Residents Wanted for Forest Hills Committee

Chris Helms

This section of Forest Hills at the corner of Ukraine Way and Hyde Park Avenue, known as Parcel U, is slated to be home to 121 housing units, 90 parking spaces and retail space.

A neighborhood advisory group is seeking up to 10 residents to serve on a committee to address the mushrooming development in that part of JP.

The Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council, an elected advisory board, has created an ad-hoc committee on Forest Hills Construction and Development Projects. One tally by longtime resident Bernard Doherty puts the number of new and potential housing units to be built through 2018 at 1,074. In addition to members of the council who will serve on it, residents are being asked to join the effort.

Aims of the committee are:

1. Seek that the residents and businesses of the Forest Hills community are aware and informed of the magnitude of the construction projects going forward in their neighborhood;
2. Seeking that the elected officials representing the Forest Hills area are aware of, and knowledgeable about, the existing and proposed construction projects, their time lines and their potential impacts on the community;
3. Making sure that the relevant state and city departments and agencies responsible for, or having jurisdiction over, these projects are reviewing the project plans and communicating and coordinating with each other
4. Seeking that satisfactory procedures are in places to address problems and issues as they arise; and,
5. Seeking that a regular community input process be established to address concerns of the residents and businesses of the Forest Hills community.

Council members on the committee are: Doherty, Kyle Smith, Anne Barrett, Kristy Nardone, Gerard O'Connor (interim chair) and Michael O'Connor.

If you'd like to join the committee, the council members to contact are Gerard O'Connor at 617-835-3434 or Kevin Moloney at 617-522-3988. The first meeting of the committee is June 4.

[Editor's note: The committee is open to all JP residents, not just ones in Forest Hills as indicated in the original post.]