Multi-Family Zoning Requirements for MBTA Communities

This is what happens when things are done in a rush behind closed doors. They should have debated and enacted this requirement on its own instead of it being an amendment to a spending bill because it is too impactful. It should have been more nuanced and had "teeth." Now they can't fix it because the local pols would have to publicly support it and they are not going to stick their necks out for it. As far as a "builder's remedy," that would probably be the "teeth" in a well written law
 
stick n move said:
-Umm first off, yes we do, right from the article I responded to:

“The response of “No” couldn’t have been shouted any louder from the quorum of Middleboro residents proclaiming they don’t want to be forced to comply with a state mandate that, local officials said, will increase housing production to an unsustainable level for the town.
Click to expand...

A quorum doesn’t mean *everyone* who attended Town Meeting voted it down, it just means there were enough members present to make the voting valid. It seems like it was a voice vote since none of the reporting provided a tally (the last time I checked the meeting minutes hadn’t been approved yet either so I’m making this assumption unless proven otherwise). But either way it would highly unlikely (even with a voice vote only) to have unanimity in a town meeting vote given the quantity of voting members.

stick n move said:
-Second off the actual point I was making wasnt even really about them,
Click to expand...

Then you should have made that actual point instead of pointing to the physical appearance of the crowd and then using that as the basis for your judgment. That overshadowed the rest of what you said.

stick n move said:
it was that it is unfortunate that the demographic of people who are least likely to own a home and will be affected the most by this law are not showing up to community meetings. “For many different reasons the people who will be affected the most by this were not there. Most probably didnt even know it was happening. Its unfortunate.” I think that we need to find a way to change this because it is well known that community meetings in massachusetts are not working as a way to be representative of the greater city/town population as a whole.
Click to expand...

I agree there is a structural problem with town meetings / city council given societal changes (two people/parents working full time, meetings held during weekday afternoons/evenings, have to attend in person to vote, etc.). I certainly know that I can’t attend these things regularly or at all (even as a viewer on city broadcast from the comfort of my own home).

stick n move said:
Dont take my word for it MIT did a study on this exact situation:

“Findings indicate attendants to town meetings are more likely to be older, white, married, to work as municipal employees, and to be homeowners compared to the population at large. Conditional on owning a home, attendants’ housing wealth is evenly distributed. Sixty percent of meeting attendees report having been present to the last five consecutive annual assemblies. This group of pivotal, faithful voters—representing only 1.2 percent of a town’s adult population on average—has resided in town for 30 years, 12 years longer than occasional voters. Meeting regulars are more likely to participate in civic organizations, town committees, and volunteering activities. We conclude that older, married, locally-rooted, civically-minded homeowners who have known each other for a long time bear more power in municipalities where recurrent public meetings are used for
municipal decision-making.”
MIT study

-So according to the article that said that the very people who were there “could not be more against it” and studies done on this exact phenomenon in massachusetts that show that older, whiter, married, homeowners tend to be the only ones who routinely show up to community meetings in order to block housing, I think that this is a problem that needs to be addressed. I dont see how you can try to say I’m being discriminatory when I’m trying to say that community meetings need to be more representative of people from all different age groups and backgrounds, but do you.
Click to expand...
Look, my main gripe was that none of this was stated in your original comment. If what you said in the follow-up comment had been the basis for your argument, I wouldn’t have had a problem with it. But none of that was there. It was entirely premised on the physical appearance of the crowd (including a photo!) that just wouldn’t fly if the same comment was made about a different type of physical appearance or characteristic (race, ethnicity, sex, gender). My point in an example is take your original comment and, instead of age, apply it to the racial composition of a crowd. Then make a similar quip about well hey look there’s a bunch of [insert race here] people and it’s no surprise they have this opinion or whatever. Doing that immediately demonstrates the weakness of an argument focusing on physical appearance and you can see very quickly the fallacy of that approach which is why I cautioned against it.

The only other point I’ll make is that of all the ways one can group people by appearance, age as a class is the one unifier because everyone gets old (if we have the fortune to live on this Earth that long). White people can’t become Black, Hispanic people can’t become Asian, your national origin is your national origin, etc., but anyone who is made up of a particular race, color, religion, etc. all have getting old in common. And there’s no trigger in that to say when I’m 61 years old I have these views, but when I turn 62 years old (which is considered the threshold for age discrimination) watch out all of a sudden my views then default to the standard groupthink of all the “grey hairs” out there. I don’t think your personal views are going to change materially from one day to the next because you have a birthday. That’s doesn’t make any sense. The folks who dissented in that meeting (grey haired or not) probably have held this views expressed for a very long time and it had nothing to do with their age. To your point, it’s just more likely in the aggregate that a meeting dominated by older people could have similar views expressed and outcomes reached. But it absolutely does not mean because you’re of a certain age you hold the same views as stereotyped for that grouping and that’s the way the original comment came across.

Thank you for clarifying and proving support in your follow-up comment. Apologies to the forum for the digression from the thread’s main purpose.
 
WestMedford said:
Then you should have made that actual point instead of pointing to the physical appearance of the crowd and then using that as the basis for your judgment. That overshadowed the rest of what you said.



I agree there is a structural problem with town meetings / city council given societal changes (two people/parents working full time, meetings held during weekday afternoons/evenings, have to attend in person to vote, etc.). I certainly know that I can’t attend these things regularly or at all (even as a viewer on city broadcast from the comfort of my own home).


Look, my main gripe was that none of this was stated in your original comment.
Click to expand...

Part where it was stated in original comment:

“For many different reasons the people who will be affected the most by this were not there. Most probably didnt even know it was happening. Its unfortunate.”

The fact that you only paid attention to the first part and completely ignored the second half of my post is on you not me. That being said when you responded I provided further clarification. Why are we still talking about this?
 
stick n move said:
Part where it was stated in original comment:

“For many different reasons the people who will be affected the most by this were not there. Most probably didnt even know it was happening. Its unfortunate.”

The fact that you only paid attention to the first part and completely ignored the second half of my post is on you not me. That being said when you responded I provided further clarification. Why are we still talking about this?
Click to expand...
You own your words so actually it’s not on the reader. And yes when something outlandish is written or said it does take the reader’s attention off of the point you were trying to make.

I’m done talking about it too thanks.
 
themissinglink said:
www.eagletribune.com

Methuen City Council bashes MBTA zoning as local communities face deadline

METHUEN — City Councilors are blasting the state for “government overreach” over MBTA zoning mandates as city planners look at ways to satisfy the state without creating a huge headache
www.eagletribune.com www.eagletribune.com
Click to expand...
I watched that meeting. The consultants/ planners even said that this is a paper-compliance plan, some of the areas to be rezoned would just match the zoning to what’s out there today and allow like 5 new units of housing across the entire zone.


It seems very risky to put all that funding at risk by not coming up with a compliant plan.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top