development.
https://www.somervillema.gov/staff-contact-directory?field_people_first_name_value=&field_people_last_name_value=&field_department_id_value=C180
As always, all statements are my own, and do not reflect the positions or policies of my employer.
@sarah the zoning redesign needs to be done. It’s not a matter of ambition, but one of necessity. Every city goes through this and we are no different.
The entire Boston region is facing much of the same pressure and our planning staff is working admirably given the fact that they’re short-staffed.
I would argue that we should be providing our public institutions with MORE resources, not less. When it comes to spending we (as Americans) tend to favor private over public and treat things that way. It’s why our public transportation system is a mess and we turn to private transportation (cars) as a replacement. We demand that public employees treat us nicely, then yell at them in public meetings. You wouldn’t treat your own colleagues that way, that’s how I’ve witnessed people treating public employees.
We have companies fighting for talent by giving away free food, unlimited vacation time and providing nap rooms, while our city planning department works in the basement and fights over paperclips. It’s unfair and it does all of us a disservice.
Let’s not romanticize companies for having free food. Companies offer that because they don’t want you to leave. They want you to work long hours and not leave for meals. They’re always toxic work environments in my experience, especially if you’re a woman with kids because they’re particularly unforgiving to that scenario. Unlimited vacation time is a double-edged sword, too. There was a study done where many people took LESS vacation because it became a competition about who could work the most and take the least time off. I’ve never worked at a company with nap rooms, but my guess is they exist for the same reason as the free food; they don’t want you to take a break. As a millennial woman and a mom, you couldn’t pay me enough to work for a company like those again. I don’t think we should be encouraging more companies to have policies that make people feel like they need to live at their job.
That was your entire takeaway from my comment?
29 employees in a city department are way too many. If people are so great you don’t need to hire consultants as it is assumed by me and the rest of the city that your department has all the skills needed.
So sad that the talent is leaving the planning and development department. All employees should be required to live in the city of Newton, not RI. The employees need to feel our pain with the proposed zoning changes and how they effect us.
This department is over staffed like the rest of the city government.
These zoning changes are wrong. Newton is the garden city not the cement/concrete one with urban development like Somerville or Cambridge.
You are ruining the village concepts by changing to fit the developers needs and not looking to the residents needs.
It’s too bad that the city government can’t be managed and run like a business as the people at the top are wasting our tax dollars.
Smarty- Are you willing to pay city employees a salary that would allow them to live in Newton?Sounds like a great deal to me.
Best of luck to James! He was very professional and accessible and I appreciated the opportunity to work with him – though – we often disagreed. Natick is lucky to have him!!
Jane Franz thanks for the nice comment.
Many years ago most people who worked for the city could afford to live here. Some my family worked and retired from the city.
Top department heads should live in the city they work for.
I bet some of these developers could pay their salaries.
I live here by choice, as I grew up here, was educated here etc. and love the village I live in. The North side villages are going to be destroyed by over development. The money range for affordable apartments at Austin Street are way over the top.
Property is way overpriced in Newton. The developers with their tear downs and real estate peeps are making it harder to find real time affordable homes.
Whoever decides on what homes are historical in Newton should have more training, as the developers are tearing down everything . Why? So that they can to get top dollar for a new modern ugly home. These homes do not even blend in with the rest of the nearby homes.
I have not had direct contact with the Planning Department in recent years, but have followed the Washington Street Visioning Process very closely from the beginning. The loss of James Freas is huge. I have been most impressed by his knowledge, his grace under fire, and his ability to step back and reconsider what the Planning Dept. or consultants have put forward when thoughtful push-back comes. From what I’ve seen, he is a model public manager. He will be a tough act to follow.
Congratulations to James on his new job. Natick’s gain is Newton’s loss.
Good luck, James! Thanks.
@Smarty,
The cause of teardowns has to do with the too liberal zoning regulations that allow developers to build too large a house.
If the city would reduce the floor area ratio percentages ( FAR = the allowable square footage buildable based on the lot size ), and increase the side yard and rear yard setbacks the size of the replacement house would be reduced, and the teardown incentive would be restricted.
Why won’t the city do this if they are interested in more “affordable “ housing ?!!!
What Smarty and BPB said. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see.
@Blueprintbill there wouldn’t be a replacement house. A friend of mine who is a residential developer told me he can’t make a nickel replacing a house with the same size house. ( he’s based in the the North shore, I don’t know if he’s built any houses in Newton )
So it would prevent the tear down in the first place.
