Board approves 446-unit apartment complex in Audubon Circle - with more than 50 of those for families with kids at Children's Hospital

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved plans by a London-based developer and Children's Hospital for four new buildings at 819 Beacon St. that will have one wing rising 17 stories and which will include 53 units that will provide short-term housing for families living more than 50 miles from Boston who have children getting care at the hospital.

The proposal for what is now a parking lot is part of a series of buildings planned by Scape, which entered the Boston market intending to build large numbers of private dorm rooms but which, in the face of strong opposition from residents and city officials, transformed into an apartment developer instead.

The tallest of the building's wings rises to 17 stories due to a Green Line tunnel that runs under the property - the MBTA asked that the load on a Green Line tunnel that runs under the property be kept to a minimum, which Scape told the board it could only do by increasing the number of floors on one wing not near the tunnel.

Some 59 of the residential units will be rented as affordable, with most of those rented to people making no more than 70% of the Boston-area median income.

The building will have a 200-space underground garage.

In addition to the BPDA, which approved the project last October, City Councilor Kenzie Bok (Fenway, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Mission Hill) and the Audubon Circle Neighborhood Association backed the plans.

819 Beacon St. filings.