Letter To The Editor: Belmont Hill Proposed Parking Lot Unhealthy For Wildlife, Community

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Photo: A portion of the land owned by Belmont Hill School adjacent to the proposed parking lot

To the residents of Belmont:

The Belmont Hill School intends to build a 100,000 sq. ft. parking lot in place of the current woodlands. This space, almost as big as two football fields, is home to many animal species and is an extension of the ecosystem of Mass Audubon’s Habitat. Important species like foxes, deer, and owls depend on that land to survive, as do the large trees that provide clean air to the entire town. 

The Belmont Middle High School project has no parking lot for students and minimal street parking. All 1,300 students can attend school by carpooling, bus, walking, or biking. We understand there is limited parking at Belmont Hill School, but destroying critical ecosystems and natural habitats is unhealthy for the local wildlife and our community. The size of the parking lot that Belmont Hill wants to build is unnecessary and not worth sacrificing valuable woodlands. 

As Belmont High School Climate Action Club members, we oppose this harmful project. We hope the people of Belmont agree and stand with us against the currently proposed parking design. 

The Belmont High School Climate Action Club

belmonthsclimateactionclub@gmail.com

With Chair’s Departure, Planning Board Left Short And Belmont Hill School Parking Project Delayed

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A few weeks ago, Planning Board’s Vice Chair Matthew Lowrie had just finished writing his resignation letter from the board. The longtime Belmont resident was preparing to move from the Town of Homes “in the not so distant future” and wanted to provide the board’s chair, Steve Pinkerton, time to fill his post on a committee facing a heavy agenda for the year ahead.

But as Lowrie prepared to press ”send” on his letter, “a funny coincidence occurred,” as he noticed an email from Pinkerton. The subject of that correspondence: Pinkerton’s own resignation.

Pinkerton’s sudden resignation along with Lowrie’s pending departure has highlighted the shortage of members and has brought to a halt a proposal by the Belmont Hill School to install a parking lot and facilities building near its central campus that was going before the board for a vote at the Planning Board’s Oct. 11 meeting.

Lowrie said Pinkerton had ”very good reasons” to leave his post on the board which he has led for the past two years with ”[grace] and aplomb,” noting his leadership as ”one of the real drivers” in changing town bylaws to address the trend of “supersizing” residential properties.

With Pinkerton’s departure, Lowrie has decided to step into the chair role – “we’ll see for how long” – until new members are appointed to allow the board to move forward with some semblance of continuity.

With so many changes over the past weeks, the proposal by the Belmont Hill School to add to and revamp its campus parking got caught up in the board’s turmoil.

“I think we’re highlighting that we’re in a little bit of a tenuous place at the moment,” Lowrie told the Zoom audience.

The parking plan – made up of a new parking lot and Facilities Building on land east of Prospect Street, a more formalized parking area adjacent to the Athletic Center and redesign of existing parking and drop off site at the front of the school at Prospect and Marsh streets – has received “a lot of input from abutters and others,” said Lowrie, noting that a greater number of participants were attending via Zoom.

The delayed vote was to begin the design site review, which requires three ‘yes’ votes to proceed. The site plan review process provides a level of review that ensures the project will meet development policies and regulations as defined in the town’s bylaws as well as design practices that are commonly accepted within the community.

With Pinkerton resignation, member Karl Haglund not at Tuesday’s meeting and member Renee Guo recusing herself from the process, the school would need to receive an unanimous vote from the remaining three members to move the project forward.

While that was likely, the board and the town began talks with the school to withdraw the application for the time being to “let us get our planning board back in order” said Lowrie with the Select Board adding at least one full-time member in the next weeks.

“Do you think it would be cleaner and neater if you were to withdraw?” Lowrie asked Kelly Durfee Cardoza, a principal of the Avalon Consulting Group who was representing the school at the meeting. “I don’t see it in anybody’s best interest for there to be a vulnerability to whatever decision we reach based on the composition of the planning board,” he said.

Cardoza told the board that while the school wished to proceed with the review vote rather than having to wait an undetermined amount of time, Lowrie’s suggestion along with the board’s assurances that the delay would be a short one, the school will withdraw the current application without prejudice to refiling at the board’s next meeting on Oct. 18.

The next step is to seat a full-time member and be prepared to once again accept the school’s plan in the first weeks of November.

“Sounds like a plan,” said Lowrie.

Belmont Center Parking Meters Back In Operation Beginning Friday

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Photo: Inactive no longer as parking stations will be activated on Friday in Belmont Center.

