The Committee’s January meeting featured Sierra Club political director Jess Nihigian and Fenway Community Development Corporation community organizer Leo Ruiz Sanchez. As Leslie Pond writes in the February issue of The Fenway News, Nihigian provided an overview of the recent federal Inflation Reduction Act’s climate provisions in terms of their local impacts. She also summarized the major climate laws in Massachusetts, including the Next Generation Roadmap and the 2022 Act Driving Clean Energy and Offshore Wind. Nihigian “emphasized that each of us can take action by asking our elected officials to sponsor the Massachusetts Sierra Club’s priority legislation,” writes Pond.
Fenway CDC’s Ruiz Sanchez introduced Boston’s current Inclusionary Development Policy (IDP), its current requirements and newly proposed plans for affordable housing development in Boston.
The meeting also included a presentation by neighborhood activist Steve Wolf on the controversial Simmons University Longwood Place development and its impacts on urban greenspace.
Leslie Pond contributes “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally,” a series focusing on climate change for The Fenway News.