After two years of planning, and around half a million dollars invested, the City Council voted to allow a conceptual plan for the Newton Highlands Village Enhancement Project to move forward with a 20-2 vote, despite a letter from the Newton Highlands Area Council urging the City Council to stop it in its tracks.

But that was after Councilor Martha Bixby offered an amendment to include a condition that establishes a working group to come up with a report and recommendation whether to continue the project or redirect the funding to another ARPA-funded contract. That amendment passed unanimously.

In a special meeting for the Newton Highlands Village Enhancement Project, the Newton Highlands Neighborhood Area Council deliberated its letter to the City Council, revealing that it prefers the project not move forward. However, if it does, they have a list of 26 conditions, a markup of City Councilor Susan Albright’s 22 conditions, to be considered.

The project began in 2022 to beautify the space, implementing climate mitigation measures, building new gathering spaces and improving safety. The draft of the final letter said that the council does not wish for the project to continue forward at this time, but any remaining funding should be put toward the aforementioned safety improvements.

“It seems like spending more money to develop more of the plan that is so deeply flawed that we have to send 25 points, etc., is problematic, especially if we own [the plan] we already paid $500,000 for and can use as we see fit,” said Emily Manus, a member of the Newton Highlands Area Council in the meeting.

She said that the plan may be revisited under the next mayoral administration because the city now owns the plan from the contractors. She also expressed concern about the project moving forward because she is not sure if the future managers will honor the area council’s written concerns.

Newton City Councilor Rena Getz said that now that they have spent money on this project, they may not be able to use the money from the fund to move a different plan forward. This may risk the area council’s plan to push forward the safety renovations.

“We were specifically talking about using it for paving, because we have standing contracts with providers for the paving, but you could not establish a new contract for this work at this juncture. This money, for those safety improvements, would have to come from elsewhere,” said Getz.

Getz said that the project is funded through the America Rescue Plan Act, a one-time federal grant to Newton for public improvements concerning resilience, livability, and sustainability.

Mayor Ruthanne Fuller’s administration said she will adhere to the Newton City Council’s vote on Nov. 17 to pause or continue development on the Village Enhancement Project, said Jeremy Freudberg, the president of the Newton Highlands Area Council.

“I’m not sure that there really are enough votes in the city council to tell them to pause it,” said Freudberg.

Srdjan Nedeljkovic, the secretary of the area council, proposed a different draft of the letter be sent to the City Council, which did not express a hard stance against the further development of the project.

“We want short-term improvements for Newton Highlands, regardless of whether or not this design goes forward,” said Nedeljkovic.

He said that he believes that the City Council will ultimately decide to move the project forward and that he wants to be a part of the team that carries the plan forward and moves it to a better place than it is now. If the area council expresses that they believe the project was irresponsibly run, he said it may affect their chance of being on the “winning side.”

The team ultimately decided to go with a slightly modified version of the original draft.

“I think most people want to take a stronger stance on the current state of the project and say that it really shouldn’t proceed, at least for now. And I think [Nedeljkovic’s] edits respectively gut that entire premise,” said Freudberg. “We have to start by sending a letter that says that the project is being irresponsibly run.”

The area council ultimately edited the draft to maintain the regional intent but took out exact budget values to focus the letter on the immediate safety improvements they want in the village center. They decided not to mention that the project would potentially cost $14 million, and instead said that the consulting fees seemed “excessive.”

“I feel like there needs to be better communication with the community about this, and I agreed … that we don’t want to be seen as obstructionist, and we don’t want to be seen as holding back updates that possibly could happen,” said Manus.