Hey, there! Log in / Register
Can residents block development near Jamaica Pond?
By adamg on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 6:27pm
The Friends of Jamaica Pond hold a meeting on Wednesday to figure out ways to keep 12.5 acres of land on Hellenic Hill from ever being developed - possibly by convincing state and city officials to buy the land.
Earlier this year, Hellenic College, which owns the land, listed it for sale. The college took the listing down, but said it is still thinking about selling off the land.
The Friends say keeping the land wooded is vital because of the pond's history, its continued designation as an emergency water source for the city and because "Jamaica Pond Park is used daily by thousands of people to revitalize their physical, mental and spiritual health."
The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the First Church in Jamaica Plain, Eliot and Centre streets.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Why don't the friends buy it?
If there are enough of them, they can each own a small chunk. Then all agree through some legal contract to not develop it.
It's different
It's different when it's your own land...
Because
Some asshole with deeper pockets will outbid them and then try to sell it back to them for more, profiting off taxpayers, or in this case a small, local group.
It's been happening more and more with municipalities, so much so they're not fond of announcing interest in things they want to purchase, which obviously pisses of residents who don't want to fund studies on secret prospects.
When I saw the poster titled,
When I saw the poster titled, "Save Jamaica Pond" I thought someone was trying to fill it in. Of course this is pious hyperbole, the pond will be fine. What this is really about is getting other people in the city and state to help preserve the bucolic backdrop as folks walk the pond or drive by.
In this economic climate, I don't think so.
Assuming that the state and city did have the money, and assuming that city and state employees had not been laid off in huge numbers and assuming that there hadn't been deep cuts to government services on local and state levels - aren't there other neighborhoods or other municipalities that could use those funds to work towards having a fraction of the green space that Jamaica Plain already enjoys?
Of course those assumptions don't in anyway reflect our realities. If we wanted to use the money for environmental uses, we could invest the monies in improved public transit.
Does anyone recall, didn't Hellenic College purchase the land just a few years back to prevent it from being developed? Was this purchase in response to a similar "save the pond" effort? Have there been significant changes in the Colleges financial situation?
Jamaica Plain residents would be smarter to try to steer the development in a way that would minimize it's effect to the parkland around the pond. Steering the development would also be an opportunity to link the permitting for the development to provide more affordable housing.
why not
why not just build a mall? that way you dont need to go all the way to backbay to get your new ipads
Wouldn't it be interesting if the only potential buyer
Wouldn't it be interesting if the only potential buyer who would retain the property as open space turned out to be...
the Town of Brookline? But only on the condition that Boston cede it the necessary land to make it contiguous with the rest of the town and the Pond?
After all, it has been buying up parkland assets lately, and is probably in better fiscal shape than both the Commonwealth and the City. There is also plenty of precedent for municipalities owning open space assets in other municipalities (e.g., the Cambridge Reservoir in Waltham/Lincoln).
After all, getting access to Jamaica Pond would be like restoring the access to the Charles before the Comm. Ave. strip was ceded to Boston.
Cue rightous City resident outrage, and thoughful comments from some of our better informed (than I) commentariat w/r/t the era of annexation.
First, the idea that the city
First, the idea that the city of Boston is going to use Jamaica Pond as a water source is ridiculous. The city would suck down the pond in a day, and that's if the pipes were actually there to access it.
Personally, I see this as over-reaching by the Friends group. What's the problem - there's no room for more rich and semi-rich around the pond? Quincy Shaw lived along the pond, and he was probably the richest man in the commonwealth. The condos along Pond st were going for over a million dollars as I recall. It's not like they'd build three deckers up there.
Jamaica Pond is not some pristine wilderness - it's an urban pond surrounded by a ribbon of parkland. If I was walking around the park - and I do - a few roofs peeking through the trees wouldn't bother me a bit. As to water quality - it's an urban pond, and it's set up to take run-off. It was 'polluted' over 100 years ago with nasty algae blooms, and it's probably cleaner now.
Of course, we could always take those homes along the Jamaicaway by eminent domain and tear them down and plant orchards on the land. That would be cool. It would also take away the property of the Friend's group, so I doubt that will be happening any time soon.
Were you not here in May 2010?