The days of free parking throughout Belmont Center will come to an end beginning Friday, July 17, after a vote by the Belmont Select Board at its remote meeting on Monday.

“It’s a return to normality,” said Board Chair Roy Epstein as the members voted unanimously to honor an “explicit” request by the Belmont Center Business Association to reactivate the pay stations for parking spaces on Leonard Street, Moore Street, Alexander Avenue and Channing Road.

The ask from the business group came after their members observed many of the spaces being used by people leaving their vehicles all-day at prime locations. Paid parking in Belmont Center was suspended along the street and in the Claflin Municipal Parking Lot behind the center as a way to help merchants during the slow down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Board also decided to keep free parking in the Claflin lot through Labor Day.

Free for 30: Town Release New Belmont Center Parking Plan [Video]

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Photo: A pay-by-plate kiosk in Pittsburgh.

In an effort help to increase on-street parking turnover and availability for shoppers in Belmont Center, drivers parking along Leonard Street will need more than just change in their pockets; they’ll need to remember their license plate number. 

According to a press release from the town dated Friday, March 10, Pay-By-License-Plate parking stations will go into effect in Belmont Center on March 27,  primarily along Leonard Street. 

The stations, currently under wraps, were installed this past fall. The new system goes into effect about a month before the opening of Foodie’s Urban Market, the popular grocery which is expected to increase parking demand in Belmont’s principal business center.

The new multi-space meters will allow for 30 minutes of free parking and the ability to pay for up to an additional hour for a total of 90 minutes of parking per day on Leonard Street. The stations will accept cash and credit card payments. 

Patrons will be required to input their license plate number even if they intend to only take advantage of the 30-minute free period. 

Here is a video from Deerfield Beach, Florida (with Jim “Chiefy” Mathie, the local dive shop owner) on how to use the system.

Parking in the Claflin Street Municipal Parking lot, located behind Leonard Street, will continue to offer two free hour parking spaces, as well as metered parking spaces – which were installed in August 2015 – for a dollar per hour. Credit card and cash payments are accepted. 

Parking by plate number was first installed in Calgary, Canada in September 2007 and in Denver in 2008. The largest US pay-by-plate program is in Pittsburgh which has installed 800-plus terminals.

As Projects Near Finish, Belmont Center Parking Plan Returns (As Does Free 2-Hr Parking in June)

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Photo: Leonard Street’s newest structure.

While the daily encounters with construction equipment and traffic delays along Leonard Street may feel like an eternal visit to Purgatory, the reconstruction of Belmont’s commercial hub’s roadways is just months from completion. 

And with the finale of one task, the town has begun the next big chore, implementing the long-talked about parking plan for Belmont Center.

According to Belmont’s Town Administrator David Kale at Monday’s Board of Selectmen’s meeting, as the major work in Belmont Center comes to an end – the roadway and sidewalk component will be finished by the end of July or early August and the former Macy’s/Foodies Urban Market is now scheduled to open before Thanksgiving – now is the time for the town to begin presenting a comprehensive parking program for Leonard Street, the surrounding side streets and the Claflin municipal parking lot to residents.

“Let’s gear up and make contengency plans with businesses and others so when [Foodies] is open,” the town will be ready for a critical mass of parking coming to the 199-space Claflin lot, said Kale.

The most immediate announcement on parking is that the town, in association with Belmont Savings Bank, will provide two-hour free parking in the Claflin lot for June. 

Using as its guide the parking plan created by Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associate in March 2012, there are several operating principles that will lead the process. The most significant of the principles, said Kale, is finding ways to increase parking spaces in the Claflin lot and on town streets.

“That become more important with retail spaces coming online,” said Kale, noting the introduction of Foodies Urban Market, the independent supermarket which caters to selling prepared foods and fresh produce. 

That need for upping the number of spaces, or just as important, freeing up spaces on a regular basis will necessitate the establishment of metered parking along Leonard Street as well as changing the current two-hour free parking in the first two rows of the Claflin lot. 

“We are looking to increase quick stops” to augment the number of total customers who can shop in the Center. One aspect of that goal will be increased enforcement of parking regulations on Leonard and Claflin, including patroling the lots and streets into the evening. 

Other areas that will need to be changed is revisiting the designated commuter parking areas – since the program began last year, only six commuter parking stickers have been sold by the town – and the location of parking for owners and employees of Center businesses.

