The approval of a 196-unit apartment project at the former Home for Little Wanderers in Jamaica Plain will create much-needed housing. The unanimous vote by Boston’s zoning board last week should also be seen as a blow to the so-called “reverse snobbery” that sometimes grips the neighborhood.
Affordable housing activists opposed the complex even after the developer agreed to include more affordable units than are required under the city’s inclusionary zoning policy. It became increasingly obvious that some groups, including the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council, are ready to wall out badly needed market-rate housing because the prospective tenants for those units don’t completely comport with activists’ views of what a diverse neighborhood should look like.
Comments
I've always wondered where we get this term "vibrant community". Are people of lesser means more or less vibrant? What kind of people actually move into these market-rate apartments and condos? Have they had vibrancy training? Do they have kids? Do they all send their kids to private school? Would that make them more or less vibrant? Maybe they could send their kids to vibrancy training of some sort too. Might help to promote peace in the neighborhood.
Utter reverse hogwash!