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Brookline: A tale of two church projects
By adamg on Mon, 04/12/2010 - 8:10am
John Carroll, who lives in Brookline Village, wonders why elected officials didn't do much to stop a Borg cube from landing on Harvard Street while they are battling to do something about a proposed Mormon church off Rte. 9 in leafy Fisher Hill:
So: Fisher Hill gets to pick and choose but Brookline Village gets stuck with the Horror on Harvard Street?
Gotta ask: Is more than somebody in Brookline government getting greased here?
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Comments
What, exactly, is the premise
What, exactly, is the premise here? That local government ought to use zoning laws to enforce good architectural taste?
The box is amazingly ugly. It will look outdated in a decade. But it's the right of the church to make that mistake - and it's not as if Harvard Street is a boulevard of quaint charm and architectural gems that has somehow been despoiled. The building fits the scale of its environs, and that's about the most that zoning can accomplish.
The real scandal here isn't zoning boards doing too little, but rather, too much. The opposition to the Mormon chapel is typical - it's couched in legalistic concerns about lot size, area ratios, parking, and traffic, but it boils down to NIMBY. The neighbors don't like the idea of traffic. But it's on Route 9. Forcing the construction of 150 parking spaces is understandable, if perhaps excessive. The rest of the concerns should be dismissed out of hand. A church is not a house; it can fill a lot without ruining the neighborhood. To the contrary - religious institutions tend to strengthen neighborhoods, serve as loci of community service, and attract new residents willing to pay a premium for proximity. Brookline's local officials are simply pandering to a handful of nearby neighbors who feel passionately enough about this issue that it will determine their votes and contributions, whereas most of the rest of the town's residents don't feel particularly strongly. If they actually had the best interests of the town as a whole at heart, they'd be working to help smooth the waters and ensure the prompt construction of a community enhancement.
a good way to contribute to the community
Actually, most helpful would be if the church would pay taxes since local residents end up footing the bill for the loss of property tax revenue when non-profits buy up valuable land.
abutters have legal rights
I think if you read over your own statement you will find certain extremist sections in there. Abutters have greater legal rights than those who live far away from proposed development, obviously because they have a greater chance to be harmed. Would you prefer to do away with this standard?
The idea that we should hurt one person out of ten so the other nine have more convenience is one of a bygone era, and in practice the pain was never evenly dispensed. It wound up being exercised on people who had the least financial power to resist. Density-uber-alles is certainly one philosophy, but maybe looking at the whole built environment would lead you to a different conclusion.
I get a real chuckle out of
I get a real chuckle out of the notion that building a church in Brookline constitutes the imposition of pain on people with "the least financial power to resist."
Your construction of this problem suggests that no development ought be allowed to proceed if anyone is negatively affected. It is a recipe for destructive stasis. It is, moreover, pernicious in all manner of ways. For example, it tends to ratify the current religious and social makeup of our communities. Those denominations fortunate enough to have erected their houses of worship before the imposition of draconian zoning laws may gather freely and worship in peace; the rest should either content themselves with something too small for their needs, or better yet, go somewhere else.
I'm not suggesting that abutters have no legitimate standing. I am, however, perfectly willing to suggest that their standing is generally exaggerated. There's a review process in place. But in cases such as this where the abutters have concentrated financial and political power, they are often able to augment the review process, to resist its findings, and to otherwise enlarge their input. The result is that building in affluent and politically active communities is extraordinarily onerous, even for relatively benign structures like a house of worship. If this had been an affordable housing development or a treatment facility, I shudder to think what the response might have been.
Attitudes like yours, I regret to say, reinforce social divisions, harm the development and well-being of communities, contribute to sprawl on the one side and to ghettoization on the other, and generally undermine the ability of communities to adapt to the changing needs of their residents and their areas. That you nevertheless manage to wrap yourself in a cloak of self-righteous indignation is remarkable.
If you want to come on here and announce to the world that you paid for your property, and you're willing to defend your perceived property rights whatever the negative impacts upon others, go right ahead. Just don't accuse the rest of us of siding with the powerful against the people. I don't need your projection.
One point to rebut here.
I agree with some of what you are saying but, you use the term "relatively benign structures like a house of worship".
UM.. The last Mormon temple built in the area is clearly visible from 10 miles away (night or day). That doesn't qualify as benign.
And the aforementioned "bunker" on Harvard St. in Brookline looks like it came from a video game. I will admit there are parts of it I like, but it's about as out of place as possible.
Mormon temples are different from Mormon churches
I assume you are referring to the Mormon Temple on Belmont Hill, which is intended to be monumental and is a very different thing from a local Mormon church. They serve different religious purposes.
Bring me my cloak of righteous indignation
It's clear that you are a single-issue zealot. I can only respond that if you feel your position is received unfairly, you only have to look at the history of truly hateful buildings foisted on us in the name of community well-being to understand why there is so little trust of your side.
Brookline Church
What about the other huge church and school on the same road? And who are these people who don't have the financial means to resist? Have you seen the houses in that neighborhood? And who would be "hurt" by a chapel being built surrounded by trees, with a hidden parking structure? No one would be "hurt" unless a house fell on them... or in this case, a chapel.
Zee Bunker..
I go past both of these sites on a regular basis.
First, did the architect for the Korean Church on Harvard St. even visit the site? It's completely out of place, as if all the creator wanted was to showcase his vision and damn the surroundings. All I can think of when I pass by is bunker in Berlin. Though the public school just north on Harvard is one of those monolithic concrete monuments to modernism - maybe he was riffing off of that.?.?
As for the Mormon "issue"... Well it's a old, established, wealthy neighborhood and I'm not surprised that the neighborhood is starting to tell the Zoning Board how they feel. NIMBY or not, it's a big project with a lot of local impact. I'm used to the Boston Building Dept and how the neighborhood can be shown one plan for approval and the contractor can then make "adjustments" without any obvious oversight.