Arlington Lands Grant For Artist Space And Electrification

ARLINGTON, MA — The town has received two technical assistance awards totaling $69,000 from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, according to an announcement made by the team earlier this month.

The awards will support two separate initiatives: Arlington’s Artist Live Work program and a regional neighborhood electrification effort with Acton.

Arlington and Acton will reportedly work with MAPC staff to develop plans for neighborhood-wide electrification and support public outreach aimed at speeding residential decarbonization. The town said both communities are Fossil Fuel Free Demonstration communities and share a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050.

The second award will help Arlington build out its Artist Live Work program. Town officials said Arlington Town Meeting approved Artist Live/Work as an allowed use in industrial zones in 2021, making it the only housing type permitted in those areas.

The program is intended to create protected housing and workspaces for artists and creatives being pushed out of urban areas, while also helping rebuild community gathering spaces for public events after what it described as a 15-year decline.

Arlington said it hopes the work with MAPC can produce a model that other communities in the region could follow if they want to create artist housing of their own.

The town's projects are two of 20 municipal and regional projects across Greater Boston that received MAPC technical assistance funding in this round. Arlington also said all 101 cities and towns in the MAPC region were eligible to apply, and that MAPC received roughly three times as many applications as it had funding available for.

MAPC is an agency that serves more than 100 municipalities in the Greater Boston area. It has been providing resources for communities to forward initiatives since it was founded in 1963.

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