Boston's Codman Square taps homegrown leadership for a brighter future
In his blog, the NRDC's Kaid Benfield details how the nonprofit, community-based Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and the Natural Resources Defense Council are partnering with the community to help it realize its goal of a more sustainable future.
22 Oct 2012 - Kaid Benfield, NRDC
Excerpt:
The photo just above shows an auto repair shop in the heart of Boston's Codman Square neighborhood, about six miles south of downtown. The shop has residential development on all sides and, if you're thinking about community improvement, your first thought might be that it doesn't belong there, and your second might be to consider how to be rid of it.
Except, in this case, you couldn’t be more wrong. Within the next year, the shop will be one of the community's most visible green assets. It will have a green roof to absorb stormwater and reduce the need for air conditioning, and solar panels to generate its electricity through renewable energy. Its owner, Larry Dossantos, is deeply committed to a rejuvenated, greener community, and he attended and made significant positive contributions to the community planning meetings held there earlier this month. In actuality, the shop is providing jobs, environmental stewardship, and long-term dedication to the neighborhood. The worst thing the community could do would be to turn its back on this kind of locally based leadership and green entrepreneurship.
Not all business owners in all neighborhoods are as enlightened or benign, of course, and figuring out whether and how to have different kinds of businesses, including sometimes messy ones, in a community alongside homes, churches, and schools is not always easy. But Codman Square is no ordinary neighborhood.
As I wrote in my previous article, the nonprofit, community-based Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and the Natural Resources Defense Council are partnering with the community (including, significantly, a group called Talbot Norfolk Triangle (TNT) Neighbors United) to help it realize its goal of a more sustainable future. The partners are using LEED for Neighborhood Development as a planning tool, and by applying it have compiled a detailed assessment of the TNT district's current strengths and opportunities for improvement. Continued[+]...
> Read full post on Kaid Benfield's Switchboard blog.
> Visit Boston LISC's website
Article Type: Blog Post