Spot Pond, Chestnut Hill Reservoir, and Sudbury Aquaduct were all put into use to cover Boston's water needs while the Weston Aquaduct pipe was repaired. Jamaica Pond isn't much smaller than Chestnut Hill Reservoir. It's not unbelievable to think it could be used as one of Boston's water sources on an emergency basis.
The city legally retains
The city legally retains rights to use the water. The original pipes were wood logs, and many are now gone, so the city would have to run new pipe. There are no pumps, so the water could only run downhill to Boston proper, the South End and lower Roxbury. Jamaica Pond couldn't even supply Jamaica Plain. And the original pipe could only drain Jamaica Pond a few feet - they didn't want it lowering the pond too far. So you'd never get a lot of water out of it.
Urban parks are meant to interact witih urban features
Agree completely with this. One of the things I love about Peter's Hill is the way you can walk through a section, feeling completely removed from the city, then turn a corner and suddenly see a spectacular city-scape bellow. It is not harmful, it is a plus.
Comprehensive Land Use Planning, Anyone
This is what happens when there is no meaningful planning: "threat" and "response" and so on.
If people really want to preserve certain pieces of land for this or that, they need to inventory what is there, determine what is needed, and formulate zoning that matters and a master plan for acquiring "critical" parcels in the future.
Then again, no "person speaking for the neighborhood" will get elected to whatever higher office if there isn't always a development emergency to panic about.
In this case, 'comprehensive
In this case, 'comprehensive land use planning' would mean "You can't use your land at all, ever." That's not planning - it's taking. If everyone who signed on for such 'planning' for this land would agree to lose there own property as well, I'd be more impressed.
whoah, slow down.... let your
whoah, slow down.... let your fingers catch up to your emotions.
They are asking certain authorities to purchase the land. No one's coming for your prop'ty gramps, just calmly put the squirrel gun back down please
Two courses of action
I think you need to slow down. Read the posts again.
Swrrly mentioned two courses of action - planning (or zoning) and acquiring.
NotWhitey went down the "planning" path and made a point that you can't just change the zoning of a piece of land so that it doesn't get developed. I agree with that. A private party owns a piece of land worth $X million. Government cannot simply change the zoning so that the land is essentially worthless to a buyer. The owner would have to be compensated.
You jumped on NotWhitey for something he didn't even do.
Another popular possibility is to buy the development rights to the property. It's cheaper than outright purchase and accomplishes what most people want.
Planning vs. Panic
No, you don't just change the zoning to kill a specific development right now. That's classic Mass backward thinking - and that is the sort of sillyness that is keeping housing unaffordable and allows all the little fifedoms to panic and grandstand and snobzone with impunity.
What "comprehensive land use planning" means is that zoning in certain areas is implemented to acheive specific planning goals for the good of the larger community - note the word "comprehensive". You do this AHEAD of any threats - note "planning". Then you make it stick with zoning that must be changed - instead of the usual "neighborhood panicking because CHANGE IS SCARY!!!!" that this area is famous for. Comprehensive land use planning also BENEFITS DEVELOPERS, because they know EXACTLY what they can do and know that it can't be derailed by grandstanding BANANAS or those who want a payoff to stop filing frivilous appeals and baseless lawsuits.
Example: a property I own in another city was formerly zoned for much higher density - I could have sold it for a 12-unit apartment building. However, the way things work in Far Far Away is that if you are in that neighborhood and think that isn't what is good and right, you don't fight it project by project (because you have no legal standing to do so, anyway). Instead you change the zoning!! Which is what was done about seven years ago - signatures were gathered, petitions were filed based on the current conditions (there were already a lot of apartment blocks as infill in an area of historic victorian houses), and now that property is limited to three units. I know this up front as the new owner, and can either develop or sell the property accordingly without worrying about being sued into submission or required to provide trinkets and libeled/pilloried and otherwise accused of ruining the whole world!
What NotWhitey is assuming about "comprehensive land use planning" isn't comprehensive, nor is it planning. All he is describing is yet another piecemeal reactionary tactic. It is a fundamental failure to understand what either of those words means that prevents sane development and land use in this area.
Good for the goose
I'm glad there is a movement to block development on private land next to the Pond. I wonder whether the Save the Pond activists will join together with the Whose Foods Coalition, who are also trying to block development on private land to protect a valuable resource, namely the economic and racial diversity of JP. I'm waiting to hear the same "you can't get involved in private land deal" arguments used by pro-Whole Foods residents to critique the Save the Pond movement.
