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Developer shrinks size of proposed West Roxbury project, but neighbors still object
By adamg on Wed, 11/19/2014 - 10:17pm
Architect's rendering. Existing Eastern Bank on Centre Street on the right.
Developer Michael Argiros today showed revised plans for the old Armstrong plant on Lagrange Street near Centre that would include 48 apartments and 81 parking spaces - compared to the 62 apartments and 52 parking spaces he first proposed in what he now admits was a debacle of a neighborhood meeting several months ago.
Residents of Lagrange and nearby side streets, gathered at the Elks hall, however, said the project was still too large and said it would depress their rising property values and hurt the fabric of the single-family-house neighborhood they moved to to escape the very sort of rental units Argiros is proposing. And they said the project, by potentially bringing new children into the neighborhood, would make it harder for those of child-rearing age to get their kids into the already oversubscribed local public elementary schools.
Residents said Argiros should go even smaller, to no more than 42 units - with some questioning why he just didn't put in some single-family homes.
"Maybe in Fort Point you can put up your 48-unit building, but here?" one resident asked.
Argiros, who noted he could simply repair and reopen the old industrial complex on the site, said 42 or 24 units would be too small to be economically viable - and the small number of single-family homes he could put on the land even less so.
Argiros said he decided to rent the units, rather than sell them as condos, to provide "a legacy" to his twin sons and because he wanted to help West Roxbury residents not fortunate enough to be able to buy in the neighborhood stay there.
Argiros said rents would range from roughly $1,400 for a 400-square-foot studio to the high $3,000s or low $4,000s for a three-bedroom apartment. Seven of the apartments would be set aside as "affordable," which Argiros said meant they would be occupied by city workers, nurses or West Roxbury residents fresh out of college, he said. "We will not have Section 8 housing, or what we heard in the last meeting, 'project housing,' " he said.
Residents asked what he would do if his building remained one-fifth empty, as they claimed Belgrade Place near Roche Bros. is, saying they doubted Argiros would get many takers at rents like those.
"You can't compare us to Southie, you can't compare us to Charlestown, to the waterfront," one resident said.
Argiros said he would do what he's already doing with the land - carry the costs out of his own pocket until he can fill the units. However, he said he's convinced there will be high demand for new apartments across the street from the train station in a desirable neighborhood like West Roxbury. A local real-estate broker rose and said Belgrade Place is not one-fifth empty, nowhere near it.
One resident said he worried that renters would be slobs - he said the house on one side of him, rented out, always has newspapers in its driveway, while the house on the other side of him, occupied by its owner, has an immaculate driveway. Argiros said the complex would have a full-time property manager who would work to keep the area clean.
Not everybody opposed the proposal. One woman - dismissed by many in the crowd once she admitted she lived way over on Weld Street - said not everybody is lucky enough to be able to afford West Roxbury home prices and that 425 Lagrange would be just right for her - or for the adult members of her family she said she is currently helping to support.
Argiros and his traffic consultant said the project would have minimal impact on what they acknowledged was an already congested intersection at Center and Lagrange - but that the city could help by adding a left-turn arrow to the lights for people turning onto Centre from Lagrange.
Many of the parking spaces would be in two-car "tandem" lanes in which one car would block another. Argiros said all tenants would be required to put stickers on their cars showing they are residents - and that nearby merchants and residents could look for those stickers if they suspected any apartment dwellers were parking on the street rather than in the garage.
Arigros said a walkthrough by fire inspectors - before a five-alarm fire in September - and borings by an environmental company showed no hazardous materials on the site, save for a single can of paint found under a stairwell. He said the foul odor residents smelled during the fire were not due to any chemicals left over from the site's uses as an asthma-inhaler factory, but rather to the contents of fire extinguishers emptied sometime before the fire by teenagers who had broken into the complex and emptied them all.
Argiros is scheduled to repeat his presentation before the West Roxbury Neighborhood Council on Tuesday, starting at 7:30 p.m. in the E-5 police station.
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Comments
Who's going to use the other 33 parking spaces?
Will they be rented out for use by customers of nearby businesses?
No
This is West Roxbury, where car is king, and so Argiros decided to allocate one space for every single bedroom. The current proposal calls for 69 bedrooms. The remaining spaces would be for visitors or to shuffle around should the "tandem" spaces just not work for some residents.
Disgusting
I'm appalled. Too much parking, not enough housing, and neighbors who are all miserable "I got mine, go screw" NIMBYs.
