MBTA TOD Housing Zoning Plan Meeting Held at City Hall #GloucesterMA

photos: MBTA Communities Convening at City Hall. Gloucester, MA. March 25, 2024. Pinch and zoom or select to enlarge.

Gregg Cademartori, long time Planning Director for the Gloucester Community Development department, welcomed a crowd composed of residents, officials, city board & commission members, and staff to a public meeting related to the newest MBTA TOD zoning requirements. There were 12 tables or so set up with 8-10 seats in Kyrouz Auditorium at City Hall. Additional seating was available along the perimeter and plenty of room for people who prefer standing. The photos show about 125 people convened.

The city hired a planning consultant, Erik Halvorsen, cofounder of RKG, to lead a public process this year–including this workshop meeting–in order to facilitate compliance assistance related to the ‘new’ MBTA TOD zoning also known as the MBTA Communities housing plan. Back in 2014, Halvorsen was the Assistant Director of Transportation for the Metropolitan Planning Area Council (MAPC) and worked with the city on several projects including in 2013-14 the “Downtown Working Group” and “Reimagining Railroad” which covered this material.

March 2014 | March 2024

2014 Reimagining Railroad Avenue

Ten years ago almost to the day: here are throwback photos from 2013 & 2014 of zoning & planning meetings below and posted on GMG here.

The MAPC June 2014 presentation can be found here

MAPC site page about Reimagining Railroad here

Just a few months ago, in November 2023, MAPC published interactive public maps (akin to Mass Power outages or MEMA) for housing, Homes for Profit: Speculation and Investment, which you can read more about here. They hosted a panel about the research findings concluding at least 1 in every 5 homes were sold to an investor.

Mapping features for the public were promoted during the Reimagining Railroad Avenue project as forthcoming and in concert with other planning projects. They weren’t. The release followed a Boston Globe Spotlight series on housing in Massachusetts published in 2023 and continuing this year. The Spotlight installment that preceded the MAPC published data maps was this one, “Reckoning with Boston’s Towers of Wealth”.