Between Foster Rock and a Hard Place

There's a hard issue that has been the source of much angst in the Brighton community since Boston College put forward their draft institutional master plan in February. The issue is covered in dangerous shards of broken glass, just like the top of Foster Rock.

At the forum on Monday night, three candidates for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council walked into the line of fire over this housing issue. Why? The potential support of the Portina Road Jewish Orthodox community -- and their friends -- lies on the line.

Boston College has proposed to put 70 -- now up to 90 -- beds of "graduate or seminarian housing" on the land next to the Foster Rock, a five-acre property across from the St. John's Seminary land proper, but nonetheless part of the 2004 land purchase from the Archdiocese of Boston. This property, at 188-192-196 Foster Street (where the large parcel is listed as 192), is currently classified under Article 51 of the zoning code as a Conservation Protection Subdistrict, but BC's 2006 IMPA put a BC master plan overlay allowing them to re-zone it under Article 80 of the zoning code. Three houses currently lie on one corner of the site; they would be razed to build the new housing.

Not very interesting. Yet.

The back side of the property abuts a series of houses on Portina Road, many of them owned by members of the Jewish Orthodox (Hasidic) community. This is a lovely road, full of large families and large numbers of children that can play in the street in the afternoon, early evening, and especially on Saturday. In fact, the children can make quite a scene on the Sabbath.

When they got wind in March of BC's proposal to build the housing, the Orthodox community was furious -- and started to get mobilized. This issue is far and away the biggest reason that Rabbi Rodkin and his congregants show up to neighborhood meetings on BC's institutional expansion. Needless to say, the Orthodox community opposes BC's proposal with the strongest language they can muster, worried that quiet "seminarian" housing could easily switch to noisier "graduate" students and then -- in the blink of an eye when no one is looking -- be converted to "undergraduate" housing. BRA officials have tried placating them, but no assurances of requiring master plan review before allowing change in the building occupancy seems to satisfy the Portina Road neighbors.

Simply put: the Orthodox community fears a loss of their very way of life by having their quiet, out-of-the-way one-way street turned into a higher-traffic thoroughfare -- and having students, of any kind, living within a stone's throw.

But wait, you say, there's no access to the property from the east, so BC's proposed housing on Foster Street shouldn't bring extra traffic to Portina Road (except for a bit of increased foot traffic). Last fall, however, somebody with heavy equipment removed the barricades and cleared the brush for a footpath along one side of BC's property, thereby opening up the undeveloped extension of Wiltshire Road. Adventurous drivers could now go directly between Portina Road and Foster Street. And some did. And the neighbors worried that their way of life really was about to change.

BC claimed they didn't open up the road, the city also denied it, and the missing barricade problem was in a logjam. A couple of gentleladies twisted arms, stepping past the office of then-District City Councilor Jerry McDermott to find assistance from At-Large Councilor Sam Yoon's office. Barricade returned, dirt road closed off again, the universe re-aligned.

But the problem of the proposed housing is still there. The broader community isn't quite sure where we stand on the issue: there are three nice houses c.1880s on one corner of the lot that ought not to be torn down in a neighborhood starving for single-family housing; BC's proposal already wisely avoids building on the Foster Rock itself; and maybe BC could be convinced to put a more positive development on the site, like faculty housing (which they seem to need, based on house purchases on Wade Street). I know; I led a community meeting in April which included this on the agenda.

Into this Orthodox-angst over BC's proposal walked the candidates during Monday's forum. As moderator, I posed the question, answered by three of the five candidates who showed up:

QUESTION: Boston College has proposed to build 90 beds of graduate student or seminarian housing next to the Foster Rock on property that abuts the Orthodox Jewish Community on Portina Road. As City Councilor, how would you address BC's proposal?

Tim Schofield and Mark Ciommo were given the question; under the rules of the forum, since Ciommo didn't take a strong position, another candidate, Rosie Hanlon, was given the chance to answer, too, and did.

Schofield had attended several meetings in the spring which included this project, had voiced a negative opinion about the project at the March meeting of the BC Task Force, and took a strong position opposing it:

SCHOFIELD: I'm opposed to the proposal... So it is really not fair to have this huge piece of property and you are going to put these units at the bottom of the hill of one of the most stable family neighborhoods we have in this community... So again, putting those uses there seems to me, once again, is not taking advantage of the space [BC has] for the appropriate uses. There is a place for that housing, but I don't think that's the location for it.

Schofield appears to have been assessing the relative merits of graduate student or seminarian housing on the former Seminary land (which already houses seminarians) and the Foster Street parcel (which he was rejecting).