This could be a great resource, a great development, and a great asset to the community, and the people who show up at these meetings want to leave it as an abandoned factory rather than let someone else move into their precious neighborhood.
Reasonable folks who want neighbors and want a sustainable community need to start showing up to these kinds of things, instead of just folks with nothing better to do who oppose everything changing. They probably resent FM radio and color TV while they're at it.
Well, good for them. You couldn't pay me to live next to those jerks.
Sorry
We don't shop at whole shit and ride unicycles. But this is extremely out of place and not wanted. Look at Belgrade Place, it's more than 50% unoccupied. This project is not needed or wanted,except by its developer.
Well done.
Vulgar and uninformed is no way to go through life, son.
Uninformed?
Ya Belgrade Place is a ghost town. Its just as close to the train, closer to better restaurants and a grocery store. But ya im the "uniformed" one. Im sure you're more familiar with the cost of CT than Boston.
Great job
Representing your neighborhood there. I'm sure your neighbors are tickled to have a crass, provincial knuckle-dragger like you as self-appointed spokesman.
You would be a more interesting person if you did...
...ride a unicycle that is. As for that place you don't shop at. Never heard of it. It sounds disgusting.
As for the development, we do want it. I just wish there wasn't so much parking. With a train station across the street and three bus lines on Center st. in a pedestrian oriented neighborhood, I don't understand why so much parking would be necessary.
Centre St. or Center St.?
Centre St. or Center St.?
Hmmm
The one that goes through the centre of town.
If you want to decrease cost,
If you want to decrease cost, increase supply.
If you want less traffic, build less parking.
These are not difficult concepts. What's disappointing is that a lot of the people who show up to the community input meetings are people who are angry that anything might change ever.
Here's the thing: The world, and the city, have already changed, and they will continue to change. Living in 1949 single-family bliss with a Brand New Chevrolet and no traffic because only (ahem) suburban people can afford to buy cars just isn't on the list of options.
You can have an abandoned burned-out factory, or an apartment with neighbors.
You can have busy streets and a limited supply of parking, or ENORMOUSLY choked streets and twice as much parking which is somehow still not enough because the more parking you build, the more cars you have.
None of this is coercing you to start riding a bicycle and shopping organic. It just means that people who work in the city can walk to the train. Shit, I work in the city and walk to the train. I've got a car. I don't drive it much because traffic and parking are a pain, and I can walk to the T. And the more people walk to the train, the easier it is for YOU to drive.
This development should be a win-win for the community, and the fact is that most people probably wouldn't mind it. It's just a handful of people angry at any change at all that are vocal opponents.
Oldest negotiating trick in the book.
I am surprised Bostonians haven't caught on yet.
If a developer wants a 50 unit building, he asks for 100. Then a few weeks later he comes back to the community meeting and gives his canned message:
"I take your input seriously and I care about the community. Therefore I cut the units by 50%!"
...and the neighbors all pat themselves on the back.
In SoBo, I opposed any development where all the units/homes don't have at least 2000 sq ft, 3 beds, 3 baths and are owner occupied.
Enough of the 1 to 2 bedroom condos/apartments.
...and to the ahole that let their dog crap near my front door and didn't pick it up. I hope your dog bites you!
- The Original SoBo Yuppie
"I take your input seriously
The only % Westie cares about is 0. I think I might just scatter "Coming Soon: Congestion Pricing in the City of Boston" just to rile a few feathers
Way too many parking spaces
But it's West Roxbury, so what can you do? The irony is that the Centre St. corridor between LaGrange and Holy Name rotary is actually a decent walking neighborhood, especially if a few tweaks to Centre St.'s configuration were to happen. But the residents aren't there yet, on seeing such a thing as a positive.
While walking the dog in
While walking the dog in Readville last night, I noticed that one of my neighbors recently added a seventh car to the fleet he parks in front of his two bedroom single family. Camper, box truck, pickup, SUV x 2, sedan x 2. One of which he puts in his driveway.
Why does he do it?
Because he can.
And in pointing a finger at him, I am pointing a few at myself. We recently bought a second car. After doing okay with one for a year. Why? There were a few good reasons, but the most important thing was that we can fit 2 cars in our driveway.
This is the thing that gets me about some of the pooh-poohers of these new proposals. If there is no parking and transit is close, people will not get cars. I think that one car per unit for this thing is okay, mainly for the nights, week-ends, and person who works on 128. The reality is that people get cars if they can, but if there is a reason why they can't, they don't.
