Hi Scott, the board meeting is held in the BPDA Board Room on the 9th floor of Boston City Hall (Room 900). Tomorrow's hearing will start at 3:30pm. If you plan on attending, just a reminder that no public testimony is taken at the Board Meeting. Attendees can only observe the meeting.

If possible please come to our meeting this Saturday at the Church to have your opinion heard. I believe we have some good ideas for the area in front of the Church.

We are holding a meeting this Saturday to speak specifically about the white lined area in front of the Church. We have some initial thoughts we would like to share with Abutters and get their input and feedback to make sure we are on the right track prior to making any decisions. Once we feel we have an acceptable solution, we then will look to move it forward with the City as part of our approval process with BPDA.

I think that is a great idea. We will run that by BPDA as part of the review process

Mardi: do not be alarmed. Your voice will be heard! We are giving an update presentation to the Ashmont Hill Association tonight. I am sure you are welcome to attend. There will be no vote taken. We have been presenting to many of the area civic groups, but the project is located in the St. Mark's Area Civic Group boundaries. We have also presented to Greater Ashmont Main Streets. When we file with the City for an approval for our design, the BPDA will conduct a formal community process and host a meeting to hear the abutter's concerns and ideas for the project. We will make sure to post a notice of the BPDA meeting on the CoUrbanize website when the details are available.

You are correct. I think the Church has a nice idea to make their space work for the Community not just on Sunday but every day and night of the week.

We are looking to get positive feedback and input from the Community, and not votes on our pre-conceived ideas. We have to start the conversation with the Community somehow and based on input from the coUrbanize team, they suggested "idea starters" that can morph over the course of the discussion based on Your feedback. With other projects in the past, we have held focus groups with community members to drill down on the ideas from the online conversation to help determine some of the commercial space and other uses of the building.

We are hoping to have a link to the Dot Greenway from Argyle Terrace, but we are not the ones who will make that decision. With that said, we have set the residential entrance directly across from Argyle Terrace because of the Greenway.

We have placed the residential entrance directly across from Argyle Terrace, where the entrance to the Greenway would potentially be located. We want to encourage the Greenway use and help to activate the new walkway.

As part of the permitting process of the City of Boston there is a review to ensure handicap accessibility wherever required by law.

One way to alleviate the problem of commuters parking on your street is to petition to the City of Boston to have Resident Parking enforced in the area; however, there are drawbacks to Resident Parking along with the benefits of eliminating the T commuters taking your spots. If the members of the community want to try and get resident parking on Talbot Ave you can petition the City of Boston. Here is the link that shows you how to get it done:

https://www.boston.gov/departments/parking-clerk/how-petition-resident-parking

Thank-you for the positive comments!

The Urban Grocer concept would seem to be a good fit in this space; however, it is a little early in the process to be able to finalize this use just yet.

As part of the initial discussions with the City we have been looking at ways to re-purpose the front of the Church land where the large triangular lined section of street is located. Two of the ideas discussed are as follows: formally converting it to additional parking spaces for the neighborhood, or creating a parklet instead of parking. When we hold the Community meeting with the BPDA, we hope to have enough feedback from the Community to know what they would like to see in this area and have the resources to make the improvements.

We will adhere to the City of Boston Affordable Housing requirements and build the number of units the City requires; however, we are not utilizing any public funds to augment the number of Affordable units. Without public funds assisting in the design, development, and marketing of the project, it is not feasible to increase the number of Affordable units.

The Church would like to continue to be a part of the Community, and as such, plans to maintain space in the new building. The Church plans to operate the space in a non-traditional manner with many potential uses being consider during the weekdays and nights: co-working space, yoga classes, coffee house etc. The same space that houses those activities will be re-purposed on Sundays for services.