Dorchester

The 1,300-space parking lot is now a site of competing visions for Dorchester as residents struggle over its future. The conflict has exposed neighborhood divisions along racial and class lines and stoked tensions between homeowners and renters.

A small army of developers is altering the fabric of Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan in defiance of a zoning code that some argue was meant to protect abutters from the excesses of speculative real estate development. In case after case, developers are pushing past the previously set limits on building height and density.

A new affordable housing project is underway in Dorchester, set for completion in summer 2021. The Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation (DBEDC) broke ground in December after five years of gathering resources for the 80-unit, mixed-use space.

In one of its most divided votes in recent years, the Boston School Committee narrowly approved a controversial plan to transfer a sports field, playground and basketball courts at the McCormack Middle School to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dorchester (BGCD) for the construction of a new sports facility.

Last year, the Boston Public Schools’ plan to sell off the playing fields next to the John W. McCormack Middle School in Dorchester appeared to come to a halt as students and local abutters raised concerns about the loss of open space and a development process that appeared to put developers first. Last Wednesday, BPS officials and the prospective developers of the land presented plans to move the project forward.

The field narrowed in the race for the Mattapan-centered 12th Suffolk District seat last week after Cameron Charbonnier dropped out.

After looters hit Noah Hicks’ Uphams Corner bike shop, donors more than made up for the stolen bikes. Now Hicks is donating funds to other causes.

Four candidates have pulled nomination papers to run in the district, which includes parts of Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park and Milton.

From the outset, McCormack students, teachers and residents of the abutting Harbor Point neighborhood testified against what many saw as an attempt to transfer public open space into private hands.

Students and Teachers from the John W. McCormack school in Dorchester pleaded with the Boston School Committee to keep their sports field, after learning the school department is entertaining a proposal from local nonprofits to build a $30 million Boys and Girls Clubs community center and field house on the site.

Students from the McCormack school are opposed to a proposed $30 million Boys and Girls Club field house that would be built on land currently occupied by the school’s athletic field and playground.

Omar Suazo is used to death threats. As the popularly elected president of the Patronato, or governing body, in the largest Garifuna community in Honduras, Suazo had stood in the way of three attempts to dam the Sambo Creek river and had fought against drug dealing and land expropriation ¾ two forces that he said were eating away at his community.