Planners at the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) said they were thrilled with the turnout and engagement with residents during the kick-off event on Jan. 30, and they are ready to begin moving towards a second meeting in mid-March.
Planner Ted Schwartzberg said they are looking to schedule a meeting to discuss the historical past of Charlestown and the plans that formed today’s neighborhood.
“The next meeting will be in mid-March and we have put out a notification about that,” he said. “We are working on pinning down a date, but it will be in mid-March.”
The next step in the process, he said, would be focusing on the historic context and clearly defining what that means. That will focus on what is appropriate development within the historic areas, and what was there in 1878.
Another key piece of that is looking at the industrial areas around the Town like the Mystic River waterfront and the areas along Rutherford Avenue.
“That other piece is how is that different than areas zoned industrial and how do we want to start thinking about the future for those areas,” he said.
Right now, the BPDA has been spending most of its Charlestown time going through the comments from the first meeting. Overall, he said he was happy with the questions asked and the progress made.
“I was really excited there was such a high level of enthusiasm and so many people showing up,” he said. “However, Charlestown is 19,000 people and there were just residents. There are other stakeholders and business owners that didn’t get counted. We had folks from Turn It Around, which was great. It’s great we had all those people and we’re working hard to engage others and make sure this is representative of all of Charlestown.”
In addition, the PLAN: Charlestown web page has been updated with the presentation from Jan. 20, and there is also more news on there. Finally, there is an Advisory Group to the process that is forming and seeking nominations. To nominate someone, go to the website.