At this point, there is no
At this point, there is no "deal," so talking about how to preserve Hellenic Hill in completely appropriate.
In the case of Whole Foods, Knapp Foods decided to conduct a secret bidding process that Whole Foods won, and it took Whole Foods' money and ran. Had Knapp Foods announced publicly its plans to close Hi Lo before it actually closed Hi Lo, we could have had a discussion about what should replace the old grocery store. Maybe that would have influenced the Knapp brothers to choose a different tenant. Maybe that would have encouraged a different company to step forward and bid for the lease. But the Whole Foods lease is a done deal and because there's no change of use of the building, no permits or variances are required. In these circumstances, it's difficult to see where the community and government agencies can have much influence over the lease.
In this situation, in contrast, any developer buying Hellenic Hill would have to get permits to build on this woodland. There will be all kinds of public hoops to jump through. Given the very different facts here, I don't see how the arguments in favor of Whole Foods requires accepting whatever some unidentified developer plans for Hellenic Hill or prevents the community from acting to stop any development there, before there is a deal.
What permits are needed?
What permits are needed? They'd only need permits if they want to violate zoning regulations and build more units than the land is zoned for. Look at the corner of Pond and Burroughs sts. - they were able to build a multi-unit condo development directly overlooking the pond. Also the corner of Pond st at the lights - they just condo-ized that building. This is up on Prince st. behind the trees of the park along Parkman Drive. Far less intrusive than anything on Pond st.
Zoning?
If they put a road (or roads) in, won't they have to go before the zoning board? Or does Boston not have the same sort of subdivision regulations as the rest of the state? And no, not trying to be snarky here, I don't know.
I think it depends
If they are going to build in accordance with current zoning - they need permits - but the city can't deny them without good cause unless they need a variance or zoning change (eg - a negative environmental review that would probably be part of the approval process for a large project). Roads and other issues may still have to go before zoning - but as long as you comply with the existing law, the approvals can't be unreasonably witheld (perfect example is Druker's building on the corner of Boylston and Arlington - sailed through the approval process - only hold-up is that it's big enough that an architectural board has to approve the design - I think that's done and now he's only waiting for the financing and leasing markets to recover).
The only other possible limitation that I know of would be if the project fell under article 80 - which I think is 50,000 sf or greater of space - not sure if that applies if they put up, for example, 5 developments of 12 townhouse clusters at 3000 sf per townhouse. Article 80 is typically the review process for large buildings downtown and is what gives the community a larger say in what gets developed.
Bottom line -my understanding is that if you comply with existing zoning - there's very little anyone can do to stop you - which is one reason the city maintains prohibitively low zoning throughout the city so you have to go through them to get anything done.
Whatever goes in here will be
Whatever goes in here will be million dollar units. It's not like they'll want to run roads through the side of the hill and build three deckers (not trying to be snarky, just sayin.' I don't think driveways to luxury condos need special permits.
Take a look at a satellite pic of the Perkins st side of the pond - they filled in the old Quincy Shaw and Perkins estates with multiple condo buildings. You can't even see them from the pond. The Hellenic land is on a hill, so you'll see the buildings to some degree. That's what this is all about - seeing some roofs from the pond.
Secret Bidding Process?
Is that the new term for renting your property? Knapp Foods didn't owe you or anyone else a look into their perfectly legal business dealings.
Secret or Confidential
That same sort of "secrecy" also prevents neighbors from raising objections intended to keep out the "wrong sort of people".
It isn't secret - it is confidential, and it is required when seeking a tenant with a conforming business. Supermarket in, supermarket out. Tough.
A reach...
So Hi-Lo was (or the absence of Whole Foods is) to the economic and racial diversity of JP what this private land, currently green space, is to the semi-bucolic feel around Jamaica Pond? That is a stretch.
They do it in Maine, why not here?
There are a group of green minded people from Brookline, Chestnut Hill and Boston who have spent a lot of time and money to preserve woodlands in Maine and New Hampshire. Why not here?
What does the Trustees of Reservations have to say? Other conservation groups? Audubon? This is what they do. Raise money and buy the land. Or get the owners to donate it for a big tax break.