THIRTY LOW-INCOME seniors recently lost potential housing, but 10 mature trees will survive.
Those are among the outcomes so far of the neighborhood process and design review for a desperately needed affordable housing project in Jamaica Plain. They are emblematic of Boston’s broken land use process, through which neighbors assert parochial interests to stymie needed housing development or impose additional costs and delays. Even when that development advances the city’s purported goals – goals that city leaders appear unwilling to expend political capital to advance.
Founded in 1860, Rogerson Communities provides assisted living, memory care services, and independent living opportunities to older adults in the Commonwealth. In the summer of 2024, Rogerson began meeting with neighbors near its 3.2-acre site on the Jamaicaway and in August it filed a Letter of Intent with the Boston Planning Department, announcing plans to redevelop a surface parking lot and a vacant single-family home…