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Used-car lot could make way for six-story apartment building on Cambridge Street in Allston
By adamg on Mon, 01/30/2023 - 10:47pm
Rendering by Embarc.
A pair of developers have proposed replacing a used-car lot and two-story building at 521-523 Cambridge St. in Allston with a six-story, 33-unit apartment building that would rely entirely on electricity for heating and air conditioning - via heat pumps - as well as for cooking and hot water.
Milad and Mani Farahani's proposal for the roughly 9,000-square-foot lot, submitted to the BPDA, has no parking spaces. They say that by eliminating the used-car lot, they will remove two curb cuts on Cambridge Street.
In addition to deterring dependence on cars within the city, this has several beneficial aspects to the building itself. To begin with, there will be significantly less building materials used to create what would otherwise be an entire story of the building dedicated to housing parking spaces. In addition, the lack of a garage within the building will save a significant amount of energy both ventilating the garage as well as keeping the floor of the residential units above warm.
The building would have five affordable apartments, including a three-bedroom unit.
The proposal also calls for a roof deck and balconies for a number of the units. Also proposed: Planting of two trees.
In addition to the BPDA, the project will also need the approval of the Zoning Board of Appeal.
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Comments
Isn't this basically The Ask?
Eliminates a parking lot, provides no parking, has some affordable units, and doesn't directly use fossil fuels.
The question is if this is an outlier or if we'll see many more proposals like this with the developers expecting to have a better chance now of getting permits.
Exactly the ask
We need more of these in every neighborhood of the city. The only changes I might ask for is to add a small shop/community space or two to the ground floor or to get those affordability numbers up. Otherwise this is great urbanism and should be able to be built by right anywhere in the city.
Yet
You get chicken fumes, exhaust from idling cars, gas fired broilers running like crazy 15 hours a day, and fossil fuel produced prison yard lights from next door.
This is the Goofus and Gallant of opposing buildings.
Seems like a really positive addition to the neighborhood
And addition by subtraction, once the car dealership lot here is gone, it'll mean the 18-wheeler car hauler won't be double parking here weekly and idling anymore!
Also
I don't know if it's the salespeople/owner or dumb drivers tend to buy from that lot or what, but the people who pull out from there onto Cambridge always seem to do so without looking at all.
You're already jockeying with the two lanes reducing to one lane there (which is sorta dumb because there doesn't need to be 2 turn lanes from Brighton Ave nor does Cambridge St need to go from one lane to 2 lanes at the light back down to one on the other side of the light), and then you have maniacs pulling out from the right between the lot's extra parked cars on the street...AND the bike lane finally beginning again after the light.
They should put Cambridge St on a road diet there. The bike lane should extend all the way back to the light (and never should have disappeared to sharrows on the other side of the light) and be a bike/bus lane with a curb extension where the bus stop is now to get passengers to the edge of the lane. Then the buses should move over into the single lane and the bike lane carry on. Then on Brighton, make the left lane the only turn lane and the middle lane go straight and the right lane remain bike/bus up to the light and not become a normal lane. And on the other side of Cambridge, they should maintain the bike lane up to the light and make the right car lane a straight or right turn lane and the left lane a left turn only lane and take that stupid right turn lane that's always full of food delivery cars and make it a set of temp 15min parking spots for food pickup from all the restaurants there.
Cambridge Street
Is wide because it had real life trolley tracks down it.
I'd like them back.
Get a shovel
The tracks might still there, just slightly buried.
Boston had an excellent trolley system. It's still mostly there under a thin layer of asphalt. Sometimes a pot hole opens up and you can see them. Or you can make out the tracks from the cracks in the road.
But to bring it back would cost billions.
There was a pothole on
There was a pothole on Clarendon Street and you could clearly see the bricks underneath it. It just reminded me of it.
Tracks are not there
They actually dug up the tracks on almost the entire Allston/Brighton section of the old A line when they re-did those streets in the early 00s. I don't miss them one bit. They were really dangerous to bike over (or across when making a turn), and not so great to drive over either. And as someone who has often taken the B line, I can say that it's really not much better than a bus anyway -- and a restored A line would be even worse, since there's no separate right-of-way for the trolleys.
