Construction and Housing – Page 2 – Belmont Citizens Forum

Affordable Housing: A Primer

Construction and Housing, July-August 2022, Newsletter Comments Off

Jun 212022

By Tomi Olsen The Belmont Housing Trust (BHT) is committed to enhancing Belmont residents’ knowledge of affordable housing. We would like to define some terminology to make it clearer when we talk to the community about the need for affordable housing and ways to accomplish it. The BHA and the BHT There is often confusion about the difference between the Belmont Housing Trust and the Belmont Housing Authority (BHA). Each is a distinct organization. Housing trusts are typically nonprofit organizations while housing authorities are state agencies. The BHT, like other housing trusts in the Commonwealth, is a nonprofit corporation (501c3) [READ MORE]

Belmont Hill School Plans To Pave Woodlands

Construction and Housing, Environment, July-August 2022 Comments Off

Jun 202022

Belmont Hill School Plans To Pave Woodlands

By Justin Roe Belmont Hill School has always held itself out to be a good neighbor and a responsible member of our community. The Belmont Hill School Sustainability Club is proud to be “Mindful of the rising importance of promoting environmentally sustainable practices and environmental stewardship in our world today and in the future . . . to reduce our school’s impact on the environment and educate faculty and students alike about environmental issues in areas such as energy consumption, waste disposal, and climate change.” These are inspiring words. Nevertheless, Belmont Hill School has recently revealed plans to pave over [READ MORE]

Belmont Needs More Affordable Housing

Construction and Housing, May/June 2022, Newsletter Comments Off

May 052022

By Tomi Olson and Rachel Heller Belmont has great schools, restaurants, and local businesses and is located near job centers in Boston, Cambridge, and the MetroWest area. The Boston area’s burgeoning life sciences industry alone is projected to create up to 40,000 new jobs by 2024, but our region’s economic engine is hampered by a lack of housing near jobs—and Belmont’s limited housing supply is part of that problem. Population growth, together with housing production that hasn’t kept pace, has made housing shortages in appealing parts of the country like ours front-page news. Our region builds much less housing every [READ MORE]

CPC Recommends Funds for Seven Projects

Construction and Housing, Environment, Historic Preservation, March/April 2022, Newsletter, Open Space Comments Off

Mar 032022

By Juliet Jenkins The Belmont Community Preservation Committee (CPC) voted to recommend funding seven projects totaling $2,058,554 for FY 2023, to be voted on at the annual Town Meeting, through the Community Preservation Act (CPA) current funding round. Following the CPC’s public hearing and vote on December 8, 2021, the proposed projects were filed with the Belmont Town Clerk and set for voting by Town Meeting in May 2022. Projects supported with CPA funding must create or preserve affordable housing, historic resources, open space, or recreational facilities. All CPA proposals are developed and created by Belmontonians, and each project directly [READ MORE]

Clean Energy Policy Needs to be Equitable

Climate Change, Construction and Housing, Newsletter, November-December 2021, Solar Power Comments Off

Oct 292021

Clean Energy Policy Needs to be Equitable

By Aditya Jain As a high school intern with State Representative David Rogers’ office in the summer of 2020, I learned about the legislative process through Massachusetts Bill S9, the Climate Roadmap bill, which was signed into law in March 2021. During the summer of 2021, I researched equity in Massachusetts clean energy policies, interviewing experts in Massachusetts policies on clean energy access, technology, and workforce trends. What is Environmental Justice? The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines environmental justice as the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, [READ MORE]

Four Projects Proposed for CPA Funds

Bicycles and bike paths, Bike Paths, Construction and Housing, May-June 2021, Newsletter Comments Off

May 042021

By Elizabeth Harmer Dionne Belmont’s Community Preservation Committee (CPC) has recommended the following projects to Town Meeting for Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding in FY2022. Phase I Consulting Services for Payson Park Renovation Organization: Friends of Payson Park (Linda Oates, Susanne Croy, Jay Marcotte) CPA Category: Recreation Amount requested: $35,000 This is the first step in renovating Payson Park, which suffers from inadequate access, crumbling infrastructure, and haphazard layout. Phase I involves an assessment of existing site conditions, neighborhood consultation and feedback, a conceptual design, and a proposed budget for construction costs. Due to changes implemented by the CPC in [READ MORE]