It's the box truck in the driveway, right? That's the one thing he could get ticketed for.
We could fit at least 5 cars in our driveway....
... but we only have one. ;~}
Wow
You have, if I count right, 5 driving age people in the family.
Car #2 was bought on the cheap to be a car barely used. We did just go to Georgia and back with it though.
5 driving age family members...
... but only one of the "younger generation" has taken driving lessons -- and he hasn't yet managed to pass the driving exam. ;-}
To be fair
I was closer to the age when one can drink than the age when one can drive when I finally got my license. And I only got off my behind and did in because I was inheriting mom's beater car. The truth is that one can get away without a car in Boston, even in the more leafy parts.
And yes, the calculus was how many cars can fit in the area, not need. Never put a space saver out, since parking was plentiful. (Sorry, it's too early for that, isn't it?)
As long as one is willing to walk a good bit....
... one has plenty of options. We have a lot of hevy duty walkers in our family.
Similar, here
Four people of driving age, only two drive, one car.
About six years ago, our neighbors, a couple who work 2 miles away at the same employer, had one car that was on its last miles. They started looking to replace it ... then realized that we were managing fine for years with one car, and junked it instead.
All good points. One thing I
All good points. One thing I would add, though, is that even if we pretend there were no parking on site here, an individual could just as easily have a vehicle, get a West Roxbury resident sticker, and park it on Dent St, Elgin St, or the other surrounding streets and walk the 1-2 minutes to their unit. People can agree or disagree whether that's a good thing, bad thing, or doesn't matter either way - it probably depends on whether you live there, own a car, have a driveway or not etc. But nothing is preventing that. I think sometimes people (not you specifically) don't note that point or just ignore it. Even though less people are owning cars, there are still enough that will do this and thus add more vehicles to the residential streets. That then gets into whether the city should continue to hand out resident parking stickers for free and so on but that's a different rabbit hole.....
There are ways of preventing that
To quote the Globe:
West Roxbury's not much like Bay Village - or Allston, which that article is really about - but there is a precedent for residential development that doesn't have parking spots of its own or (theoretically) any impact residential permit parking.
It's actually one of the
It's actually one of the sedans he puts in the driveway. It would be wide enough to fit any of the others, but too short for the box truck. But there's no shortage around here, so nobody complains.
Heck, I've thought of getting a second car, and I'm the only licensed driver in my household. Why? Like you said, it would fit in my driveway.
On the other hand, my next door neighbor has a two car garage, plus a two car driveway, yet he parks both his cars in front of my house (so as not to spoil the view of his house from the road... he's an odd duck).
The leafy parts of Boston can have a pretty weird relationship with cars.
I'll be the first to admit
I'll be the first to admit that Im in no way an expert on the science of parking, but anecdotally I can say that there might be something to the notion of people requiring less parking near decent public transit. In the last 5-6 years 3 new residential buildings have been constructed plus 3 large existing buildings have been converted to residential within 2 blocks of my house in Hyde Square. We are a 5 to 10 minute walk to Green and Orange lines plus 2 bus routes. But with the influx of new people parking isn't really much worse for us.
DO NOT FALL
For the same mistakes developments in Southie got away with.....minimal parking spaces. You cannot have too many parking spaces. Ask anyone, residents and realtors, parking spaces are a necessity. Yes, cars are King.
Fuck yeah!!
If there's one thing Boston needs, it's more cars.
Egads!
Not rental apartments in a city!!!!!!! Nooooooo!
Geezus, people. Move to Milton, why don't you.
Wow...
You've hit it right on the head! I've always thought the claims of NIMBYism in this city were unfounded and just hyperbole by yuppies who thought they had the answer to every problem...but damn!
What is this group of people? Are they insane? It's an apartment building, not a freaking nuclear waste facility!
If I were the developer I
If I were the developer I would scrap the apartment complex idea and open the city's largest methadone clinic just out of spite.
Who has the answers?
Clearly jealous spiteful renters up at 2:15 am.
Not so sure about what kind of waste is there..
As a long time resident - actually one who had the good sense to flee the state ages ago but who has to visit the parents - I remember that fine facility as a bustling biz. Of some sort. It had been a plant/factory for years and years. Lord only knows what was dumped in the drain or ground there back before WWII, but lets say I wouldn't want to plant any tomatoes around the place. Or live in any apartment that gets planted on top of it. I think the ground under the old gas station next to Macy's might be less toxic.
