Last week, the TAB ran a pretty detailed story on the outreach event for the Mayor’s Mixed Use Task Force, held on July 29th.  It’s posted here.  Thanks to their team for giving the MUTF the attention it deserves.

One of the notes from the meeting gave me pause, though:

Residents present said it was important for building designs to be similar in each village so the city would look like one entity, rather than creating 13 separate “islands” independent from one another.

All the villages should look the same?   [Read more →]

UPDATE. Please note the earlier start time.

Mayor Setti Warren has created a task force, a group of more than 20 volunteers who are meeting over the summer to determine how the city should react to large real estate developments, especially three large parcels: Riverside Station, Chestnut Hill Square, and Needham/Oak Street.

The Mayor’s Mixed-Use Development Task Force is examining relationships between economic development, neighborhood and environmental impacts, and affects on housing, schools, and transportation. “Mixed-use” is a planning term that refers to the development of “housing, civic uses, and commercial uses, including retail, restaurants, and offices” in close proximity to take advantage of existing infrastructure and transportation networks. [Read more →]

The next meeting of the Mayor’s Mixed-Used Task Force, which is charged with clarifying the City’s vision for any future large, mixed-use developments, will be held on July 15th, at 6:30 pm, at City Hall.  The public is welcome.

(For an introduction to the MMUTF, go here.)

The 3rd meeting was yesterday, July 1. The agenda began with the topic of “Framing the Mixed Use Management Process” and a lengthy, initial discussion ensued about the approach this committee was charged with and will take. The main task is to create an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan, which will set forth non-regulatory policy on large scale, mixed use development and re-development.
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Here’s a quick heads-up on a project we’re developing with the Chamber of Commerce.

We want to find opportunities to improve our village centers, and have fun in the process. We’re going to run scavenger hunts in our villages’ business districts, starting this fall. Teams will go out with cameras and work through a list of challenges like:

• Photograph a GREAT window display
• Find a senior citizen walking in the village
• Find a block of metered parking spots that are all taken
• Find empty parking spots in a private lot that would probably be used if it were allowed

[Read more →]

You may have thought once or twice before, “Why do developers do our planning for us?  They tell us what they want, and we react.  Why don’t we have our own vision?”

Mayor Warren has convened a committee to create that vision–the Comprehensive Plan Mixed Use Task Force (MUTF). The group is led by the rightly esteemed Phil Herr, who led the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee that gave us our 2007 Plan.

[NOTE:  Two Newton Villagers (Andrea Kelley and John Pears) are serving on the MUTF.  As updates on the MUTF work are available, we will post them here.]

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