Good morning,

Entirely for the fun of it,  we sent out a survey this week, asking which of our participating Spring Seasonings restaurants you’ve tried — and which are still on your list?  So far, the leading “I want to try” restaurants are:

• Back & Blue Steak and Crab in Wellesley
• La Morra in Brookline
• Spiga Ristorante in Needham
• Nzuko in Watertown
• And in Newton, it’s a tie between Thistle & Leek and SALT Patisserie

The survey may be for fun. But Spring Seasonings: A Taste of Our Towns is where things get serious, in the best way.  It’s your opportunity to celebrate and sample 40 of our region’s top chefs and restaurants, with proceeds supporting the chamber’s advocacy for our restaurants and other businesses.

You can still cast your vote and get your tickets for April 13.

What you need to know about this Chestnut Hill project

Do you have questions about Meridian Chestnut Hill, the proposed mixed-use development in Brookline directly across from The Street?

Developer Chestnut Hill Realty is making its case — and answering nearly every conceivable question — on an impressive new website.

The three-building proposal (7,12 and 14 stories) — featuring 266 homes, a 200-room hotel, medical and office space, restaurants and retail — heads to Brookline Town Meeting in late May for a zoning vote.

More lawyers called in to fight MassBay housing

The basic idea of compromise—each side getting something it wants—seems to be getting lost in Wellesley.

Instead, residents are pulling out their checkbooks, hoping to squash the state’s plan to make even a modest dent in our economy-crushing housing crisis.

To review: The Healey-Driscoll administration wants to allow a developer to build up to 180 homes on a five-acre MassBay Community College parking lot. In exchange, the state has offered to permanently preserve an adjacent 40 acres of forest and reinvest proceeds from the land sale into upgrades for the college.

That kind of tradeoff—housing, conservation and investment—should be a reason for a celebration.

But it’s not enough for the newly formed Friends of Centennial, which has already raised over $35,000 and retained counsel to stop anyone new from moving in.

Wellesley’s Select Board has lawyered up, too, teeing up what could be a lengthy taxpayer-funded legal standoff as well as a privately-funded one.

That’s exactly the opposite of what’s needed.

A town-commissioned study last year found that Wellesley lost 3,100 young professionals (ages 25–44) over the last decade and is projected to lose nearly 9% of its population under 20 by 2050.

MassBay project FAQs here.

A clarification on rent control

My item in Friday’s newsletter about a Tufts study on the potential impact of rent control on municipal budgets overlooked something important.

And so did the study’s authors.

The nonpartisan Center for State Policy Analysis reported that the proposed ballot question would result in $2.7 billion less in local tax revenue over the next decade due to an anticipated decline in assessed values on rental properties.

That includes an estimated $9 million loss across our (soon-to-be) five-chamber communities, according to the study’s data.

“To fill the gap,” I wrote, “communities would need to slash services or pray they could pass an override.”

And I quoted Evan Horowitz, who led the study, saying: “You collect less, you spend less on police, on fire, on parks, on snow removal, on schools — or you raise tax rates.”

That’s true. Cities and towns could make up the loss through cuts or overrides.

But Horowitz’s quote, my summary, the Globe and other media, failed to note a third option: municipalities can also shift more of the tax burden onto homeowners, as allowed under Proposition 2½.

To be clear: This would be a terrible solution. It would put home ownership even further out of reach. But it would be allowed.

Rent control is also a terrible idea because it would grind new housing production to a halt at exactly the wrong moment.

My thanks to Newton City Councilor Jacob Silver for pointing this out.

I welcome your views.

Wednesday grab bag

• Speaking of property tax overrides, the Globe reports this morning that many municipalities are currently contemplating record overrides to meet rising costs.
  
  
• The deadline for our high school senior scholarship is fast approaching: April 9 at 5 p.m.
  
  
• Wondering if those free AI classes for all Massachusetts residents that we told you about are worth your time?  Lucia  Maffei at the BBJ enrolled and shares what she learned.
  
  
• MassDOT will host the fourth working group meeting of the Newton Corner Long-Term Planning Study virtually on March 31, 4 p.m.
  
  
• An independent study finds that each $1 billion in public transportation spending yields $5 billion in economic benefits.
  
  
• Kaojiu Restaurant in Coolidge Corner will be closing later this year. (Brookline Patch)
  
  
• The Cannabis Control Commission plans to deploy secret shoppers to make sure marijuana shops are carding customers. (MassLive)
  
  
• Save the date for our 9th Annual Needham Night on Wed. Aug. 12 (5:30–7:30 p.m.) at TripAdvisor's Needham campus amphitheater.
  
  
• The League of Women Voters Needham hosts Candidates Night 2026 on March 30 at 7:30 p.m. at Broadmeadow School and via Zoom and on The Needham Channel, with candidates for Select Board, Planning Board and School Committee.
  
  
• Tess, a high-end women’s clothing boutique that operated in Newton Center for 14 years before closing, is reopening on Union Street.
  
  
• Get Konnected! is launching Boston’s first-ever “50 Most Influential People of Color and Allies in Hospitality & Tourism” list in 2026 and is looking for nominations.  Deadline April 3.
  
  
• Can I buy you lunch? Refer a Brookline business to the chamber and when they join, we’ll thank you with a $25 gift card to a chamber-member restaurant of your choice.
  
  
• And if you have questions about our Brookline expansion, look here.

Our communities should do this too

Finally, Waltham’s City Council just passed a resolution designating April 9, 2026, as Local News Day in Waltham.

Local News Day is part of a national movement designed to “reconnect people to trusted local outlets, empower newsrooms to grow, and spark a national movement that sustains local news for generations.”

We sent letters to our municipal leaders in Newton, Needham, Watertown, Wellesley, and Brookline yesterday, urging them to do the same.

That’s what you need to know for today, unless you need to know the trick to getting the freshest rotisserie chicken at Costco.

Play ball! Go Sox.

Greg Reibman (he, him)

President & CEO

Charles River Regional Chamber

617.244.1688

Looking for an earlier edition? Archive here

Max Woolf contributed to today’s newsletter.