“We may want them to be situation somewhere other than” the municipal lot,” said Kale.

Kale also said the town will work with businesses in an attempt to steamline delivery times to merchants to prevent the current backup of traffic along Leonard Street. 

“We have started a conversation with the Belmont Center Business Association” and we’ll have public meetings” to discuss the town’s plans in the next few months, said Kale.

New Parking Meters Installed in Belmont Center, Waverley

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Photo: Parking Enforcement Officer Larry MacDonald assisting a resident with the new parking meter.

It’s a warm market day, and a resident was caught off guard attempting to pay to park in the municipal lot in Belmont Center.

“This doesn’t look familiar,” she said to Larry Macdonald, one of Belmont’s parking enforcement officers, as she viewed a new and entirely different looking parking meter.

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Unlike the former ones that only took one dollar bills and coins, the new meters – installed three weeks ago – still takes currency but now provides residents the convenience of accepting card cards.

“They love the credit cards,” said MacDonald. That is what people like the best; they don’t need to carry quarters around with them.” 

But for all the ease of using a credit card, those purchasing tickets still have to display them on the driver’s side dashboard. 

Belmont bought three meters from Integrated Technical Systems as part of a revamped parking plan for Belmont Center and after the renovation of the Waverley Square lot rebuilt during the Trapelo/Belmont Corridor Project.

Two meters are in the Claflin Street Parking Lot; one uses solar energy and the other electric. The other meter is in the lot adjacent to the Waverley Commuter Rail station. 

The town’s contract with ITS is for two years for software maintenance, online reporting and credit card processing, which is performed via a cellular link to the company.

Hike in Parking Fees Spark Belmont Business Owners Ire

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Photo: Bells & Whistles’ Meghan Aufiero at the community parking lot behind Belmont Center, Tuesday, Feb. 3. 

There was a surprise waiting for Meghan Aufiero as she arrived for work at Bells & Whistles, the home furnishings, gifts and accessories store on Leonard Street on a frigid Tuesday morning, Feb. 3.

As she was putting dollar bills into the parking machine, she discovered the daily rate to park in the Belmont Center commuter lot would cost her an extra $2 a day to $5.

“This is a bummer,” the Winchester resident said when she discovered the 75 percent increase in the price of parking in Belmont’s commercial hub.

Aufiero is just one of dozens of employees of small businesses and franchises feeling the impact of the near doubling of the daily parking charge, approved late last year by the Belmont Board of Selectmen at the recommendation of a citizens/town group that spent more than a year determining the parking operation was not paying its way.

The new parking scheme, which went into effect Sunday, Feb. 1, includes the new fee structure and an attempt to monetize the vast number of commuters who have parked on Belmont streets for nothing, or close to it, for decades.

In addition to the hourly and daily fees jumps, the town has created 10 new weekday parking spots along Royal Road adjacent to the MBTA’s commuter rail station at Belmont Center and spaces in the Belmont Center commuter parking lot reserved for commuter pass holders. Those monthly passes are going for $90 a pop, an increase of $30.
The jump in fees, delayed a month at the request of local businesses, has been as welcome as the two snow storms that have hampered businesses in the town’s main commercial area.

“I can’t, and won’t, tell you how angry I am about this,” said a Leonard Street business proprietor.

Owners say the result of the new commuter parking plan is their staffs are left holding the bag, which needs to be filled with quarters to feed the parking machine.

For Belmont Toys owner Deran Muckjian, the increase will be an additional burden on his employees.

“The are now being asked to pay $1,200 or more this year just to come to work,” he said.

For Shelley MacDonald, who travels from Clarendon Road to Belmont Center, the additional cost of parking is making it harder for her to justify coming to work at the town’s only toy store.

“These little businesses don’t make enough to offset the new price for their employees. How can they retain good workers?” MacDonald asked.

Muckjian is not just upset by the added costs to his employees, but whether the increases are justified. Muckjian said his parking costs in towns where he has other stores are considerably less; in Lexington, he pays $250 a year each for two employee passes while Winchester does not charge a nickel for employee parking permits.

“What are the costs to park here? Keep the blacktop repaired? Making sure the parking machine is working?” Muckjian said.

At the very least, said Muckjian, a discount should be provided to the employees with the subsequent decrease in revenue be made up by increasing the fees on commuters.

A monthly pass at the nearby Alewife Station in Cambridge is $7 a day while the parking lot at the Fitchburg/Acton commuter line stop at the Brandeis stop in Waltham is $4 daily.

