On Brookline

Remember when the Brookline Selectmen allowed the town’s chief engineer to negotiate a debilitating fee increase on the local farmer’s market? And remember how Selectman’s Chair (and Brookline PAX board member) Gil Hoy dismissed the fee increase as “rumor” (even though it had been memorialized in a document)?
Remember that farmer’s market debacle?
While reading the [...]

More on the denied building permit (after initial plan review) for the Town and Boston Archdiocese’s housing project at the former St. Aidan’s Church [see previous post].
The manner of egress is, shall we say, a significant consideration under the state building code. We kind of like to be sure that people can get out [...]

 
“God save her please;
She’s nailed her knees to some drug store parking lot.
Hey Mr. Brown turn the volume down;
I believe this evening’s shot.”
From John Prine’s “Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis Hari Krishna Beauregarde”

Those of you planning to join the St. Aidan’s Design Advisory Group on September 6, will have to wait until the 24th [see listing] to hear of “the minor design changes” to the project. Oh wait, there’s a “pre-construction meeting” being hosted by the Archdiocese on the 17th.
I guess the project is a design-build.
Or [...]

This is bizarre (yes, even by Brookline standards). In looking through the Brookline Preservation Commission’s files on the housing project at St. Aidan’s there is a hardly a mention of plans to raze the rectory building at the site [more on that later].
But once a permit application was approved by the Banana Republic of [...]

Here’s a funny item from this morning’s file review on the Town and Boston Archdiocese’s St. Aidan’s project.
During a hearing before one of the many committee’s studying the project, lawyers for the Archdiocese - along with the pastor at St. Mary’s - argued vehemently that the Church should not be preserved simply because John F. [...]

The trade magazine Banker and Tradesman has a story up on the Town of Brookline and Boston Archdiocese’s St. Aidan’s housing project [you need to subscribe to read the story]. Or should I say the Town of Brookline’s housing project?
This has to be one of the strangest stories I’ve read in some time. [...]

Archie has added an installment to his series on public employee whistleblowing.  As an open letter to Massachusetts’ Legislators, Archie argues that the current statute is a bit toothless and that more meaningful penalties need to be imposed on those who fail to comply with the notification requirements of the Law.
Folks, we’ve seen the effects [...]

While looking through documents concerning the St. Aidan’s housing project I came upon this passage in the November, 2003 “Update” published by the Town’s Planning Department [see link]:
“As neighbors, some of whom where [sic] represented by private attorneys, continued to stake out their positions, Selectman Allen worked tirelessly for consensus. During the process, POUA continued [...]

In an earlier post I mentioned that the St. Aidan’s Design Advisory Group will be meeting on September 6th.  Now, according to the Town’s Web site, the Group has not yet confirmed its meeting time [see listing].
Uh oh.
According to the settlement agreement reached between 75 residents and the developer for the Boston Archdiocese, if the [...]