Call it a plaza, or call it a parklet. Just don’t call it temporary anymore.

The Newton Centre Plaza started with controversy, as business owners and commuters worried about the parking spaces being used for the plaza. And the plaza was supposed to be a pilot standing from June until the fall, but that changed as the space became less controversial and more popular.

And on Thursday, the city’s Traffic Council voted unanimously to keep the Newton Centre Plaza standing at least through 2026, citing an abundance of public use and approval.

People like it

Indeed, all summer long and well into autumn, it was rare to see that plaza without at least a few people—small groups of friends, moms with their kids, couples on dates, young and old—sitting on those Adirondack chairs or playing cornhole in the shade of the trees.

The Planning Department displayed QR codes all around the plaza that allowed people to give immediate feedback about their experience there. There were 226 respondents, the plaza averaged 4.7 out of five stars, and 86 percent of the respondents said the city should keep the plaza permanently.

And the plaza got big kudos for accessibility, something lacking on the terrain of the adjacent Newton Centre Green.

The $287,000 cost of designing, building and maintaining the plaza was covered with money from the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

“Just the nature of the plaza, it’s a flat site, and it has porous openings that were wheelchair and other mobility device accessible for people, and we chose furniture that was accessible for other mobility needs as well, which we heard positive feedback about,” Planning Department Outreach Coordinator Hannah Sternburg said.

Mayor Ruthanne Fuller celebrated the vote and thanked the public for the feedback.

“We also saw exciting signs of Newton Centre economic benefits with 95% of survey respondents who used the Plaza saying they also stopped by a Newton Centre business in the same visit, nearly a quarter of whom indicated it was their first time at that business,” Fuller wrote.

Parking pushback

Parking—specifically the dozens of parking spaces in the Langley lot upon which the Plaza stands—has long been a sour point with the plaza. When Fuller announced the idea, the plan was to take dozens of parking spaces from the lot for the plaza. Then, the city shrunk the project and announced it would only take up a net of eight spaces. That math is only made possible by taking employee parking from elsewhere, however.

That pushback continued right up until the Traffic Council vote.

“This is an adventure to solve a problem that didn’t exist,” Richard Silton of Pelham Street said. “The green space that was already there is plenty big enough, if you put picnic tables and some other games out there and used the space that exists, it would be fine.”

Kia Freeman, who also lives on Pelham Street, said she thinks taking parking away from Langley lot year-round will have her neighborhood “overrun with cars.”

“It’s not worth it to me. It decreases the entire residential neighborhood’s quiet enjoyment of their property to have all these cars in their neighborhood,” Freeman said. “I just don’t think it’s fair, particularly when there have been commercial developments in the Newton Centre commercial area where there’s been a waiver of parking requirements, which could have provides additional parking. I just feel like we keep denying there’s a parking issue and then pushing the parking into the residential neighborhoods.”

Others have had a change of heart, like Hedy Jarras, who has owned Sweet Tomatoes in Newton Centre for nearly three decades. When she first heard about the plan for the plaza, she was alarmed by the loss of parking spaces. But after the city cut down the number of spaces it would take, and after she saw the finished plaza, she was sold.

“I was very happy with the outcome. I think that it’s been a great edition to Newton Centre, and it has shown great desire for outdoor community space,” Jarras said.

Jarras is also on the Economic Development Commission, which supports keeping the plaza in place and has called for the city to collect more data through 2026 on the plaza’s use and impact to Newton’s economy.

Jarras agreed that parking is tough in that part of Newton Centre but said the benefits of the plaza outweigh the parking woes.

“But at the end of the day, I really feel that parking is always available. It may not be the parking spot that you want, but you will indeed get it,” she said. “And I think that the plaza brings brightness into Newton Centre and has the ability to bring people together in the community.”