So far, there has been little communications between owners and the town on resolving the matter.

Champions Sports Goods owner Gerry Dickhaut said he has yet to receive a reply to a Belmont Center Business Association letter on business owners’ concerns. The single-page note, dated Dec. 8, suggests cutting the increase in the daily rate in half, up a $1 to $4 a day, retain the $60 a month pass for employees while jacking up the cost to commuters to $15 a day, which would still be half the cost of parking in downtown Boston.

But the town official who presented the case for the fee hike at a pair of public meetings last month said the increases in daily and monthly rates are past due.

Belmont Town Treasurer Floyd Carman, said rates have been kept steady since January 2009 while the demand for parking spots is outstripping supply.

“Belmont parking is at a premium. We are not like other towns that either has the space for big lots or a lot of industry that can subsidize parking,” said Carman. “Belmont does not have that luxury; We have a limited number of parking spaces. That’s the facts.”

He said the town’s parking advisory group, made up of residents and town officials, made an extensive analysis of the parking rates in many communities, not just neighboring municipalities. The new price structure “is a function of what it takes to run the program and what’s fair.”

Carman said the need for the town to employ three parking enforcement personnel and keeping all the equipment running requires the town to raise about $35,000 a year on fees to make the program pay for itself.

“Believe me, the town is not getting rich on this increase,” said Carman.

As for alternatives and price breaks for employees, Carman said he has not seen any proposals “come across my desk.”

“If the business association comes to me with a proposal, I am ready to talk to them and then presented to the Board of Selectmen,” said Carman.

Belmont OKs Commuter Pass Program, Price Hikes for Town Lots

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Straphangers using Belmont Center to catch buses or the commuter rail to work will soon lose most of their free parking options as the Belmont Board of Selectmen approved a plan Monday, Sept. 29 requiring commuters to purchase of a monthly pass to park along streets and town lots near the transportation hub.

The recommendations from a committee of the Financial Task Force is predicting the commuter pass along with an increase in the fees at the three municipal parking lots will generate an additional $40,000 a year for the town, according to Floyd Carman, the town’s treasurer who is a member of the Task Force’s Other Revenue Committee.

The selectmen decided to defer from expanding the commuter plan to the “turn around” road across from Cottage Street and the Underwood Pool that is used for parking for residents and visitors attending events or using the school playing fields or the ‘Skip’ Viglirolo Skating Rink.

The new parking regulations will go into effect on Jan. 1.

Residents and out-of-towners who use the three town-owned lots in Belmont Center (on Claflin Street), Cushing Square and Waverley Square will be paying 40 cents more an hour and $2 a day to park, which will cover the costs to maintain the lots and operate the parking program, said Carman.

The parking fees will become $1 per hour and $5 for an all day ticket on Jan. 1. Parking passes will jump from $60 to $90.

The big change will be the new commuter parking plan, an idea proposed in the past but never implemented, said Carman. Currently, about 65 percent of the vehicles parked adjacent the Belmont commuter rail station are from out-of-town, said Carman.

“Sometimes, it’s 100 percent. There are no places for residents to park,” he told selectmen.

Under the recommendations, ten spaces in the three municipal lots as well as 13 spaces along Royal Road in front of the Belmont Lions Club will be reserved for commuters who purchase passes for $90 a month. The pass will allow commuters to use the spaces from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The ten commuter spots in the Belmont Center lot will be located near the former Macy’s location as its unlikely the site will be leased “until next year,” said Carman.

“So for the short term we can develop a revenue stream,” said Carman.

He also said there is some risk to the plan as the Belmont Center lot is used by the town’s Farmers Market five months during the summer and fall while the Lions Club sells Christmas trees in December.

Carman told Selectmen that businesses whose employees have been using lots and the street could begin a shuttle service from other locations.

The approved recommendations come as the November Town Meeting will discuss approving the $2.6 million reconstruction of Belmont Center’s roads that will include the introduction of a parking plan that calls for meters along Leonard Street. Selectman Sami Baghdady said he wanted to promote the commuter lot in a way “to encourage turnover along Leonard Street” to promote shopping and not all-day parking along the town’s “High Street.”

Selectman Mark Paolillo brought up the running concern of workers using on-street parking spaces by suggesting employee designated parking spaces in the three municipal lots with the remaining spaces limited to four hours or less.

“Let’s start thinking about this now before the Macy’s site opens,” said Paolillo.