The years long effort to secure city permitting for the very large Northland project in Upper Falls is all converging on a vote of the full City Council on Monday night starting at 7 PM.
Last week the council’s Land Use Committee approved the project with 6 votes and two abstentions. On Monday night the project will need 16 votes of the full 24 member City Council.
The project will develop the 22 acre site between Needham St, Oak St, Tower Rd, and the Upper Falls Greenway that includes what is now the Marshall’s plaza as well as lots of unused asphalt and some foundations of old industrial buildings on the site that have been razed. The historic mill building (formerly Clarke Shoes) will be preserved, pretty much everything else on the expansive site will be leveled and built anew.
The proposed development will include 14 new buildings, 800 apartments (including 140 affordable), 180,000 square feet of office space, and 115,000 square.
There is a likely to be a big turnout for Monday’s meeting. Neighborhood group RightSize Newton are rallying folks in opposition to the Special Permit for Monday’s meeting and pro-housing group Engine 6 are rallying their supporters to attend in support of the Special Permit,
Jerry, is it possible to post the site plan slightly bigger?
Why did I think this was going to be pushed to the next council? Was that Riverside?
As I’ve stated before, I don’t feel qualified to speak for or against this particular project which is so far away from my home village. I just haven’t had time/energy to dive into the nuts and bolts, and it feels wrong to advocate for something if I don’t do that.
I would simply ask that we learn the lessons of prior discussions and folks should keep it civil. If it passes or doesn’t pass, things will be ok.
This is actually shaping up to be perhaps the most consequential council meeting of 2019. In addition to Northland the agenda includes the zoning amendments for Riverside Station, adoption of Washington Street Vision Plan as part of the Comprehensive Plan and Adoption of the Climate Action plan.
It’s hard to see how they can get to all of those.
@Fig: I’m not sure that site plan Jerry posted is current. You can see a more recent version and other images here.
Councilors should be limited to three minutes speaking time. They should state how they plan to vote, give the main reasons succinctly, then sit down.
One more thing-leave the schools out of the discussion. The arguments from both sides are a bunch of baloney.
#feelingcrankytoday
Thanks for posting the real drawings/plans Greg. I was just being lazy and used that image as just a quick (appparently out of date) graphic for the post rather than as a source of real information.