Join the Arnold Arboretum for a Block Party on Arboretum Road this Saturday, July 19 from 11am-2pm to celebrate the new entrance to the Arboretum (Phase 1 of the Roslindale Gateway Path)! Free pizza, face painting, and more!
View the flyer in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
Please stop by our community table to chat with us about the Roslindale Gateway Path, pedestrian improvements we’re advocating for in and around the Arboretum, and more.
Hope to see you there!
In line with the way the Wu Administration has been seeking to emphasize systemic planning instead of project-based development review, they’re now out with a new initiative on public spaces they’re calling “Spaces for You” and which they describe at a very high level as follows:
Spaces For You is a collaborative and proactive initiative by the City of Boston to co-create, enhance, and celebrate public outdoor spaces that foster joy, belonging, and well-being for all residents. It seeks to bridge the gap between community needs and city resources, knitting together public and privately generated open spaces to create vibrant social places for all.
The project page can be found here and note that there’s a brief survey in which they’re seeking some initial feedback. Go ahead and let them know what you think!
With the Project Notification Form (PNF) for Article 80/Large Project Review of Hebrew Senior Life’s proposed all-affordable senior residential development at Centre/Walter with the Boston Planning Department having been filed on 25 June, we are now within a public comment period for the project that will end on 28 July. As noted in the headline, a community meeting for the project has been scheduled for 6 pm on 23 July via Zoom. Information on signing up for the meeting, as well as as on the project (including the PNF itself), can be found below, which has been cribbed from the Planning Department’s recent notification email.
Very briefly described, Hebrew Senior Life are proposing to fill in what is now a surface parking lot at the corner of Centre and Walter streets on their Roslindale campus with a 78-unit all deeply affordable senior residential building, addressing a critical need for this kind of housing within our overall regional housing emergency. In addition, neighborhood gateway corners are always critical and, as can be seen below, the proposed 6-story building will do an impressive job of holding down this particular gateway corner and complimenting the imminent safety improvements to this intersection that the neighborhood have long sought. Among the proposal’s many benefits, the fact that it is going to fill in what is now a surface parking lot is truly music to our ears. The WalkUP Roslindale Board are strongly supportive of the proposal and we intend to submit a support letter before the close of the comment period that will go into more detail about our specific thinking. We encourage those who support this kind of neighborhood improvement addressing the ongoing housing emergency to attend the meeting, learn more about the project, and, if you come away convinced of its value, to submit a comment in support of the project. We hope to see you there!
THE BELOW IS CUT AND PASTED FROM A PLANNING DEPARTMENT NOTIFICATION EMAIL.
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We’re happy to be among the co-sponsors for the upcoming District 5 City Council Candidates Forum to be held a week from tomorrow via zoom. The registration link can be found HERE. We’d be delighted if you could attend. Thanks!
This week, the Boston City Council held a hearing on Docket No. 0266 – Pedestrian Safety, Traffic Calming, and Expanding the Safety Surge Program. We emphatically support greater investment in pedestrian safety, which also benefits cyclists and motor vehicle drivers. Our comments for the hearing are below and also available as a PDF as submitted.
The Boston Zoning Commission is set to hold their public hearing starting at about 9 am on this coming Wednesday, 21 May 2025, on the zoning text and map amendments developed through the small area planning process here in Roslindale Square over the course of the last year-plus.
LINK HERE: BZC agenda and information on how to register.
We encourage supporters of the proposed zoning changes to attend and offer testimony at the hearing, which will be over zoom, if at all possible. Whether you can make it or not, we also encourage you to submit supportive written comments to the Boston Zoning Commission’s Secretary, Jeffrey Hampton, at their official email address of zoningcommission@boston.gov. We’re going to submit our WalkUP Roslindale comment letter around the time of the BPDA Board vote last month. Hope to see many supporters on hand on Wednesday morning and here’s a LINK to a helpful tool that was put together for the BPDA Board meeting, but is also very helpful for preparing for the hearing and submitting your written support in advance!
UPDATE:
As first reported by Universal Hub (“Denser zoning approved for Roslindale Square”), the Roslindale Squares & Streets zoning amendments – both text and map – were adopted by the Boston Zoning Commission at their hearing this past Wednesday morning by a unanimous vote of 11 in favor, 0 against. As we have said many times, deep thanks go to the mayor and her administration, especially the folks at the Boston Planning Department, who worked tirelessly over the last 15 months to solicit feedback, develop the small area plan, and then craft zoning amendments to meet this moment in our neighborhood and city. Now we will all get to see what kinds of improvements and projects the new zoning will engender. Onward!
The Welcome Home, Boston initiative seeks to create new homes for first-time homebuyers on city-owned land. Phase 3 will involve the vacant city-owned land at 917 American Legion Hwy and Wilmot St. The neighborhood-specific workshop for Roslindale/Hyde Park is this Tuesday May 20, 6-7:30pm (virtual).
This really is a great event every year and if you register early enough, you get a free Boston Bikes t-shirt. Get with the program if you can! Registration link is HERE.
Mark your calendar for two upcoming Boston Transportation Department (BTD) open houses this May!
Tuesday May 13th, 6:00 – 7:30pm @ St. Nectarios Greek Orthodox Church
BTD will be introducing the project, sharing what they’ve heard, and asking for some initial feedback. There’s no formal program and no need to stay the whole time. Come any time to meet the planners, learn about the project, and share your thoughts! See the flyer for the event.
Wednesday May 21st, 6:00pm – 8:00pm @ Boston Teachers Union School
Come listen and provide feedback on the latest design concepts for Hyde Park Ave.
We here at WalkUP Roslindale have been advocating and organizing around the Roslindale Gateway Path since our inception almost a decade ago and, thanks to the sustained leadership and partnership of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, the Arboretum Park Conservancy, LivableStreets Alliance, the Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, Rozzie Bikes, Hubluv, the Solomon Foundation, and of course the City of Boston (especially the leadership of Mayor Michelle Wu as well as the Parks and Recreation Department, the Department of Public Works, and the Transportation Department), we now have the first tangible result of those efforts – the Phase 1 extension from the terminus of the Blackwell Path at South Street alongside and then under the MBTA Needham Line tracks to a brand new and fully fledged Arboretum entrance on Arboretum Road. This is a great step forward in providing better access to this Emerald Necklace jewel to/from this part of Roslindale. It’s long overdue and very welcome, and we will continue to advocate for the rest of the path going forward, so that improved access can be achieved at Archdale Road and at the Roslindale Village Commuter Rail Station. We also urge everyone to mark your calendars for Saturday, 19 July 2025, when the formal grand opening celebration will be held. We’ll share details on that as they become available. Many thanks to all of the players who made this possible!
Our most recent summary piece on the full path can be found here: Roslindale Gateway Path.
