To recap: NewCAL received unanimous funding approval from the City Council on August 8, and approval for the site plan and building design on the site of the current Senior Center is proceeding, with a planned opening in 2024. Mayor Ruthanne Fuller recently announced that current programs at the Senior Center will be moving off-site to new locations (mostly in Newton Highlands) as the City prepares for demolition and construction.
For many, this is welcome news. After six long years of what seemed to be an endless series of meetings, the project may finally be set to go. This is the case for Joan Belle Isle. Joan remembers that there was a point six years ago, when so many people wanted to participate in various activities at the Senior Center, but only one room was available. “It was chronically overbooked and too many people in it. People would go and find out it was so full and were turned away. That got a handful of regulars to look for ways to solve that problem.” So a group was formed that researched what other communities were doing, which then led to site visits to Waltham, Belmont, and Needham (all of which have newer and more adequate facilities), which then led to a lobbying effort to make a new Senior Center a priority. A formal working group was created and appointed by the Mayor. Members like Richard Rasala donated time and created a website — gathering and documenting information about other senior centers, programming needs, and desired features.
But then it was time to look at site locations, and the group was instructed to look only at City-owned properties (due to the price of acquiring land) that were adequate in size for the program. Unlike schools, there are no minimum standards for senior centers or an institutional framework to explore. Albemarle Park was initially one of the top choices — but after a lot of community pushback, pushback from the Parks and Recreation Commission, and constraints in city and state statutes, all City-owned parkland was taken off the table. That left only a few locations for consideration. Buildings owned by the School Department were not considered because City cannot take land owned by the School Committee. Sites like the West Newton Armory had accessibility issues. The group tried to avoid looking at sites that would displace any existing uses, as that would trigger another site selection process. The triangle in Newton Center had been considered, and according to Sue Rasala, “there were people who really wanted it in Newton Center because it is central, but there was a lot of push against it. Businesses did not want it in Newton Center, and there was a need for remediation, concern about the increased cost of the project, and the delays that would result in order to first solve the parking problem and what would abutters say?”
A group of 10 litigants brought suit against the City. One of them, Laura Duffy, had never been involved in City politics. When she learned that the project intended to expand the existing Senior Center in Newtonville, she began to look more closely. For Laura, the biggest impact is the size of the building as what she says is “shoehorning [the project] onto the current site. The plan will not just destroy that lovely classical building but take the new building right out to the sidewalk and destroy the small park out front.” Laura says she is concerned about the direction Newton is heading, as it bears little resemblance to what she saw when she moved here 30 years ago. She remembers Newtonville for its retail and is sad to see businesses closing and buildings being torn down in favor of four-story residential buildings. “Villages are becoming faceless generic neighborhoods.” She was stunned when the Newton Historic Commission (NHC) did not vote to preserve the current Senior Center building. She understands the need for an expanded Senior Center but says, “to take an already historic building and park and put in an overly large building with insufficient land does not make sense.” She stated, “There is a lot of great history in Newton but also a cavalier attitude to preserving it” and referenced this video.
Newton Center resident Norma Swenson agrees. Her participation in the lawsuit has “more to do with how the Historic Commission did not really fulfill its obligation and the way it behaved at the [landmark application for the newton senior center] meeting.” She believes the park is essential to the Senior Center, pointing out that the land in front of the Senior Center had been purposely donated to enhance the building, which was then a library. “The style of generous setbacks was popular at that time. The library at that time was part of the community library movement. The park is crowded — and perfectly illustrates why it is needed …this is exactly what this place (the Park) is for. ” Like Laura, Norma had never been very involved in local politics but decided this was the time to get involved. She does not agree with the preservation of merely the facade of the current building and believes that the entire building should be preserved. She appreciates that choosing a site was not easy but believes this site is too small for what people need. She acknowledges that there was great opposition to siting NewCAL in the Newton Centre triangle but believes other properties, not just City-owned properties, should have been considered.
Richard, Sue, and Joan support the project on this site and have no bad feelings toward people who support the lawsuit. They emphasized that they have enormous sympathy for people who have a genuine relationship with the building and need to be respected. They hope that the building will be a first-rate, beautiful building. They acknowledge getting there will be hard. Joan said the suit makes her sad because no matter what happens, they are all going to be neighbors and they wish they could have been able to have a consensus without getting into a legal fight but recognize that a lot of people have a strong, central attachment to the site.
The next NewCAL Community Update meeting is scheduled for September 15 at 6:30PM. (Register for the meeting here.) The previous Community Update meeting, held in August, can be found here.