Belmont Citizens Forum

Nov/Dec 2020 BCF Newsletter

Newsletter, November 2020 Comments Off

Nov 062020

Read the November-December 2020 BCF Newsletter PDF Join the BCF Newsletter Team! Are you plugged into Belmont and interested in helping maintaining Belmont’s small-town atmosphere? We are looking for a managing editor for our bimonthly newsletter to help keep residents informed about Belmont’s planning, zoning, and traffic issues; its natural and historical resources; and progress on the Belmont Community Path. You’ll work closely with executive editor Meg Muckenhoupt and our newsletter committee to shape each issue by: Staying tuned in to the topics that we cover Planning articles and maintaining our running articles list Finding, encouraging, and providing feedback to [READ MORE]

Belmont Waterways Get Failing Grades

Newsletter, Sept/Oct 2020, Sewers, Stormwater, Water Quality Comments Off

Sep 032020

By Meg Muckenhoupt The Mystic River’s most recent water quality report card, released on August 13, gives Winn’s Brook an F for 2019—and the Little River and Alewife Brook earned Ds. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) creates the annual report card in collaboration with the Mystic River Watershed Association. It grades segments of the Mystic River’s lakes, river, and streams on how frequently they meet bacterial standards for swimming and boating. The Upper Mystic Lake and the Chelsea River got an A grade; they met boating and swimming standards 90% or more of the time in 2019. Winn’s Brook [READ MORE]

Pomponi Takes Over Habitat Sanctuary

Environment, Newsletter, Open Space, Sept/Oct 2020 Comments Off

Sep 032020

The beauty of Massachusetts Audubon sanctuaries is how deeply rooted they are in their individual communities. Habitat is no exception. Belmont citizens have helped shape Habitat’s programming and gardens and seek solace in its wooded paths and intimate landscape. Renata Pomponi, who is now managing Habitat, understands how special Habitat is, for the natural habitat it protects and the community that considers it their own. It is a true sanctuary within Boston’s metropolitan area. I spoke with Pomponi briefly last month, and she explained how her role came to be. * * * With COVID-19 and the cancelation of programs [READ MORE]

How Affordable Housing Works in Belmont

Construction and Housing, Newsletter, Sept/Oct 2020 Comments Off

Sep 032020

By Meg Muckenhoupt With 12 townhouses proposed for a half-acre site at 91 Beatrice Circle, Belmont is buzzing with questions about how a developer can suggest such a dense development. The answers—because this question does not have a single, simple answer—have to do with a law known as Chapter 40B, aka the “Massachusetts Comprehensive Permit Law,” the legal definition of “affordable housing,” and how Belmont has developed up to now. What is Chapter 40B? Chapter 40B is a state law that was passed in 1969 to increase the supply of affordable housing in Massachusetts. As the Department of Housing and [READ MORE]

Wrubel Connected People with Nature

Open Space, Sept/Oct 2020 Comments Off

Sep 032020

By Anne Paulsen, with contributions from Martha Moore, Heli Tomford, and Sharon Vanderslice Roger Wrubel, entomologist, teacher, conservationist, and community activist, became the director of the Habitat Wildlife Education Center and Sanctuary in 2000 and retired this June. Trained in the study of insects, he spent time at Tufts and UMass Boston teaching and writing and was conscious of the need to build strong bonds between the natural world and people. In the ensuing years, Roger forged that relationship with foresight and determination. Roger moved to Belmont in 1989 and began his community activism as a member of the Solid [READ MORE]

Belmont Roots September 2020

Arts & Culture, BCF Events, Environment, Newsletter, Sept/Oct 2020 Comments Off

Sep 032020

By Meg Muckenhoupt Well, it’s fall, and most meetings are still being held via screens and speakers. I’m sorry. There are still some things you can do alone, or sitting on your couch, that might help you understand and improve the world. The following organizations are offering a variety of virtual events. These are highlights: Mass Audubon is holding several online classes this fall, including Identifying Hawks in Flight (Wednesday, September 9, 7–8:30 PM, $20 member/ $24 nonmembers), Beginner Birdwatching (eight classes beginning Thursday, September 10, 7–8:30 PM, $100 members/ $120 nonmembers), and Nature Writing (two classes beginning Thursday, October [READ MORE]

