The city's Zoning Commission will give one final hearing next week to a zoning plan for Dorchester.

The new rules will affect our community for decades to come. It has been at least 40 years since Dorchester was last zoned, and as property values here have soared, the growing tension between residential and commercial interests seems certain to continue.

The new regulations were hammered out over a laborious five years of meetings, as BRA planners held discussions with all sorts of private interests. Community residents and business persons have had extensive input through the PZAC process (Planning and Zoning Advisory Committee.)

Dorchester resident and businessman Richard O'Mara said this week, "I don't think there is any one person who is 100 percent satisfied with it. But I think a tremendous amount of work and effort went into it, and some compromises were reached. I think the work was fair and the process was fair and every part of the neighborhood was represented."

Still, there are some areas of significant dispute, and for concerned parties, there will be one final chance for input. The Zoning Commission will meet next Wednesday morning, June 19 at 9 AM in room 900 at Boston City Hall, and the Dorchester plan is the first item on the agenda.

Zoning is far from the most exciting issue to catch the interest of citizens; yet at the end of the day, so many neighborhood disputes find their resolution at the zoning board. Next Wednesday's public hearing is a compelling one, and it offers one last chance for public comment.

-Ed Forry

Neighbors were stunned to learn of the passing of Sharon Yokaitis, the longtime civic activist who helped found the John W. McCormack Civic Association. Yokaitis died suddenly last Friday at the age of 47.

The native Californian had come east to take a law degree at Boston College, settling in Dorchester two decades ago and becoming deeply involved in community advocacy, first with the Columbia Savin Hill civic group and more recently with the McCormack neighborhood group. She had immersed herself in substantial battles to maintain her neighborhood, most notably in seeking to mitigate the traffic and pollution problems caused by the Southeast Expressway and the awful Columbia Road corridor problems. And she and her neighbors won a sweet success advocating against a gas station's plan to tear down a Columbia Road home to make way for a parking lot.

The civic group will meet on June 18 at 7 PM at St. Margaret's parish hall, and neighbors have been invited to come to the meeting "to reflect on what Sharon has meant to all of us."

"Sharon's hard work, leadership and courage greatly enhanced the quality of life for every resident and business person," the group said this week. "We send our condolences to her family and her many friends. Rest in peace, Sharon."

E.F.