City Council Agenda Preview: July 20
The Worcester City Council meets Tuesday at 5pm. The agenda is here.
This week: housing, COVID money, Indian Lake.
Virtual Meeting: https://cow.webex.com/cow/onstage/g.php?MTID=ee066b8fd4aefc4ec3d0109d202ab64f8
Changing School Committee Elections: The Council will meet privately during part of this meeting, to discuss the lawsuit that’s forcing the city to add District School Committee Members. (Currently, they are all elected at-large.)
Private and Public Streets: Julia Gutierrez-Crowley asks that the private Allston Avenue become a public street, “to ensure proper drainage.”
Rezoning the Miss Worcester: There’s a request that 300 Southbridge St (the Miss Worcester diner) get an “Adaptive Reuse Overlay District,” basically relaxing zoning on the property without having to go through all the rezoning rigmarole. This request will be sent to the Planning Board for discussion.
The Gangs of the Blackstone Valley Visitors Center: Former mayor Joe O’Brien has a request that the city work with the state Department of Conservation and Recreation to deal with criminal and gang activity at the parking lot of the visitors center.
Boards and Commissions: The Council will vote on whether to reappoint Suzanne Graham to the Community Development Advisory Committee, and whether to appoint Christina Parissi to the Accessibility Advisory Committee.
Affordable Housing Trust Fund: The Council will vote to establish an AHTF. This fund would be used to create/support affordable housing, and would have a seven-member board.
Tax Break for Mt Carmel Site Housing: The Council will refer to the Economic Development Committee a proposal that the city give some developers an estimated $10 million (over 15 years) tax break on their plan to build 371 units of market-rate housing at the site of the old Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.
Slowing Down Tree Removal: The city had been planning to remove 90 healthy trees as part of street and sidewalk construction across the city. After public outcry, they’ve cut this down to 9. There’s another 29 dying trees they will also remove. Trees often get large enough to block part of the sidewalk or road, or their roots buckle the surface. Time was, people would plant a tree right next to a road or sidewalk, I guess thinking that the tree would never get any larger? Current policies ensure trees are planted some distance from paved surfaces, which does a lot to improve the health of the surfaces and of the trees.
Indian Lake Crackdown Unlikely: The Council has raised concerns about wild boating on Indian Lake. The Police Chief has a report this week explaining that the WPD Neighborhood Response Team makes weekly visits to the lake, and the Massachusetts Environmental Police visit as often as twice a week. The Chief notes that unless more people are hired, it’s unlikely there will be additional enforcement on Indian Lake. The Council asked if the city can restrict use of boats on the lake and in the city in general. The state told the city administration that they can’t restrict access to Great Ponds, including Indian Lake, because they are public areas. (A Great Pond is any pond or lake that’s more than 10 acres in its natural state.)
Our Plan for Federal COVID Funds: The city administration now has a less-vague-but-still-vague plan for spending the $110 million we’ll be getting from the feds as part of the American Rescue Plan Act. We would tentatively spend $24.5m on Community Based Initiatives (housing etc), $15m on Revenue Recovery (making up for the money the DCU Center and our parking lots lost due to COVID), $8.4m on Health and Human Services, $34.5m on Public Asset and Infrastructure Improvements (parks, sewers), and $28m on Technology Improvements.
COVID Funds for New Policing?: Councilor Rose wants a report on whether the city can use some of this money for increasing neighborhood police presence and community policing, and to add a mental health intervention team to the WPD.
Poison Trees: Councilor Colorio wants the Parks Department to think about stopping planting “golden rain trees” in the city, an invasive species that is also (mildly) poisonous.