The Jamaica Plain Housing Committee (JPHC) never gives up.

At its Dec. 16 meeting developer Marc Kaplan of Eldev LLC explained why he had to change the inherited affordability agreement on 3326 Washington St. in Jamaica Plain, a five-story, 43-unit apartment building opposite the District E-13 Boston Police Department station.

As reported by The Bulletin, the housing committee told Kaplan to come back in January with a better plan.

The housing committee and its allies met on Jan. 20, but without Kaplan, and went over their objections again.“He snubbed us,” said committee chair Danielle Summer Kieta. “I tried my best.”

In response to The Bulletin the next day, Kaplan’s attorney Jeff Drago wrote, “Neither Eldev nor my office was invited” to the Jan 20 meeting.

The notice of project change for 3326 Washington St. was on the Jan. 13 BPDA agenda but was abruptly pulled off. The Bulletin could not find out why or by whom, but housing committee member Kathy Brown explained why on Jan. 20. A few housing advocates called Sheila Dillon chief of housing and complained, she said.

“Sheila didn’t know there was this much opposition. She apologized and got it off the agenda. Sheila wants to talk with us,” Brown said.

Alexander Sturke of the Mayor’s Office of Housing (MOH) confirmed this the next day.“This is what I have heard in our office,” he wrote The Bulletin. “When Sheila heard about the issues in the neighborhood, she had the project pulled off the agenda so the MOH could engage with the community more.”

As Kaplan explained on Dec. 16, the project change he proposes would replace three, on-site affordable units with three, mobile vouchers; this created great opposition summed up by Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council (JPNC) chair Stacey Renee Welch.

“You come in and scream costs; you’re still getting paid,” Welch said.

“This is by design. You’re selling us out for financial gain. You’re very disrespectful. Don’t come to us with changes. You got caught,” she said.

The same arguments were repeated almost word for word on Jan. 20; a letter of opposition was drafted to be approved by the JPNC at its Jan. 27 meeting, taking place after The Bulletin’s deadline.

The letter said in part, “at a time when Jamaica Plain continues to face an acute housing affordability crisis, any diminishment of onsite affordable housing is unacceptable.”

“The proposal to replace some onsite affordable units with voucher set-asides that are not project-based… relying on residents to bring their own mobile vouchers…do not constitute additional affordability in this project.”

The developer is not honoring the commitments he made in April 25, 2025 the letter said.

But what seems to literally infuriate the committee members and its acolytes is the absence of a community meeting to review the changes, that, according to the Boston Planning Department, are not required but which JPNC members like Alcurtis Clark declared “is our right.”

The letter was approved but the meeting dissolved into venting and allegations.Welch opened the floor.

“I’m trying to be kind,” Clark said. “Developers get their approvals then they come back and say they can’t do the affordable because of the banks. It’s disingenuous. They get all the variances and then they flip it to get more value. It’s a well-known process.”

“Three-two-six-six Washington St. is a precedent. The new developer still has to come back to us,” Welch said.

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Clark said she was still bitter about Doyle’s.“They pushed Doyle’s right by us,” she said.“They’re taking away our voices.”

“Lee Goodman wrangled Needham Bank to give him more money.”

“Force this public hearing [on 3326 Washington]. We have a right to challenge it.”

Committee member Willie Mitchell seemed more aggravated.“We got our hands spanked by City Hall.” he said. “There’s a pattern of these developers. They try to be nice about it, still smiling, but they have a way to get things done the way they want. We’re powerless.”

“We can’t be nice anymore,” Mitchell said. “Lee Goodman, he moved to Brookline and forgot about his commitments. I was surprised he got Needham Bank; they just swooped right in.”

Apparently EldevLLC feels that it has already held its community meeting on Dec. 16 with the housing committee.

“We followed the BPDA and MOH process that is in place,” Drago wrote The Bulletin, “to present some amendments to the project.”

“We did not change the affordable percentage or the number of units in our proposal to the city; we simply worked with MOH to come up with a plan that will be viable and acceptable to the banks to get financing.”

“We will follow any process we are given by MOH,” Drago wrote.

There was a discussion among acolytes of the JPHC that a forum be organized to prepare a statement of what the community wants developers to do; their argument is that it is always the community who negotiates with developers.

An example of the direction this might take was at the Jan. 13 BPDA Board meeting at which the Rogerson Communities’ senior housing/memory care development was also on the agenda with 3326 Washington St.

As the BPDA prepared to vote, board member Matt O’Malley congratulated Rogerson for doing “yeoman’s work with the community.”

“We got 150 letters to the BPDA,” he said. “You engaged positively with the community.”

Rogerson’s architect Phillip Saad explained why: “The building was redesigned, the density was lowered from seven stories to six and the number of senior supportive apartments was reduced from 71 down to 41.”

In the emerging ideology of the JPHC, which never reviewed the Rogerson plans in two years, it seems the loss of 41 senior apartments is legitimate because it complies with the voice of the community that the housing committee and its allies feel is being lost.