Congratulations to James, but a big loss to Newton especially given the timing and where we are with zoning redesign. I have to wonder if the recent departures are at least partially due to fatigue from how long phase 2 has been going on for. Also not a good sign that we haven’t seen anything of the second draft which was originally expected around May/June that was going to incorporate a number of changes based on community feedback. We got a preview at the ward 4 meeting earlier in the year and it looked like they were going in the right direction with the changes they had ready to present.
@Blueprintbill – That’s one of the specific goals of zoning redesign, FAR is replaced with a maximum house size regardless of the lot to limit what we’re seeing in the northern villages with McMansion tear downs. The catch-22 is if we want smaller houses then zoning has to allow for smaller houses to be built (ie. density), so we’re in this weird stand off where people don’t want giant condos but also don’t want the added density that would come from allowing smaller houses.
@Rick Frank – There was a recent tear down on my street which went from a small (and run down) SF to two condos around ~2200 sqft each, it’s larger than what was there before but still fits in scale with the existing houses on the street which are mainly smaller condos (I’d say character but that would make me a racist). Contrast with the house directly next to ours which was replaced with two ~4500 sqft condos that stick out like a sore thumb. From what I understand tear downs in the northern villages are basically free money under our current zoning, may not be able to build exactly what’s there now but there’s room under McMansion size where developers can still make a profit with smaller houses and condos.
Also may not be a bad thing to make some existing inventory unattractive to developers. As it stands now in between the people who can afford Austin St and everyone else we’ve got developers who can make guaranteed profit with tear downs and can also pay out in cash. This is the elephant in the room when it comes to the argument that high end apartments will help open up more middle income and affordable housing. Getting those higher income units isn’t going to help if everything being opened up is snapped up by developers who are only adding more luxury condos. We need more of the ~2k sqft condos and less ~4.5k sqft if we want to move the needle on affordability.
Pretty sad state of the city when a post marking the departure of an effective city employee and civil servant ends up being just another food fight over zoning and the criticism of government.
It’s got some the hallmarks of the worst of Village14. A new pseudonymous poster taking veiled swipes at specific city staff while making broad claims about the destruction of whole parts of the city. The followup “what he said”s. The divergence into diffuse, loosely related back-and-forth policy debate.
Because nothing in the world says, “thanks for your service and good luck” like “so sad that the talent is leaving the planning and development department, we should put more restrictions on where employees in your department live, there are far too many people working there, and all your work is destroying the city”.
Can we take those debates elsewhere? Are there any islands of discourse where the angels of our better nature, a sense of human decency, or even just restraint from turning every discussion into a political blood sport still exist?
To ward off any likely whataboutism and becoming part of the problem myself, the issue of rebuilding civility and trust in public discourse is something I care deeply about, and I plan a future V14 post that will focus specifically on that topic. So please, let’s not turn this post into that discussion. No real need for “ataboy” or “shutterup” followups here. I can’t stop you, but perhaps I can ask you to be thoughtful in your followup comments.
A man did good work. He’s leaving. That’s the topic, that’s the focus.
I don’t know think I’ve ever met James Freas, but the comments above are such a lovely tribute to him that I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance. He sounds like a real professional and a fine person. Thanks to Chuck for starting this thread. I join the others here in wishing James well in his new post.
I had a meeting with James and he was a nice guy and very patient.
I think being a planner is a thankless job. Nothing but complaints from all sides. Including me.
James Freas asked me to be a reference long ago if ever a job opportunity came along, and I enthusiastically agreed. When I heard from the HR Director in Natick that they wanted to offer James the Planning Director position, I gave him the highest recommendation I could give. He served as Interim Planning Director at a time when Newton was in dire need of direction. He did an exemplary job, and assembled an excellent team of planners who hit the ground running and exuded energy and enthusiasm for making this community the best it could be. He created a position that Lily Canan Reynolds fulfilled beyond all expectations. He hired planners at all levels who sustained both long term and short term planning goals, and laid a foundation upon which Newton’s current planning director Barney Heath has been able to build.
I have already heard from a number of people who are involved in planning and development in Natick who are thrilled to have someone of James’ pedigree to fill the top position in their planning department. As much as I am sad for Newton’s loss, I am far more glad that James Freas has an opportunity to plan for Natick’s future.
Best of luck, my good friend.
James is a great person to work with, calm, smart and forward thinking. I am happy for him that he will get to work closer to home. Those late night meetings followed by a long ride home can’t have been great. Natick is very lucky to have him.
Lily Reynolds, also another great planner (and also super , super calm) moved to Philadelphia with her fiance(or husband?) who took a new job as a professor at Penn. Philly is such a great city and I am sure she will soon be working on something very interesting. Rachel is studying abroad, somehow I missed this departure, but I am also super excited for her as she was another great planner.
I hope these 3 stay in touch, let us know what they are working on.