The Rezoning Belmont Center “brown-bag lunch meeting” today was a bust from my point of view! It started with former town Moderator Mike Widmer and current Planning Board Chair Thayer Donham making presentations in opposition to one another, and setting the tone for the meeting and the debate about the pros and cons of zoning, an incomplete parking study, and an incomplete traffic study.
The key issue is what the residents of Belmont will get for the effort and treasure devoted to this revitalization proposal.
The residents of Belmont need to solve two major issues:
1. The morning (7 to 9 a.m.) and evening (4 to 7 p.m.) commuter traffic going through Belmont, along Pleasant, Concord, Brighton, Trapelo, and Belmont is clogging Belmont streets. The business along Brighton are failing.
2. The property tax revenues for Belmont are inadequate and the tax bill and overrides are too great for Belmont residents to afford.
Let’s address these issues rather than spending our treasure on the hope of zoning to attract builders, who may or may not rebuild Belmont Center, so retailers will supply new revenue to the town and reduce the need for residential revenue, an iffy gamble at best.
We need our treasure spent on solving these pressing issues, not on zoning issues. We should be talking with our neighboring cities, the state, and maybe the Feds, about how to address the short-term and long-term commuter traffic issues of Boston and Cambridge. And we need to face the fact that Belmont, has more precious open space than any other municipality in the area, which enhances our way of life and generates little or no tax revenue. We need to pay our taxes, overrides, and recognize our advantages.
John Beaty, Pleasant Street