We're the People's Front of Allston

Last night I attended a 2.5 hour community meeting. The agenda was to hear and see the new proposal to move the Charlesview Apartment residents to new housing in a land-swap deal between Harvard and Charlesview Inc. For other bloging, media references and photos, see the 25-Aug-09 postings on http://allston02134.blogspot.com/

The proposal was represented by Community Partners (the builder).

There was a large turnout-- Community members (Charlesview residents), Community members (Charlesview representatives), Community members (politicians), Community members (would-be politicians), Community members (government reps), Community members (Allston/Brighton North Neighbors Forum; ABNNF), Community Members (Neighbors for Neighbors Allston Brighton NFNAB?), Community Members (Impact Advisory Group; IAG- including me), Community Members (Brighton Allston Improvement Association; BAIA), Community Members (one Harvard rep; Kevin M.) and probably lots of other community member affiliations I don't know.

Community Builders got off easy last night-- they received very few questions about the actual proposal (buildings, roads, construction, setbacks etc). People were more concerned about the need for Charlesview residents to have a new home and strong suggestions that Harvard "come to the table" and add more land to the Charlesview deal in order to decrease density, increase parkland and increase integration of housing income levels-- basically, to be more in line with the BRA-lead community input to the Holton Street Corridor planning initiative.

While I'll avoid posting my opinion of the proposal at this time, I do want to comment that the heckling, arguing, venting, yelling, talking-over each other and disagreeing between all these community members reminded me of the movie Life of Brian when Brian mistakenly asks the People's Front of Judea if they are the Judean People's Front: check out this short YouTube clip and see you at the next event: round 2 will be on 23-Sept.