Brookline Newcomer

A call to arms against big development

As a hardened anti-development, pro-community control type of guy, I'm quick to sign any neighborhood petition trying to keep out the forces of evil. As I see it, requests for zoning variances and proposals for new mega-projects generally make rich people even richer while leaving the rest of us with trash and traffic and way too much ugliness and sameness. Developers who want us to put up with a little inconvenience for the sake of the greater good rarely live up to their promises of community improvement.

I say rarely rather than never because every once in a while one project or another actually provides something useful, something like affordable housing that a community really needs, without adding to the destruction of what the community already has. But since this is so rare, the burden should always be on the developer to provide the proof. Until that proof arrives, along with an ironclad guarantee, I'll just keep signing those petitions.

And I don't mean proof of an increased tax base. More money pouring into Brookline might be a reasonable argument for some sort of development somewhere, but as others have pointed out in these pages it's never a good argument for any one particular project. It's not "progress" if it doesn't meet a real need beyond just making money. Each project must stand or fall on its own merits.

I have to admit, though, that my anti-builder position doesn't lead to the same emotional reaction every time. Some bad ideas are even worse than others.

During my year in Brookline I've paid most attention to the proposals for the Webster Street hotel in Coolidge Corner and the extension of 10 Brookline Place over the Brookline Village MBTA station. I frequently walk past both locations. Both proposals are bad ideas and should be opposed. But the truth is that if both were enacted, only one would cause me real pangs of regret.

A central issue for me concerning the hotel was highlighted last month by Arthur Conquest: the town's providing the appearance, but not the reality, of public review of the proposal. Manipulating the process should mandate starting over again at an initial needs assessment, with full community participation and all the cards on the table.

On the other hand, I suspect that the battle for Coolidge Corner has already been lost. One of my grown sons pointed out on a visit last May that walking up Harvard Street was like walking through an outdoor shopping mall. He was not impressed, and unfortunately neither am I. Despite the neighborhood's many attractions, a chain of chain stores has replaced more interesting local businesses whose owners can't pay the escalating rents. Some residents complain the neighborhood is becoming too much like Harvard Square, where Carpenter & Co.'s Charles Hotel added to the general boring busyness two decades ago. So building a Charles Hotel clone on Webster Street and adding overpriced hotel rooms to the Coolidge Corner mix should be prevented. The disruption for neighbors will be significant. If it's built, I'll mutter as I walk by it three or four times a week.

But if a hotel does get built, it won't fundamentally change the neighborhood's slide into high-cost homogeneity. It's too late.

By contrast, it's not too late to fight the final battle for Brookline Village. Brookline Village may not be perfect, but it's still a great place to walk and to sit and to live. Although Starbuck's arrival is worrisome, fortunately I don't have to walk my daughter past a McDonalds everyday. And although I hesitate to use words like "charming," the word actually fits the neighborhood in general and the T station in particular. It's a charming location. Walking across the tracks enhances the Village's villageness. The artist studios along Station Street help make Brookline interesting.

The last thing Station Street needs is a strolling-inhibiting brick wall. Today the MBTA tracks and T station are an appealing, leafy, permeable barrier to Brookline Place and Brook House, hiding developments that opponents failed to stop decades ago while allowing access to the stores on the other side.

But tomorrow? Extending Brookline Place over the tracks doesn't just enclose the station and block the artists' light, both of which are serious concerns. More fundamentally, it changes the feel of the neighborhood for the worse, not just in degree but in kind. That's cause not just for opposition, but for regret.

Hotel update August 2003

Newcomer Columns List