Building Booms on Belmont’s Border

Bicycles and bike paths, Bike Paths, Construction and Housing, January 2021, Newsletter, Open Space, Traffic, Transit Comments Off

Dec 302020

By Meg Muckenhoupt Since aggressively upzoning the Alewife area a decade ago, Cambridge has permitted hundreds of thousands of square feet of new development in the Quadrangle neighborhood adjacent to Belmont, and bordered by Fresh Pond Parkway, Fitchburg line railroad tracks—and Concord Avenue. Now, even more development could solve some long-standing transportation issues, or it could make getting out of Belmont or traveling around the entire Fresh Pond area even more difficult. Why build in the Quadrangle now? Unlike the rest of Cambridge, the Quadrangle has a history of sparse development. Originally one of the lowest-lying areas of the Mystic [READ MORE]

Letter to the Editor: Affordable Housing

Construction and Housing, Newsletter, November 2020 Comments Off

Nov 082020

To the Editor: Overall, it’s positive that the Belmont Citizens Forum devoted two articles to the topic of affordable housing in Belmont in the September/October Newsletter. However, it was disappointing that the picture of 40B was incomplete, and neither article acknowledged the benefits of increasing the stock of housing—both affordable and market rate—including social, racial, and economic benefits for the residents of Belmont and the region. “How Affordable Housing Works in Belmont,” by Meg Muckenhoupt, incorrectly states the townhome number of the 91 Beatrice Circle site development as 32. The developer originally proposed 16 units and then revised it to [READ MORE]

Energy Retrofit Keeps Saving after 10 Years

Construction and Housing, Newsletter, November 2020, Solar Power Comments Off

Nov 062020

Energy Retrofit Keeps Saving after 10 Years

By Will Browsberger A little over 10 years ago, my wife and I proposed to my parents that we downsize into a two-family house together and make it as energy efficient as possible. (See “Deep Energy Retrofit Shrinks Utility Bills,” Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter, September 2010.) This is a story of four experiments. First, the living arrangement has worked out very well for all of us—we can be helpful in little ways to my parents and we feel very fortunate to see them more. Our only wish is that we had made the decision when the kids were younger. Second, [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]

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]

Jeanne Widmer’s Ode to a Town’s Village

Construction and Housing, Historic Preservation, July-August 2020, Newsletter Comments Off

Jun 302020

Belmont resident Jeanne Widmer had two photography exhibitions featuring the Cushing Square development scheduled for this spring. The first, at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The second, scheduled at Belmont’s Beech Street Center, was cancelled outright. Artist’s Statement Ode to a Town’s Village was inspired almost three years ago when I first started taking pictures of a sprawling three- and four-story development in a relatively small, mostly single-story village in Belmont. While the demolished area was in serious need of upgrading, the massive scale, snail-like progress, and disruption of the [READ MORE]

Cushing Square: What Did We Learn?

Construction and Housing, July-August 2020, Newsletter, Parking, Town Committee Meetings, Traffic 2 Responses »

Jun 302020

By Meg Muckenhoupt and Virginia Jordan The Bradford development in Cushing Square disrupted Belmont’s streets, sidewalks, planning, and politics, and stressed local businesses over the last decade. Town Meeting adopted a new overlay district in 2006 to channel development and provide the Planning Board with tools to control the scale and look of Cushing Village, now the Bradford, a three-building project comprising 38,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, 112 residential units on upper floors, and 201 parking spaces. In the past 14 years, the town has learned some lessons about managing large construction projects—and how large construction projects affect [READ MORE]

How the Community Preservation Act Works

Construction and Housing, Environment, Historic Preservation, May/June 2020, Newsletter, Town Committee Meetings Comments Off

May 032020

How the Community Preservation Act Works

Changes in Store for Future Planning, Town Meeting Votes By Elizabeth Harmer Dionne The CPA up to now In November 2010, 51% of Belmont voters adopted the Community Preservation Act (CPA), a state statute which allows communities to dedicate funds to acquiring and preserving open space and recreation land, historic resources, and affordable housing. Belmont property owners now pay a surcharge of 1.5% on the town’s annual real estate tax levy; residents who qualify as having low to moderate income according to state guidelines can apply through the Assessors Office for a full CPA surcharge exemption. Funds raised from this [READ MORE]

Arlington Group Opposes Mugar Site Plans

Construction and Housing, Environment, March/April 2020, Newsletter, Stormwater, Water Quality Comments Off

