#39 Bus, originally uploaded by TheBostonHomeTeam.

A common occurrence on Centre Street – the #39 bus blocking off traffic with it’s ginormous articulating body. It’s a damn good thing they pulled up those railroad tracks! There was a nearly bloody feud in Jamaica Plain regarding whether or not to bring back the MBTA E Line to Centre Street several years back. The Skeetches without won and the tracks were eventually removed or paved over. The big argument against was the increased traffic and lack of parking. It’s clear these huge busses are a big help in alleviating traffic. Even if the trolley had eliminated parking – who cares! Walk it! I’m gonna catch hell for this one – but I had to say it!

By now everyone knows that Bella Luna has been working on a new space in Building D of the Brewery complex owned by the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation (JPNDC). The new restaurant consists of over 100 seats, a more substantial bar than the current location, a small area for live entertainment and a great outdoor seating area under the historic Haffenreffer smokestack.

Proposed rendering for new Bella Luna location

As a neighbor of the Brewery complex I’m really excited about Bella Luna coming to our neighborhood. We’ve always been big fans of Bella Luna & the Milky Way. I’ve probably eaten my weight in pizza there. I’ll miss the old basement watering hole, but the new space looks great and appears to have a lot of potential. The idea of having a real bona fide bar to belly up to sounds great. I hope they get some good draft beers from local breweries.

At a community meeting on Dec. 2^nd, Kathy Mainzer unveiled some of the interior design and materials for the new restaurant. It appears to be a very eclectic mix of materials and textures befitting of Bella Luna’s neo-hippy style. Mainzer seemed a tad bit miffed at The JPNDCs construction/project manager, Andy Waxman. It seems that maybe the size of the restaurant has been widdled down a bit by the girth of the foundations that hold up the massive structure. Mainzer quipped, “we’ll still be paying the same rents, though”. Mainzer just received a variance from the city to stay open and serve liquor till 1 am seven nights a week. A few residents in the Brewery District, especially those on Merriam Street sounded some displeasure with this. They are not only concerned about the noise from the business itself, but the “bwerp-bwurp” from car alarms as folks come and go, and the slamming of the dumpster very early in the morning. They are justified in their concerns, I think. However, Mainzer and her crew have a pretty good track record of working with the neighborhood to satisfactory resolve issues.

Mainzer outlined a plan that included (nightly?) jazz trios and such as well as dare-I-say, bluegrass and country brunch? Country music and eggs – my favorite!

The big questions for me as a neighbor, a Brookside Neighborhood Association board member, and a nosy environmentalist all have to do with the parking/traffic/landscaping related issues revolving around the Brewery renovations in general. None of these issues are the responsibility of Bella Luna or Mainzer other than being a party to the process and a local business and home owner.

Proposed site plan for the JPNDC Brewery complex

The current plan [shown here - click image for larger view] calls for the main pedestrian and vehicular traffic to utilize the Amory Street entrance. The plan shows some 99 parking spaces between the combined parking lots. My concerns are with the impact of traffic and parking outside of the Brewery property in addition to the environmental impacts of that much asphalt.

In a meeting with Andy Waxman and many of the JPNDC folk early on, long before this restaurant was even a twinkle in someone’s eye – it was pitched to the neighbors that many of the people who use the Brewery would be coming from the train and on foot from other parts of JP. It turns out this was at least partially true. The main foot traffic comes from the diagonal Southwest Corridor path that leads from Stony Brook T station to Amory Street. The problem is that this area has been neglected for so long that none of the sidewalks are compliant in any way. They are cracked and falling apart including the light poles. The bases are literally falling apart and have crumbled away. There has been a conversation taking place for about two years now to have a crosswalk here. The traffic uses this stretch of Amory as a racetrack. My dog actually got hit by a car here and the guy didn’t even stop. My wife had to recoil in order to avoid being hit.

Secondly, the JPNDC has given us the gift of asphalt. I’m no surveyor, but I’d say they’ve probably added a good solid acre of asphalt. Not to mention they have almost no foliage in their plan. For the sake of a visual barrier for the lot on Merriam and for heat island effect mitigation, there needs to be a lot more thought involved with the landscape architecture for this project. It seems to me that the JPNDC, and all contemporary developers, need to spend more time thinking about the less obvious ramifications of 6 acres of asphalt on the environment.

In the August 28th, 2008 issue of the Jamaica Plain Gazette the Forest Hills Improvement Initiative was addressed at length in an article by David Taber. I don’t know Mr. Taber and I’m sure he did a good job writing the article, but I don’t agree with the philosophy, “you cannot please all the people all the time.”  You just have to get really creative and all involved need to be real honest about their motives.

The main controversy seems to be an argument not only about density, but about what the project should be comprised of, primarily residential or commercial. The residential objections seem to be related to the afforability percentages. The attendees of the August meeting learned of the BRA’s guidelines which would allow for 400 total residential units over the course of the development. That included mixed-use development with ground floor retail and about 170 residential units on “Parcel S” among othyer plans. This would require a six story structure which the neighbors are having a real hard time with, understandably. Another option would be purely commercial (residential component gets eliminated) and included 163,000SF of office space or other commercial uses over the ground floor retail.  Because Forest Hills is more remote it was suggested that a large institutional tenant would then be required.

There have been ten community meetings so far since November, 2006. The BRA and the non-profits that are participating in the charette-like process are well organized because that’s their job. Consequently, they tend to steamroll the opposition. The neighbors that live in the area definitely have opinions on the matter and have voiced them quite often. However, any of us that are spouses, have kids, work long hours, are single (trying not to be), have only so much time to devote to this process. I feel for these people because I am having similar issues in my neighborhood (The Brewery District). You get home at night and then you start your second job – being the squeaky wheel. Then, of course there’s the people who complain, but won’t get off their ass to do a damn thing.

All I can say is this – no one can deny that Forest Hills could use improvement. It’s tired and dingy and doesn’t work all that great. It needs to be redesigned. I encourage the neighbors to rally. Make your voices heard. Communicate with each other. Create a Google or Yahoo group to stay in touch and store common documents. Organize. Go to the meetings in shifts with written statements from the whole group. Make this an excuse to get together and meet your neighbors for a beer.

It is this writer’s opinion that Forest Hills should be redesigned – and that there is a solution that is good for all involved. It will just require lots of communication and community input.

www.friendsofforesthills.org to sign the Forest Hills Petition