In mid-May, some 70 neighborhood residents gathered at All Saints Church for a Dot Ave Visioning Session to discuss the future of our Boston Main Streets commercial corridor. The session was co-hosted by Greater Ashmont Main Street and the office of Boston City Clr. Andrea J. Campbell.
Studio G Architects facilitated the conversation which included neighborhood residents, Boston City Clr. Frank Baker and the Dorchester planner from the Boston Planning and Development Agency. The evening provided an opportunity for residents from around Greater Ashmont to come to the table to consider the future of their neighborhood. StudioG opened with a powerpoint presentation of some of the district’s more recent development history and some of the possibilities and challenges that lie ahead. (Particularly useful to review for those who were not able to attend in person.) This was followed by an active visioning session used the Project for Public Spaces “What Makes a Great Place?” diagram as the basis for the discussion and work of the small groups.
Since our session together, Greater Ashmont Main Street’s Development & Historic Preservation Committee volunteers have collated the survey results and break out session newsprint into a three page .pdf which will inform the next parts of our work on this.
Next Steps:
- Followup plans were for two sets of weekend meetings over the summer months, each of which can go in depth for one hour on one of the four topics addressed by the Project for Public Spaces diagram. These sessions will use the initial Dot Ave Visioning Session’s work as the starting point. All our district neighbors are invited attend any or all of the meetings, which will be held in the Greater Ashmont Main Street office (1914 Dorchester Ave, REAR). The topic breakdown is planned as follows:
- Deep Dive Session # 1 , Saturday, July 8
- Sociability (10 – 11am)
- Access & Linkages (11am – noon)
- Deep Dive Session # 2, Saturday, July 29
- Comfort & Image (10 – 11am)
- Uses & Activities (11am – noon)
- Deep Dive Session # 1 , Saturday, July 8
- After these summer Deep Dive Sessions, we will prepare a final document representing our collective vision for development of the Greater Ashmont MS commercial district, again, coming out of our Development & Historic Preservation committee. We hope to present this report at our Fall Meeting in October/November.
- We will be revisiting the survey periodically as a way to check in as to how we are doing with bringing the community’s vision for itself into reality.
Photo credit: Erica Mattison
