Wringing Out 2007: Zoning Madness.
By Jim Conley • Dec 28th, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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If you’ve been paying attention, you know that Brookline town government is an adjunct to local real estate interests. There are the sweetheart deals and land giveaways. There’s the jerry-rigging of zoning ordinances and the tinkering with regulatory boards by the selectmen [see "Dennis DeWitt and the Thanks You Get"].
But nothing better defines Brookline’s zoning madness than the 2007 annals of the Brookline Zoning Board of Appeals. From nonsensical decisions on Fisher Hill’s Longyear development to a reversed decision at One Somerset Road, Brookline’s ZBA put the petent in incompetent. So much so, that even members of this pathetic panel could see that their service to the town was a career killer and resigned en masse during the fall.
This ZBA said in the course of a single year that, “an architect’s seal on a set of plans renders the material facts in a plan error-proof.” They said that a decision of theirs “can be reversed because of new evidence” [like the fact that they didn't know the number of times a building inspector was on site]. And one member became so unhinged when an appeal decision was challenged that he popped off on a five foot grandmother.
The same five foot grandmother who was told to cease and desist in contacting town officials and complaining of lax enforcement around a multi- family in her neighborhood. Who sent the letter to the neighbor? Why, an attorney to the real estate firm that owns the problem building. The developer and his lawyer sent the letter, because they think they can speak for town government.
Zoning enforcement falls to the Brookline Building Department and its commissioner, James Nickerson, made a surprise retirement announcement in October. Not that that will change things, as long as the Brookline Selectmen do the hiring, there’ll be a new crony to take up where Nickerson left off.
A new team is in place for 2008. But the veins of ineptitude run deep into the body politic. The only real hope for substantive change is in May 2008, when two members of the Brookline Board of Selectmen (Daly and Hoy) are up for re-election.
Maybe then, the madness will end.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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Despite the mass resignations of ZBA members, ZBA legal notices published in the Brookline TAB continue the names of Diane R. Gordon, Harry Miller and Bailey Silbert, even though they had resigned months ago. Perhaps this is due to cost consciousness to demonstrate frugality as the Town goes in the override direction. I wonder what it would cost to include the names of current ZBA members in ZBA legal notices. Let’s start a fund for truth in ZBA legal notices.