Looks like the St. Aidan’s “Design Advisory Group” (DAG) will be meeting on September 6th to discuss “minor changes to the project” [see listing here].
That ought to be a hoot and a holler.
Maybe the DAG can tell us why tearing down the historically significant church rectory - without a permit to do so - [...]
Spend as much time as I do with documents and you pick up on strange items buried in the text. Such is the case with the Banana Republic of Brookline’s Zoning Board of Appeals decision on the Town and the Boston Archdiocese’s housing project at the former St. Aidan’s Church.
According to the ZBA decision [...]
I’m speechless (I know, I know). But it seems that some have been caught unaware that the rectory at St. Aidan’s is about to meet the wrecking ball. Listen to me old darlings, when those in Brookline Town Government and the Boston Archdiocese say they are “going to preserve the church”…they mean the [...]
In reporting the circumstances that led to the demotion of Brookline Preservation Commission Vice-chair Dennis Dewitt to alternate member [see articles], I noted that the casus belli for such were alleged difficulties with the public. It was then that Selectman’s Chair Robert “The Mensch” Allen stepped in.
Allen, of course, was highly compromised in his [...]
When covering L’affaires de Brookline, you learn very early on that people in town government only want to hear from people who agree with them. I’ve listened in on a lot of public meetings and I can’t think of a time when an opposing view was welcomed by a decision-maker. Typically, skepticism is [...]
Which of the properties shown here is subject to an 18 month demolition delay brought on by Brookline’s Preservation Commission?
A) A Thorndike Street residence (pictured above) built in 1890?
B) The rectory at the St. Aidan’s Church (pictured above) - the site where John F. Kennedy was baptized - built in 1850 and listed on the [...]
This site has frequently taken the position that the Town of Brookline’s Aaa bond rating is not the “seal of approval” that town administrators and the Selectmen make it out as. The Aaa bond rating is proof positive, say town hall hacks, to Brookline’s status as “Massachusetts’ best run town.”
My view on a credit [...]
“Father forgive us for what we must do,
You forgive us we’ll forgive you.
We’ll forgive each other till we both turn blue,
Then we’ll whistle and go fishing in heaven.” - John Prine
Click here to see John Prine (the World’s greatest songwriter) perform “Fish and Whistle”.
Is there some kind of environmental crisis underway? Something to do with greenhouse gases produced by the CO2 emitted from autos? There can’t be.
Because if there were, Massachusetts’ best run town (that’s Brookline if you’ve never been to town hall) wouldn’t have increased the time motorists sit at traffic lights by ten minutes [...]
So the Brookline Police won an “international award” for its racial profiling prevention strategies over the past ten years. The award is given by an association of police chiefs. Oh yeah, just the people you want evaluating racial enforcement practices. (It’s not like their firefighters, you know.)
I guess its significant to the [...]
Archie has another installment in his “World of Brookline Zoning series [click here to read]. Oh, and what a magical world it is.
When it comes to affordable housing Brookline Town Meeting and the Selectmen have created a spell book (of local zoning regulations) that can be mixed to keep the hoi poloi out of [...]
A reader writes [in response to the post below] to tell me that the St. Aidan’s rectory pre-dates the church building by some 80 years, making it one of the oldest buildings in Brookline.
That’s some Preservation Commission we have here in Brookline — they put an 18 month hold on a Thorndike St. patchover, but [...]
Question: What’s the big deal about the developer of the St. Aidan’s housing project needing a demolition permit before razing the rectory at the site [see previous post]?
Answer: We have a local by-law (an ordinance, if you will) that says in order to tear down a building you have to let the local preservation commission [...]
Finally, the campaign finance reports from May’s Selectman are on-line. Click here to see Selectman Jesse Mermell’s difficulty with simple addition and to be stupefied in seeing that Jules Levine spent $26 thousand of his own money to finance his phantom campaign.
Maybe readers can get Mermell to explain the $1,500 missing from the opening balances [...]
With all the turmoil in mortgage lending and given the fact that many homes in Brookline are selling at prices below their assessed value, let’s put a study group together to see how we can raise taxes on property.
It’s not like Brookline is the second most expensive place in Massachusetts to own a home or [...]
