On July 28, 2023, LWVN sent a letter to the Zoning Board of Appeals in support of Northland 160 Charlemont LLC’s request for a Comprehensive Permit for a project to feature 370 residential units comprising 465,654 gross square feet of area in two seven-story structures on 6.98 acres of land located at 160 Charlemont Street and 56 Christina Street in the Mixed Use 1 Zoning District (Northland Charlemont Project). The project includes 438 parking stalls and 93 affordable units.
The Northland Charlemont Project will help make Newton’s housing stock more diverse by providing an alternative to single-family homes. In addition, 25 percent of the units will be affordable, producing 93 new affordable units in the City of Newton. LWVN supports Zoning Board of Appeals Member Brooke Lipsitt’s request that the developer make affordable units available at a deeper level than the 80 percent of area median income required by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We believe deeper affordability is necessary to meet community
needs, particularly given the shortage of affordable housing in the City. Furthermore, the developer has stated its goal to reduce the project’s energy consumption over its lifetime, include include shuttle service and a bike path, and provide access to electric vehicle charging to 20 percent of the parking spaces.
The Northland Charlemont Project will help meet goals common to the City of Newton and LWVN: increasing housing diversity; building sustainably; mitigating the use of cars; encouraging biking and walking; and increasing tax revenue for the City.
You can read the entirety of LWVN’s letter below:
At its Annual Meeting held on June 12, 2022, the LWVN membership approved the formation of a Consensus Study Committee to update it’s zoning positions. This will be an intensive study of local zoning, and will be conducted in four stages: research and study; consensus meetings; preparation of a study report; and determination if an existing position should be revised or deleted, or if a new position is warranted and development of that position.
The study will be focusing on five key areas:
