Advocacy Group Pushes Brookline To Rethink Growth

BROOKLINE, MA — More than 220 community members are calling on the town to rethink how it handles neighborhood planning and development in town.

A new neighborhood advocacy group, "Brookline by Design" was formed to address recent historic controversial property demolition requests in town during the past year.

"We formed Brookline by Design in response to unprecedented development pressures illustrated by the rash of historic property demolition requests, redevelopment projects, displacement of small businesses and ill-considered zoning proposals that by-pass any planning process and exclude residents," said Town Meeting Member Linda Olson Pehlke, who is behind the group.

In December the former homes of H. H. Richardson and John Charles Olmsted were threatened with demolition, spurring an outpouring of pushback from historians and neighbors decrying the move.

Richardson worked out of his 25 Cottage St. in Brookline while he designed Trinity Church in Copley Square. Olmsted was the nephew and adopted son of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and lived at 222 Warren St., around the corner from Richardson’s.

Several long-serving community leaders helped found the group, including Neil Wishinsky, former chair of the Brookline Select Board, Jane Gilman, founder of the Town Meeting’s Green Caucus and Lynda Roseman of the Brookline Neighborhood Alliance.

"Brookline can and must demand thoughtful planning and an inclusive neighborhood-based process on behalf of all Brookline residents and future generations," Wishinksy said.

The group is calling residents to ask leaders to begin a comprehensive, inclusive neighborhood-based planning process. They want the process to take into account the long-range
effects of proposed land-use on everything from the Town’s character, infrastructure, quality of life, vitality, sustainability, housing affordability to historic assets.