City Council will review elected salaries at June meeting
Some of Newton’s top elected officials may get their first raise in about 14 years when the City Council weighs the recently completed compensation report produced by the all-volunteer Blue Ribbon Commission, the Newton TAB reports. The mayor’s current salary is...
Is Riverside Station a transit-oriented site? Yes or no
In a multi-pronged proposal to the City Council’s joint Zoning & Planning and Land Use committee meeting Tuesday, the Right Size Riverside committee (also known as Lower Falls Improvement Association) started its presentation for the Riverside MBTA station site (city documents here) with an usual request..
Don’t call the Riverside MBTA site a “Transit Oriented Development.”
Here’s how Right Sized explained its request in a memo…
“…Riverside is not robust. Located at the terminus of the Green Line D Branch, with long travel times to most major centers of employment, and with only one MBTA bus line stopping at Riverside only
RightSize called out for politicizing Porch Fest
Organizers of Saturday’s Porch Fest and at least some of their hosts are peeved that the anti-development group RightSize Riverside have been trying to politicize the event. Here’s an email organizers sent today.
Dear PorchFest hosts:
You may have received “RightSize Riverside” flyers this afternoon with a note encouraging you to distribute them at PorchFest.We did not provide your contact information to the RightSize Riverside organization! It appears as if the Right Size Riverside obtained the addresses of all PorchFest hosts from the published map and brochure and elected to drop off flyers without our approval.We feel very strongly that PorchFest is all about music and community. We received severalWhere vehicle
accidentscrashes in Newton happenNewton Police have created this interactive map which shows where car
accidentscrashes have taken place, sortable up to the past year.Do attendees at public meetings reflect the views of the general public?
From a story on the CityLab website….
To understand local housing politics over the past several decades, consider a recent study out of Boston University. Political science professor Katherine Levine Einstein surveyed all of the minutes for zoning and planning meetings about housing across 97 cities and counties in Massachusetts…
“In every single city and county we studied, the advantaged dominated the proceedings,” Einstein said at a recent Brookings Institution panel on housing. Residents who are older, men, longtime residents, local voters, and homeowners are much more likely to participate in these meetings. And they are much more likely to oppose new construction than the general public.
Residents who oppose new housing are also
Swastika found at Day Middle School…again
A student found a swastika and “threatening language” drawn on a desk at F.A. Day Middle School, the Globe reports.Take the Newton Community Arts & Culture survey!
Do you enjoy concerts in the Highlands or Newton Centre on a hot summer night, or a lovely Sunday afternoon listening to the New Philharmonic Orchestra at the First Baptist Church? Or maybe your kids look forward to the Halloween Window Painting Contest every October? Or how about the unexpected whimsy of seeing poetry on the sidewalks of your local village center or a fantastical outdoor sculpture along the Upper Falls Greenway? Well, the City of Newton “Community Design for Arts & Culture Committee” was formed a few months ago to assist Mayor Ruthanne Fuller and the City of Newton with a seven-month planning process to create a comprehensive arts & cultural plan for the City. Will you help us? We would love to hear from you in this Newton Community Arts & Culture Survey.
This community survey will help us develop our strategic plan of short & long term goals for the city. The plan, entitled Create Newton, will identify all of our
Newton’s first recreational marijuana shop can open this weekend
Garden Remedies, which has been a medical marijuana dispensary at 697 Washington Street since 2016, can start selling recreational marijuana this week. The Grand Opening for recreational marijuana sales could be as early as Saturday, Newton Patch reports. Garden...
Ten year’s ago today: Lenny Gentile’s ‘SOMERVILLE!!?’ rant
It was exactly years ago today — May 19, 2009 — that Newton Alderman (now City Councilor) Lenny Gentile delivered his most notorious City Hall floor speech…
VIDEO: Take a 3D tour of the proposed Riverside Station project
Here’s a 3D flyover video showing the proposed transit oriented development at Riverside Station by Mark Development.
The project’s features includes:
- 675 housing units (both condo and rental)
- 547,000 square feet of office space
- 65,000 square feet of shops and retail A new 200 room hotel (replacing Hotel Indigo)
- Outdoor amphitheater/public park
- Newly designed and hidden garage (3,000 spaces)
VIDEO: Riverside Vision Plan final presentation
The City of Newton Planning Department and their Vision Plan Consultant, CivicMoxie, presented their Riverside Vision Plan on Tuesday, April 30th, 2019. To find out more about this plan, visit the following link: newtonma.gov/gov/planning/current/riverside_vision_plan.asp
Riverside Vision Plan Meeting Three: April 30, 2019 from NewTV on Vimeo.
