Posts from — December 2010

Good news in this week’s Newton Tab: Our city’s free weekly newspaper is once again publishing profiles of local business people and their enterprises.

See yesterday’s “Q and A with Newton’s new Gymnasium general manager.”

If you’ve read enough stories about last year’s fatal car accidents and this year’s snow shoveling ordinance, check out this new — and hopefully weekly — feature in the Newton Tab or read some of our Village Business Profiles.

I just finished an imminently readable book that examines how cities have evolved over the past century and considers how the ideas of the past (some good, some bad) may help not only architects, planners, and politicians, but merchants, residents, and other lay readers like me to think about what we want out of our urban spaces.

The book is Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities by Witold Rybczynski, a writer, architectural critic, and professor of urbanism and real estate at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Rather than attempt to summarize or review this book, let me point you to a recent review in the Wall Street Journal by Francis Morrone who writes:

Witold Rybczynski asks what the differences are between “the kind of cities that Americans want” and the ones the future will require and how the two might be reconciled. Staking his ground between the libertarians and the central-planning scolds, Mr. Rybczynksi points toward existing cities that serve as models. He also writes with disarming ease: Few authors today pack so much material into a book that can be pleasurably read in a single sitting.

The Newton Free Library has a copy, but check the the Minuteman Library Network for availability. Happy reading.

The City of Newton’s planning department plans to track LEED-certified construction within the city. If you know of a building that has received or is intending to receive LEED Certification, please email Alexandra Ananth or call her at (617) 796.1121.

According to the U.S. Green Building Council, only three projects in Newton have been LEED-certified to date:

1. The headquarters of MOCA Systems (silver) in Newton Corner,
2. A renovation of the offices of Chapman Construction/Design (platinum) in Newton Highlands
3. The Newton Centre branch of Wainwright Bank (gold)

[Read more →]

It’s a simple fact: Restaurants and pubs in our city’s village centers need seats for their customers.

For these business owners, each seat means revenue. Unfortunately, as we’ve written before, our antiquated city’s zoning laws restrict restaurant seating based on the availability of off-street parking, an approach that (1) does not work well in village centers where off-street parking may not exist, and (2) places an unfair burden on restaurants. Banks get off comparatively easy.

Background: Four reasons these parking requirements need updating.

In 2010, aldermen have approved “parking waivers” for Panera Bread, Bill’s Pizza, b street (formerly Pie), and the Deluxe Station Diner in Newton Centre, and for Lumiere in West Newton — a tacit acknowledgment that seating restrictions on village center restaurants are not in the city’s best interest.

At a public hearing scheduled for January 11, 2011, representatives of West Newton’s Cherry Tree Pub will present their case for increasing the pub’s number of seats from 48 to 76, which will require 16 of the 24 aldermen to vote in support of a “parking waiver” of three spaces.

To show your support for our village center restaurants, please consider writing to your aldermen, come the the public hearing in January, or at least stop by the Cherry Tree and hoist a pint.

Kudos today go to the Newton Tab for profiling Peter Lieberman, owner of Centre Ski & Bike which recently opened in its new location at 1239 Washington Street in West Newton.

If you read the newspaper’s Business Owner Q & A online, please comment on the story and let them know how much you appreciate coverage of the merchants who make Newton a great place to live.

At a special meeting tonight, Newton’s Real Property Reuse Committee will vote whether to declare the Austin Street municipal parking lot in Newtonville surplus.

The vote is the sixth of some 13 steps the city must take if it wishes to make the property available for redevelopment. At the end of the process, the property could be put up for sale or leased to a developer.

The Austin Street lot, situated across the street from the Newtonville Shaw’s, measures just between 60,000 and 75,000 square feet of land and currently houses 85 parking spaces. According to the city and recent studies by citizen volunteers who formed the Housing Plan Initiative (HAPI), the lot is underutilized. [Read more →]