Feb. 17 Jamaica Plain Zoning Meeting

The Zoning meeting was… so many things. It was brutal and vicious and exactly as horrible as I expected. AND I was also so touched and overwhelmed by the numbers of people that came to support me, but more to support the fact that the City needs to honor the agreements that they make. There was a large group of people there to support the granting of the Zoning Appeal. It is the first time in my life than I have ever experienced something like this. Almost every single person that came, spoke, and it was such a tight situation and a tight vote that I do not think it would have gone through without every individual person that was there. And many of the people who came would not have known about it if my daughter and her husband had not gone around and spoken to people in the neighborhood. I did some of that too - as much as I could - and I honestly know that I did my best with it, but each time I went out it made me physically ill, so there was this recovery curve that I feel so ashamed of, yet I know is just a part of this PTSD that I carry. After the meeting my legs gave out completely but my two daughters helped me walk. So I'm filled with gratitude and bewilderment, and so many questions, and so many critiques of the so-called "community process" which enfranchises people in tearing apart other people's desires with negative (rather than positive) questions, as well as entitlement that is both out of my frame of reference and appalling to me. Luckily everyone on the JP Zoning Board does not choose to behave like that, although there is a good handful that do. In the end though, it was reason that carried the day. The Chairman stated that "The shed is legal." and that the issue is the Zoning Relief needed because of the location. He also intervened multiple times, cautioning people not to get personal. The vicious pointed nature of some of the comments has me still reeling from the hatred coming towards me. Now there is one more step to jump through with Inspectional services themselves but they said at the meeting I went to with the Commissioner and several other ISD staff, as well as the Architect, that they support legalizing the shed so I'm counting on this step being a lot less contentious. Overall I am flooded with gratitude towards people who came out and the people who spoke and the people who held me up and stayed near me afterwards. Thank you all from my heart.