25% Belmont Bike Path Design Presented

Bicycles and bike paths, Bike Paths, Newsletter, Sept/Oct 2020, Town Committee Meetings, Traffic, Transit Comments Off

Sep 032020

By Jarrod Goentzel Recent meetings offered a first look at the official 25% draft plan for the Belmont Community Path, which should include most significant features, and continued conversations with state leaders about how and when it can be built. On July 16, the Community Path Project Committee (CPPC) held a virtual public meeting for the design firm, where Nitsch Engineering presented draft 25% design drawings for the first two construction phases (bit.ly/20200716BCPpresentation). A video of the full meeting, including public questions and feedback, is available at Belmont Media Center (bit.ly/20200716BCPvideo). Phase 1 includes the rail trail from Brighton Street [READ MORE]

Affordable Housing on Belmont Hill

Construction and Housing, Sept/Oct 2020 Comments Off

Sep 032020

By Sumner Brown Affordable housing and Chapter 40B affordable housing are not exactly the same. My wife and I moved to Belmont from Cambridge while I was a graduate student. We rented. It was wonderful! We had wildlife, trees, and grass outside our windows. We had a parking spot. We bicycled to work and school. We liked the neighbors and the neighborhood. We lived in the lower part of a single-family house while the owner, Miss Bryant, an elderly woman, and her dog Zangy were upstairs. The building was of very high quality, but this was not luxurious housing. There [READ MORE]

Belmont Spreads Compost Townwide

Environment, Newsletter, Sept/Oct 2020, Town Committee Meetings Comments Off

Sep 032020

Town puts out RFP for preferred vendor program By Julie Wu Since its inception in 2018, Belmont Composts!, a project of the nonprofit Belmont Food Collaborative, which also runs the Farmers’ Market, has urged curbside composting to reduce Belmont’s trash, saving both town funds and the environment. Using online and in-person outreach and leveraging collective bargaining power to obtain bulk discount rates, Belmont Composts! has made it possible for more than 600 households to sign up with curbside compost companies. With approximately 10,000 households in Belmont, there is potential for much more participation. In October 2019, the cities of Newton [READ MORE]

The Litter Guy Cleans Up Belmont

Environment, Newsletter, Recycling, Sept/Oct 2020 Comments Off

Sep 032020

By Patrick O’Dougherty Photos by Mary Bradley As a boy, I became aware of seeing litter almost everywhere. Among the many things we did and learned about as Boy Scouts was public service. Picking up litter was one of our services. In the 1970s, a targeted ad campaign seemed to diminish the amount of litter in public spaces. Adulthood has taken me in many different directions, and litter wasn’t something about which I thought. About 20 years ago, I fell in love with cycling and I began to notice litter again. Lots of it. Apparently, litter is back. My memories [READ MORE]

Persistence Built Western Greenway

Environment, Open Space, Sept/Oct 2020 Comments Off

Sep 032020

By Roger Wrubel It began for me in 1995. I was working with a new grassroots organization, the McLean Open Space Alliance (MOSA), that formed to try to protect more than 200 acres of undeveloped land owned by McLean Hospital. The hospital campus occupied about 50 acres, and McLean owned about 180 additional acres of forests and meadow beyond that. During a period when hospital finances were challenging, Partners HealthCare, of which McLean was a part, wanted to sell its “surplus” property to developers. This created great controversy in Belmont. About a third of the town favored development, including the [READ MORE]

BCF Editor Publishes “The Truth About Baked Beans”

History, Newsletter, Sept/Oct 2020 Comments Off

Sep 032020

BCF Editor Publishes “The Truth About Baked Beans”

