>Beautiful! Love the contrast between the straight lines of the house and fencing to the softness of the trees and bushes.

thank you so much for your message! Glad you liked the result! I painted the trees and sky with dry pastel to give this softer effect :))

I’m next door in RI in a town bordering Mass.

Ductless for the basement and ground floor. Ducted ductless in the attic for the upstairs (2 BR and bathroom). They’re Mitsubishi Hyper Heat units and work great even in very cold below-zero temps. No propane or other backups. The house had an older gas furnace with baseboard heat that I could use in a pinch but I’ve never needed to use it. I will probably have it ripped out and the gas line for it capped, because it’s quite old and I could use the space in the basement.

One of the biggest “Diamond” contractors for Mitsubishi cold weather ductless is Superior Comfort. They service RI and most of SE Mass. Diamond contractor employment gives you a longer warranty on the unit.

I fully expect this system to last 20+ years. They’re reliable workhorses.

Lowell area. Had a whole house ducted Bosch heat pump installed last summer. $10K rebate from MassSave made it go down pretty easy. Kept gas furnace for backup. Heat pump is supposed to work down to 5F, at which point it will fall back to the furnace. Of course that has not been tested out yet.

No functional issues - keeps the house warm fine. Of course, hasn't been deathly cold yet. Just a couple of mornings below 20F. Back of the envelope calculation for December shows that heating cost was more or less the same as if we'd used the gas furnace. Used much less energy though and (presumedly) generated less CO2. We'll see what happens this month. If it's outrageous, we'll go back to the furnace full-time.

TL;DR - you'll probably save energy with a heat pump, but due to the high cost of electricity around here, you probably won't save much money. Remember that heat pump also covers your A/C needs.

They can apply for section 8, but it takes years to come up on the list, and even then they only give you 30 days to secure section 8 approved housing - which can be damn near impossible, especially with discriminatory landlords who conveniently loose emails and applications from those on section 8.

The waiting list for Income-based apartments is up to ten years. Properties that could have been developed into affordable housing have been purchased by corporate landlords who, instead of offering units at reasonable rents, drive up market values by listing vacant apartments going for twice what they did three years ago. They do not care if they remain vacant until the people making $30/hr+ rent them, and wages are half that - if you’re lucky.

I would absolutely support more development in Springfield, but does Springfield itself have a housing crisis? I just checked zillow and there are many houses in the $200,000 to $300,000 range in and around Springfield, it doesn't exactly seem like housing prices there are out of control. The issue seems to be more that there aren't enough good-paying jobs in Springfield, not housing.

Does Springfield need more economic development? Sure. More housing? That's not really clear looking at the current housing availability and prices there.

>The fact Worcester already meets the requirements is not "not allowing" Worcester to develop.

These are two different issues:

1. Worcester meets the requirements, so the law doesn't help anybody.

2. State policies have only further perpetuated the issue you're seeing in most of Eastern MA, which is that regular people can't afford to live so that Boston can fuel its lust for lab workers and support staff. It destroys the local economies and displaces more people from Blacstone or wherever else when the real solution is to fix Watertown and Peabody.

>I agree that development needs to happen outside of Boston too, but I'm not in agreement that the state government is preventing that development.

The decisions the state makes are all based on what benefits Boston the most. However, those things frequently harm other areas with fewer resources. Instead of, say, supporting Springfield's arms manufacturers to provide jobs, the State has been trying to force them out.

>I have no idea how you expect removing tolls to magically turn Springfield to Boston into a 45 minute drive. It's 90 miles! Are you driving at 120 mph?

Firstly, I'm talking the drive from Springfield to Worcester. It's 45 minutes on I-90, and 2 hours on US 20. I've taken both. Slap tolls on 495 or something, where people have other choices. Don't hold independent development in the West back in exchange for a tidbit of money.

Thanks. Not close, but if I ever get out there, I'll check it out.

The fact Worcester already meets the requirements is not "not allowing" Worcester to develop.

I agree that development needs to happen outside of Boston too, but I'm not in agreement that the state government is preventing that development. Local municipal zoning laws and NIMBYs at town meetings are far more likely to be preventing development in individual municipalities than the state is, the state isn't really directly involved in local zoning decisions.

