A few dozen people showed up Wednesday evening to a public hearing regarding a new outdoor plaza planned for Newton Center, which the Newton Traffic Council recently approved.

Mayor Ruthanne Fuller announced the proposed plaza—which will be erected on part of the Langley Parking lot—in January. The idea received some pushback from the public because of the parking spaces it would take away for the summer months, but Planning Department officials met with neighbors and business owners and came up with a compromise plan that uses fewer parking spaces.

The plaza will cover about 7,000 square feet and will only take away a net of eight spaces in that lot, because the city plans to make several spaces public that weren’t public before. These include 12 spaces of employee parking, which would be moved elsewhere, two ZipCar spaces and two Blue Bike spaces.

Planning Director Barney Heath led Wednesday’s event, and he was joined by Assistant Town Planner Nora Masler, Parks and Recreation Commissioner Nicole Banks, and Rosa Herrero and Diana marsh of the consulting firm Dream Collaborative.

And there were designs on the walls for people to pick their favorite options for the plaza.

Reaction was mixed, with some curiosity about the new addition to the Newton Green area and some trepidation about congestion.

“I think it doesn’t accomplish what Newton needs, which is more parking,” resident Gail Harris said, adding that less parking makes the village center less likely to attract new businesses. “And even if the project has reduced the total number lost, it’s made the whole situation more inconvenient for people, because they’re just dispersing what we have through other streets. And I’m not sure what that’s accomplishing.”

Roberta Rosenberg has lived on Pleasant Street in Newton Centre for 47 years and had similar sentiments.

“I think that any money the city has, and any resources we have at all, should be put toward increasing parking in Newton,” Rosenberg said. “And I think that the pilot project that they’re talking about now, the end result is decreasing parking. And anything we’re doing that makes a problem more of a problem is naive and wasteful.”

The plaza is set to go up from late spring to fall. None of the features will be permanent, so if the plaza is too much trouble, it won’t return. If it’s a success, it could be an annual seasonal thing.

Editor’s Note: Newton Beacon board member Howard Sholkin helped with reporting for this story.