Those are some great
Those are some great suggestions to redesign the lanes to make the street work better for everyone. You could be a great asset to a transportation agency, as long as it isn't BTD since they'd never bother with such a plan.
Brighton ave
Kaz's suggestion would be bad for bikes and buses (like the frequently-running 57) making left turns from Brighton Ave to Cambridge st -- you'd have to wait for the straight-ahead-to-North-Beacon lane to clear before you could make that left turn. As a cyclist who frequently makes that left turn, I don't mind the current arrangement.
Not what I envision
There are 3 lanes at that light. Currently left lane is left only. Center lane is left or straight. And right lane is straight. (There's also a 4th lane to the right that branches off early and has an island forcing you to turn right).
If you bike on Brighton now, you have to move left at least 1 lane to turn left from the center lane (same as the buses do). But you either do that with moving traffic because the light is green and are mixed with people going straight OR you do it in the bike box at the red light and are in front of the lane (at which point, it doesn't exactly matter which lane because that's why there's a bike box).
So, in my scenario, the left lane is left only. The center lane is straight only (reducing the headache across the intersection with 2 lanes immediately becoming 1 with no bike lane) and the right lane could stay a bike lane for going straight. If you hit a red light, you can use the bike box to move left to the left lane. If you are approaching on the green, you would need to move left to the center lane and then left to the left lane. Hell, the center lane COULD still be left turn for buses and bikes only since the point of the road diet on Cambridge is to make it a single lane for cars with a bus/bike lane on the right to accomodate the 57 bus stop and a continuous bike lane on Cambridge St.
It's all theorycrafting anyways. Whatever flaws are still going to be better than what's there now, where once you turn left from the center lane on your bike, you're now mixed with cars and have to wait a block before the bike lane returns while the cars are too busy trying to zipper merge to care about you in front of them.
Why even bother with a
Why even bother with a proposal , I would just sell both lots to Harvard University.
I am a-gas-sed!
What no gas stoves! Queue the outrage!
Though seriously a good start. However I find it frustrating that the minimal setbacks make it impossible for any sort of landscaping allowing large trees to grow. There is some patio space on the left side of the building, but mostly hardscape and only small flowering trees.
Hopefully the rental rates will be lower than comparable units due to a lack of parking for cars. We need more developments like this.
Two trees!
How generous of the developer. I had trees and a gorgeous roof deck space at the Benjamin when I was there with tall grasses, flowering plants, and trees. Why not do this here?
Proof that
The grass is always greener on the other side.
Eversource's dream $$$$$
Eversource's dream $$$$$
I appreciate the energy
I appreciate the energy strategy of heat pumps but especially for affordable units they're questionable. It's very, very expensive to repair the kind of geothermal units these big buildings are all being built with, as opposed to more traditional forced hot air units. Hopefully as it becomes more and more common in residential building the costs will come down. Qualifying for a unit you pay 200k for means you aren't the kind of person who can drop 5-6k on systems at the drop of a hat.
not opposed to more housing,
not opposed to more housing, especially more responsible housing options... that said, until the Green Line is fixed, adding population density to the B line is a scary thought.
and yes, I realize there are a bunch of busses which drive past this place. But have you been on a bus through Allston? Slow, unreliable, and prone to getting caught in the traffic of people getting on/off the pike or avoiding the green line because it is somehow worse than the bus system.
So, I used to live about
So, I used to live about 200ft from this place, and while yes, the 66 Bus is famously terrible, Its the least terrible from there to Harvard, the 64 to Central from here is actually quite reasonable, (After Central and before Union Sq its a shitshow) and while we all hate the B Line (and by association the 57) They do as good if not better job of getting you Kenmore than driving.
There are also the Express Busses down to South Station / Financial District if that's the goal.
I never drove to work when I lived there because the buses actually usually took me where I wanted to go, making the cost and hassle of parking at my job not worth it. Unlike when I lived in other places in Brighton/Allston.
This looks pretty good. Now for the BAIA to tear it apart.
Do they stream those meetings? If I had to actually go in to one I know I would lose my shit, but I kinda want to listen to this get torn apart on petty BS.