The traffic issues here are hardly just due to tolls, pretty much all of which are automated with EZPass at this point here anyways. Worcester to Springfield is roughly an hour drive as it is 50-55 miles, the issue is more than once you get inside of Worcester the population density goes way up so the traffic goes way up. Getting rid of every toll on the Pike wouldn't change that population density and traffic problem.

Either way, though more development in Springfield would obviously be great, I really don't think it would make much of a difference for metro Boston housing costs. Springfield is 90 miles from Boston, that's too far away to be a viable alternative for people who work in and around Boston and need to commute. Worcester is indeed a viable alternative, not so much Springfield.

Worcester isn't really impacted by the law because the requirements are already met in Worcester. The stuff that stops Worcester and Springfield from growing is shit like shuttering a major manufacturer out of hate and putting 550 people out of work, or putting tolls on the only major east-west highway (which turns a 45 minute drive between the two into a 2 hour drive),

The bigger issue is that policies are enacted that benefit Boston at the cost of harm to smaller cities. Boston alone can no longer deal with the issue. They need to play ball.

If you're close to Western MA, Rubi's Cafe in Great Barrington does welsh rarebit http://www.rubiners.com/rubis

I mean, fair, but I just think it's weird to say the state doesn't want to allow Worcester to develop when Worcester is literally one of the municipalities impacted by that law who is being told "you have to allow development."

I'm fine with more development in Springfield too (is the state gov preventing that?), but prioritizing the Boston metro area towns with transit access for more development arguably does make a lot of sense given Boston is where a lot of jobs are and people need to be able to live commuting distance to those jobs. The housing crunch is a problem across MA, but it is much worse closer into Boston than it is in Central or Western MA, the prices are significantly higher in the Boston metro.

>There is also a housing authority in most if not all towns that can get people into income based apartments.

And there is a huge waiting list.

Fuck that. High speed rail to Boston would just continue enlarging Boston. Independent development is key. Making Boston larger is what's causing this issue, killing civil society and making things worse for everyone

and a high speed rail between these cities and Boston

>The state literally passed legislation to force communities with or near MBTA access (including CR) to loosen their zoning laws:

Forcing people to comply only works if you're able to make it work. They can force Lowell to follow that law, but that law doesn't apply outside of the zones.

>I really don't think it's accurate to present it as if the state government is preventing other municipalities from developing,

Massachusetts has an illustrious history of crippling local economies to benefit Boston. The most famous example is Shays' Rebellion, where wealthy Bostoners elected to use militia instead of stop scamming farmers. More recently, the tolls on I-90 that were definitely certainly temporary to repay installation costs fund the big dig~ ~fix the budget hole from the big dig fund Boston.

Beautiful! Love the contrast between the straight lines of the house and fencing to the softness of the trees and bushes.

That is the law I was referring to with my comment. That solves one problem, but not others. You still need to negotiate

Here’s the guy my uncle used if you’re interested.

https://houseofjoyfulnoise.com/motor-vehicle-license-plate-refurbishing/

His plate is a C plate so I’m assuming of one of the first issued of the green ones.

>Very nice! I can barely draw stick figures, so this is amazing to me.

Thank you so much! Glad you liked it, I'm happy to know you enjoyed the drawing!

Thank you for the compliment! And I understand your point of view. My client asked me for full-leaved and colorful trees, like in autumn in New England. We are both happy with the result. :)

I mean, that's basically what this new law is: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/multi-family-zoning-requirement-for-mbta-communities

The question is whether the penalties on the towns who don't comply actually get enforced.

Its original and does show some wear, I didnt think of restoring it, might have to look into it. Don’t want to lose it, if I can help it.

The state literally passed legislation to force communities with or near MBTA access (including CR) to loosen their zoning laws: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/multi-family-zoning-requirement-for-mbta-communities

I really don't think it's accurate to present it as if the state government is preventing other municipalities from developing, generally zoning laws are local so its the municipalities themselves who are preventing the development. The state government is far from perfect, but on this issue they are pushing municipalities to loosen their zoning restrictions, not the other way around.

>:)

:)

thank you ! I am happy to read this :)