1. Update
Reminder that the CB committee was charged with developing the CSHCA “priorities” for the allocation of the city mandated Community Benefits associated with the huge developments expected (10k housing units and 7m sq ft commercial). This committee proposed a priorities list to the full CSHCA membership which then voted on the following top priorities: Comprehensive Planning, Infrastructure, Beautification, Pedestrian walkways to Carson beach,Green spaces. This committee will work to “dollarize” our priorities once we get information on the total dollars expected to be in the funds. The city has yet to provide actual dollar amounts. It is expected to approach $100m. We’ll see.
2. Mapping
James Christopher has produced a first draft of a map that is “three dimensional” and dramatically illustrates the locations of significant density. James was unavailable for this meeting but has communicated that his second draft should be available in a few weeks.
3. Port Norfolk Concern
Ed Roche (Port Norfolk resident and activist) (and Savin Hill born and raised) described his concern that “our map” does not fully portray all the pending development in Dorchester. He suggested a broader map. We will consider his concerns at our next meeting.
4. Public Meeting
Planning for a public meeting is in process but has to wait for the final map. Kristine Hoag is leading this effort. If you want to help plan the meeting, please contact Kristine.
5. $750k Gift from Center Court
Bill Walczak is leading our effort to figure out how we will manage the $750k gift. Form a new CSHCA non profit (a 501 C 4), use a local non profit to hold the funds or what. The Boston law firm of Sullivan and Worcester has offered us 50 hours of free legal services. If you want to help on this issue, please contact Bill. It’s great to get this gift but we are currently not yet set up to receive and manage it. Any CPAs interested in helping?
6. Using the $750k We briefly reviewed our preliminary list of potential uses. A consistent theme was that we should hire professionals to help in several areas. We reminded ourselves that our goal is to prepare solid recommendations to the city on allocating the Community Benefits funds ($100m ??) for the betterment of our neighborhood. We were reminded that the Dorchester Bay City project is recommending spending most of the funds on Affordable Housing (maybe not even in the CSHCA area). We agreed that these funds should be focused on the local areas most impacted by the developments.
7. Names We reviewed our list of names for the broadened CSHCA area (roughly, Uphams Corner to Morrissey Blvd to Columbia Point to Andrew Square to South Bay and back to Uphams Corner). We actually added several more. We’ll try again at our next meeting.
8. Next Meeting will be Wednesday, May 17th at 7pm at the Savin Hill Yacht Club. Hope to see you there.