Mar 022020

Arlington Group Opposes Mugar Site Plans

By Meg Muckenhoupt The Mugar wetlands are 17.7 acres of open land in East Arlington. Oaktree Development has proposed constructing a 207-unit apartment complex and six duplex townhouses on this site, to be renamed Thorndike Place. The Coalition to Save the Mugar Wetlands opposes building on the site, which is bordered by Route 2, Thorndike Field, and Dorothy, Edith, and Burch Streets. The following interview with Clarissa Rowe, one of the founders of the Coalition to Save the Mugar Wetlands, was edited for length and clarity. Why is the Mugar site important? I think the reason Arlington and Belmont residents [READ MORE]

20 Years of Historic Preservation

Construction and Housing, Historic Preservation, History, January 2020, Newsletter Comments Off

Jan 062020

By Sharon Vanderslice In the late summer of 1999, a dozen or so Belmont residents met in Town Meeting member Sue Bass’s dining room on Concord Avenue to discuss ways to increase transparency in our local government and protect the small-town atmosphere that had drawn us to Belmont in the first place. We had just lost a battle to keep out a massive development proposed by Partners Healthcare on the campus of McLean Hospital. This forward-thinking psychiatric institution was originally designed to offer patients a calm, nature-based space in which to heal. With the advent of pharmaceutical treatments, McLean’s board [READ MORE]

Litigation Was Not in the 20 Year Plan

Bike Paths, Board of Selectmen, Construction and Housing, Environment, January 2020, Newsletter, Parking Comments Off

Jan 062020

By Sue Bass Litigation was not the plan when we considered forming what became the Belmont Citizens Forum. McLean Hospital blindsided us by filing for a Massachusetts Land Court declaratory judgment that the rezoning of its land was not “illegal contract zoning.” The initial BCF board members—none of whom were lawyers—had never heard of contract zoning, much less that it might be illegal. It turned out that Belmont’s deal met the textbook definition of contract zoning. The courts agreed but the Appeals Court ruled in November 2002 that Belmont’s contract was not illegal. Meanwhile, in June 2001, 20 Belmont residents [READ MORE]

HeatSmart Belmont: Electrifying Home Heating and Cooling

Air Quality, Construction and Housing, July-Aug 2019 Comments Off

Jul 162019

HeatSmart Belmont: Electrifying Home Heating and Cooling

By James Booth Heating buildings by burning fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas accounts for almost half of Belmont’s climate-warming CO2 emissions. A key strategy in Belmont’s Climate Action Roadmap is switching to carbon-free electricity as a pathway to zero emissions. So how can one efficiently heat a building using electricity? The answer is heat pumps. Heat pumps work by moving heat from one place to another, much like a refrigerator or air conditioner that can also operate in reverse, able to heat in winter and cool in summer. Traditional electrical baseboard heaters or other “resistance” systems convert [READ MORE]

New Belmont School Leads Way with Zero Net Energy

Construction and Housing, Environment, July-Aug 2019 Comments Off

Jul 162019

New Belmont School Leads Way with Zero Net Energy

By Jacob Knowles The latest climate science indicates that we must reverse the historic trend of emissions escalation and begin actively extracting CO2 from the atmosphere. Energy consumption by buildings represents 28 percent of annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which means that zero net energy (ZNE) buildings are a core component of achieving a livable climate. On the bright side, there has been exponential growth in ZNE buildings, with a 700 percent increase between 2012 and 2019 in completed and emerging ZNE buildings in the US and Canada, as documented by the New Buildings Institute. This growth is happening [READ MORE]

May/June 2019 Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter & PDF

BCF Events, Construction and Housing, Environment, Lone Tree Hill, May/June 2019, Newsletter, Open Space, Plants, Recycling, Traffic, Volunteer, Water Quality Comments Off

May 062019

View or download the May/June 2019 issue as a color PDF here, or read single articles below. Articles in this issue: New Plans for McLean Land Density is key issue as town considers proposals for two McLean campus parcels By Sue Bass Twenty years ago, Belmont voted to allow development on McLean Hospital land on Belmont Hill. Now McLean is coming back to the town with new proposals for two parcels of land that are still undeveloped. Read more. Composting in Belmont: Breaking it Down By Mary Bradley Composting is no longer just a backyard hobby for the ardent gardener. [READ MORE]

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