serakit

I attended a portion of (meeting started at a bit past six and I left a bit before eight) the public comment meeting regarding the proposed Davis Square redevelopment. It was massively crowded, standing room only (I was glad I arrived early enough for a chair), and criticized by several people for not having microphones. Which, really, there were flyers floating around that meant people actually knew about the meeting; the meeting being large enough to require microphones should have been anticipated. (Someone suggested also including hybrid capacity, which I would 100% get behind.) There was also a lot of snottiness from the people who have been attending all along towards the large crowd of people who only showed up to their first meeting tonight, which... these meetings have not been well-advertised. It is possible that was on purpose, so as to avoid the huge crowd of people many of whom were united in the belief that this is a bad idea. (Also I now need to find out when and where zoning committee meetings are. I presume these are open to the public?) Flyers went around alerting people to the existence of these meetings and being aware that the meetings existed, people went. I even got on a couple of email lists, so perhaps I will know about these meetings in the future.

I had been able to access notes from previous meetings prior to this but I honestly couldn't tell if they were official or not; they were just a random google doc, and I didn't find them; they were pointed out to me. I'm not sure it would be possible to find them without being given a direct link. (I'm not sure I could find them again.) The developer repeatedly referred to "according to our information" without being able to point to anywhere that information was easily accessible-- he said he'd send it to the person who pressed him on that point, but I have to wonder why they don't just have all of that data up on a website somewhere if they're going to be using it to justify things.

Primary impression is that they're using "iterative development process" as a way of avoiding committing to anything-- the reason this feels poorly thought out is that they are trying to keep everything in a state of flux so they can be responsive to community feedback! Which conveniently also means they don't have actual answers to most questions; they want to have "thought partners" on those things. Questions were asked about the parking thing and mostly got the "we are looking for thought partners" line. Other actual questions that were dodged included what kind of price point they're doing with affordable housing. Housing can be classed as affordable if it's 30% of 80% of the area median income for a family of one more people than bedrooms. (Yes, I looked this up.) There are then some income restrictions on who can move in, but what percentage of the area median income you're basing that on is important to how genuinely affordable your "affordable" housing is and when the question was asked it was pretty much brushed aside. (There was also someone in the audience who was like "well maybe if you didn't put in the affordable housing you wouldn't have to build something so big," but the majority of the audience and the developer were kind of like "WTF?" at that comment.)

Since that question had been asked already when I was called on and jducoeur had mentioned completion bonds as an area of concern while we were talking about this, I asked about completion bonds and was told "we're not at that stage yet." They are also not at the stage for a parking study or a shade study. For all they're going on about iterative process, there really is not much of substance to comment on at these public comment meetings. They're doing an excellent job at being evasive while talking a good game about working with the community and making minor changes like moving which side of the development the residential entry is on. (This gets touted as an example of them Listening! To! The! Community! They were also willing to perhaps commit to banning AirBnbs. I feel like that's usually covered in the standard "no subletting" lease clause?)

One interesting thing that did get definitively stated: if they don't get permission from the city to do this they are going to decommission those buildings "as leases expire" which heavily implies that if they don't get their way they're going to kick everyone out and close up a large chunk of Davis Square altogether. I attempted to call them on this a bit-- "Saying that if you don't get your way you're going to close it all up really makes me feel like you're interested in working with the community"-- but while that line got some amusement from the audience it got entirely brushed aside by the developer at the same time he brushed away the completion bond question.

There was much representation from the musician community who pointed out that it's not just the management of The Burren that's a problem with closing it; there is a huge community of working artists that relies on playing shows there to make money. The management may be able to open another restaurant and then expand back in, but the artists are just stuck. That was another "it's a good question" with only vague answers-- maybe these other places will take the overflow (the artist asking the question had specifically said that won't work when asking her question). I'm not sure whether the "maybe sponsoring some outdoor concerts or something" idea came from the developer or the audience but I'm skeptical that would be enough as a substitute. Pretty much any time someone brought up a way this was going to cause problems the developer said "I understand your perspective" without actually commenting on it.

So yeah, I came away from this with the idea that I need to both find out where and when the zoning meetings are and figure out who my ward councilor is. I imagine the very local politicians are even more strongly influenced by phone calls than the state or national ones.

(I can't do anything about the fascism. But I can go to a public comment meeting and report back about the developers.)