Ciommo, on the other hand, was not in attendance at those neighborhood meetings in the Spring, wanted more information to determine where he would stand, and also seemed open to graduate students (not just seminarians):

CIOMMO: ... Graduate students, again, are a different demographic than undergraduate students. You might be adding young families to the neighborhood. In that case, I would look at the demographic proposed for that site. But I would also like to talk to the abutters on Portina Road and see what is acceptable to them. Actually see what the proposal is -- the scope and size of the project. And then make a decision. I want more facts before I make a decision like that.

Hanlon, as as member of the BC Task Force, was, like Schofield, aware of the nature of the project, and expressed a strong opinion that the project has minimal impact:

HANLON: It is my belief that it is seminarian housing and not graduate housing at the bottom of that. And there is low to no impact with that development... Low to no impact is something that we can look at. There is going to be give-and-take when it does come to the master plan, and this might be one of the tools that we can work with.

I am unable to understand fully her point in the last sentence, but it sounds like she was considering use of this property as a bargaining chip in future master plan negotiations.

The score: Schofield opposed the proposal, Ciommo had no position yet (but was open to graduate students), and Hanlon seems OK with the proposal as is. They stepped into the Orthodox minefield and set off some ordinance. Methinks some injury resulted from it.

I wonder if the Portina Road Orthodox community has yet heard about the candidate's positions? I can't imagine that they would be willing to accept a candidate who didn't come out in strong opposition to BC's proposal on this property.

Political insiders have been trying to handicap the Brighton Jewish vote for years, and this year is no different. While one insider expressed the seemingly obvious view that there was no way Schofield would win the Jewish vote, once the Orthodox bloc figures out who's on their side on this seminal seminarian housing issue, I bet Schofield's odds have improved significantly overnight. And as for Councilor Yoon who re-barricaded the extension of Wiltshire Road? He already carried Ward 22 / Precinct 9 in 2005 in the At-Large race. Since Yoon has also endorsed Schofield, the two are bound to help each other out in that neighborhood.

The Wiltshire Roadblocks Mystery

A number of years ago, the City of Boston decided only to pave Wiltshire Road in Brighton between Portina Road and Chestnut Hill Avenue (the right-hand, or eastern, section in the map above). This decision left the section of Wiltshire Road between Foster Street and Portina Road (the left-hand, or western, section) as an unpaved path. Note that the western end of Wiltshire Road does not appear as a street on GoogleMaps:


This part of Wiltshire Road -- which I'll informally call "Wiltshire Path" -- has limited use for pedestrians, particularly students heading to or from Edison Middle School. There were large barriers on either end, and the path itself could become quite overgrown in the late summer / early fall. In short, no cars could get through -- exactly what the neighbors wanted, because it has the potential of being a major cut-through street, and hence could bring a lot of traffic next to a neighborhood full of (large) families.

At some point last fall, the barriers were removed altogether. What's more, the grass and shrubs along the "Wiltshire Path" were cleared. The occasional car was seen driving through. Neighbors were both angry and concerned that the traffic would make it dangerous for their children. I can attest that there are many children outside playing in Portina Road on a warm spring afternoon, since it is such a quiet, secluded street.

The big question: Who removed the barriers and cleared the brush?

The "Wiltshire Path" stretch of Wiltshire Road is a permanent City of Boston easement (for a public way) on the 188/192 Foster Street parcels previously owned by the Archdiocese of Boston but sold in 2004 to Boston College. The path abuts another large parcel still owned by the Discalced Carmelite Friars, a non-diocesan order. Oddly, there appear to be pieces of asphalt partially exposed under the dirt, grass, and shrubs, as if it had all been pave at one time. Visual inspection of the northeast corner of the 192 Foster Street property showed that substantial tree-work had been done recently in the thick woods bordering the path. The tree-work included large branch removal, and possibly a few trees, likely done by chainsaw.

Since the barrier removal and brush clearing are far beyond what a couple neighborhood kids could do, there are really only two possibilities: City of Boston or Boston College. Whomever did it had some serious equipment, time, and a strong desire to see the path cleared and/or maintained.

The City has claimed that they didn't do it, and are as perplexed as the neighbors. A Boston College official, Jeanne Levesque, was heard on the April 21, 2007 walking tour -- and later confirmed -- that they didn't do it, either, or know who did.

The good news is that, after much persistence by two gentleladies of the neighborhood, employees of Boston Public Works have brought in a new concrete barrier and installed it on the Portina Road end of the path:


Only a small rock was installed on the Foster Street end, which is not a problem since only one barrier is needed to block vehicular traffic:


The lingering question is: Why did they (whoever it was) remove the barriers and clear the brush?

I'll let the conspiracy theorists have a field day on that one.