Category — West Newton

The Newton Corner Neighborhood Association will discuss proposed new signage at the Newton Corner Rotary (Exit 17) and West Newton Square (Exit 16) at its next meeting. This discussion follows a city engineer’s presentation on the proposed signage improvements.

The meeting’s agenda will also include discussion of potential improvements along the MBTA’s 57 bus route, which is part of its Key Routes program. Key Routes have higher frequency and longer spans of service than local routes. (More background on Key Routes.)

The neighborhood association will meet in the old Newton Corner Library, 126 Vernon Street. For more information, please contact David Koses, 617.796.1133, dkoses@newtonma.gov.

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.

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 the direction of Mayor Setti Warren, NewtonSERVES 2011 will focus more attention on projects to benefit the public spaces we share in our village centers.

The city’s annual day of community service has traditionally included many volunteer projects for schools, playgrounds, parks, senior centers, nursing homes, and nonprofit organizations. In 2010, several NewtonSERVES projects focused on village centers, including Newton Centre T Station work by the Garden City Preservation Society and parks in Newtonville and West Newton organized by Newton Villages.

Organizers hope NewtonSERVES 2011, scheduled for Sunday, May 15, 2011, will include even more village center projects.

Do you know a village center space that would benefit from the help of volunteers this spring? If so, please email me. I am working with two other NewtonSERVES volunteers to compile the list of projects. Please spread the word.

Artitudes 1286 Washington St., West Newton Square Gregg DiBiaso & Valerie Miller of West Newton opened Artitudes, a gallery of fine American Crafts & Jewelry, in 2004. They have three employees, plus seasonal help.

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