When she isn’t editing the BCF Newsletter, Meg Muckenhoupt writes about land use, the environment, gardening—and food. Her latest book, The Truth About Baked Beans, was released on August 30 by NYU Press. As the NYU Press states, “The Truth about Baked Beans explores New England’s culinary myths and reality through some of the region’s most famous foods: baked beans, brown bread, clams, cod and lobster, maple syrup, pies, and Yankee pot roast. From 1870 to 1920, the idea of New England food was presented in magazines, newspapers, and cookbooks, often through fictitious and sometimes bizarre origin stories touted as [READ MORE]

Commission Plans Lone Tree Hill Restoration

Environment, July-August 2020, McLean, Newsletter, Open Space, Plants Comments Off

Jun 302020

Commission Plans Lone Tree Hill Restoration

By Jeffrey North Belmont’s 119-acre Lone Tree Hill conservation area, like many recreational lands in the region, is plagued by the insidious creep of invasive plant species. The ecological value of this forest and meadow conservation land is depreciating due to a host of invasive plants that act like predators, harming native plants from oak trees to ferns, forbs, and shrubs. Asiatic bittersweet, for example, has enveloped oak, hickory, and pine trees, covering, killing, and felling a number of these tall trees that define the edge of the meadow and the land’s viewshed. Glossy buckthorn and honeysuckle are killing gray [READ MORE]

Community Path Progress Continues

Bicycles and bike paths, July-August 2020, Newsletter Comments Off

Jun 302020

By John Dieckmann and Jarrod Goentzel Progress on the Phase 1 design of the Belmont Community Path continued during the first half of 2020 despite coronavirus constraints. Nitsch Engineering, the design firm chosen by the town last fall, was able to hold a critical meeting in early March with Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) and MBTA officials at which the MBTA clarified its requirements for access to the Fitchburg Line on the north side of the tracks. The MBTA feedback from that meeting keeps the project on track for submission of 25% design documents to MassDOT this summer, following a [READ MORE]

Belmont Farmers’ Market Adapts to COVID-19

July-August 2020, Newsletter, Parking Comments Off

Jun 302020

Belmont Farmers’ Market Adapts to COVID-19

By Mary Bradley The Belmont Farmers’ Market, located in the municipal lot behind Belmont Center, will be open from June 4 to October 29 this year. Market hours are Thursday afternoons from 2 to 6:30 PM. The Belmont Food Collaborative spent the months prior to the June 4 opening on zoom calls, in email discussions, and in webinars with other farmers’ market organizers and state officials. Their mission was to incorporate the social distancing rules and regulations mandated by the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and Belmont’s Select Board and Board of Health into a [READ MORE]

Leaf Blowers Damage Environment and Health

Air Quality, Environment, July-August 2020, Newsletter, Plants Comments Off

Jun 302020

Leaf Blowers Damage Environment and Health

By Ian L. Todreas Each spring and fall, dozens of landscaping companies dispatch teams to yards throughout Belmont to cut, trim, mow, rake, and blow hedges, bushes, lawns, and beds into coffee-table-magazine standard perfection. But at what cost? These services are not inexpensive. Moreover, their hidden costs are significant. Gasoline-powered lawn equipment, such as leaf blowers, lawnmowers, weed whackers, and hedge trimmers, are notorious for emitting proportionally vast amounts of pollution—and making a heck of a lot of noise. Leaf blowers, in particular, deserve a close look. Unlike many other gasoline-powered lawn tools, for the amount of time they are [READ MORE]

Pandemic Bicycle Sales Surge

Bicycles and bike paths, July-August 2020, Newsletter Comments Off

Jun 302020

By Sumner Brown Ever since March 15, I have noticed fewer cars and more bicycles on Belmont’s roads. I also heard that bicycle stores have had unusual business activity. I called Peter Mooney, an owner of Wheelworks, the bicycle store in Waverley Square. Peter, how is business? Busy. That is Busy with a capital B. We are very busy. We are designated an essential business, for transportation. We have not missed a day. To maintain physical separation, we do not allow customers into our store. For service, customers call to make an appointment. Currently there is a ten-day wait for [READ MORE]

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