Nope, Milton still wins the
Nope, Milton still wins the prize. This week's "controversy" was a high end Italian restaurant seeking permits to go into a long vacant movie theater in the middle of Milton's only commercial district. Among my favorite NIMBY complaints was the one about all the "drunks roaming around the neighborhood" when the restaurant would close (at 11pm). I can see it now, loads of college students flooding East Milton Square to get drunk off Chianti while paying $30 for veal!
why doesn't West Roxbury just
why doesn't West Roxbury just secede from the city which they clearly are showing in their comments here that they don't want to be a part of? ie, you can't compare us to "insert any other neighborhood of Boston here". Serious question.
Too bad we can't just de
Too bad we can't just de-annex them. They clearly don't want to be part of Boston. Get rid of them, and then we can off-set the lost tax revenue with congestion pricing.
Who is "We?"
If you don't like having West Roxbury being a part of your city, maybe you should move out.
Oh KBH?
That fascist lives in Cambridge and Copenhagen, so obviously he dictates what happens in Boston.
obviously he dictates what
Sooner you accept it the easier it'll be
Go back to Copenhagen
The USA hates you.
Yeah Denmark isn't hot on me
Yeah Denmark isn't hot on me either.
I'll be sure to ride my unicycle right in the middle of Centre St, screaming "share the road" - just for you, my friend.
With a baby trailer
... with a dog in it.
dog in it.
Who keeps shitting everywhere while I refuse to pick it up.
Would were
we were more like Denmark. Minus the Doggie do if that's a thing there.
Sorry, SM42, but that paranoid nutbag
Sorry, SM42, but that paranoid nutbag from medford dictates what happens in boston (and the rest of the world).
What was that?
I couldn't hear you over this extra super good music that I brought from outside of Boston.
Oh, but I'm not paranoid - quite the opposite - so it must have been that other nutbag.
Proving both points.
Proving both points.
Just stop
If your post consists simply of a one-line insult, think to 10, then please just delete it.
Hokay
Let's try to stick to the arguments. The insult room is down the hall.
My bad
My bad
If I didn't like having West
If I didn't like having West Roxbury as part of Boston...I'd just move to West Roxbury. I'd fit right in.
Touche
Touche
Because of the obvious reasons
I think you are confusing the comments of a vocal few with the feelings of the majority.
For a group of people who
For a group of people who love reminding us that they're in Boston too (like getting left off Boston Magazine's Best of Lists is some sort of grand affront), they sure don't seem to actually like cities.
Doubtful they are the same people
I can't prove it, but I don't think the nimbys who cower in fear of any progress or anything new in “their” neighborhood even know what a best of Boston list is.
Ha
Yeah, so at least half the houses on my street are multiple family buildings, including the one I live in. So this whole "one family per house like the suburbs" argument against apartments is petty and a bit silly.
THE HORROR!!
In other news I should make a note to become a complete slob, since apparently that's what I need to be doing as a renter and all. Or, make an art piece out of it, "The Renters, featuring Globe Direct"
Ya! Like the Art House on
Ya! Like the Art House on Amory St. in JP: fabulous!
Maybe if it looked more
Maybe if it looked more modern people wouldn't be freaking out so much? it looks kind of like a retirement community.
Colonoid
Colonoid: a massive building that most Colonial-era builders in this area would not have constructed with wood siding, unless it was a church or a giant barn. Colonoids often possess architectural details "to break up the facade" which would be more suitable for much smaller buildings, such as individual houses. They may also mash together different residential building details from a number of historic periods.
This is usually done so that a building will "fit in" with other buildings in the area, even though it looks like a giant elephant in a tutu that happens to be the same color as the one on the neighboring toddler.
He's not shrinking it
The developer is not shrinking the project if he's adding more parking. He's actually adding traffic to an already congested intersection.
I'm very critical of Blanchard's parking lot which sits at this same intersection as the proposed apartments. It's a bizarre configuration where traffic from the parking lot actually empties onto Lagrange right at the traffic light. It forces customers to make a very sharp turn and then they mingle with the traffic already queuing for the traffic light.
So the developer can't win
His original proposal had fewer parking spaces than units, and the residents complained this meant the tenants would park on their streets because they didn't buy for one second the trend of young professionals not wanting to have cars. So he added more spaces to make them happy.
should have been 1 to 1
parking to unit - now it's almost 2 spaces per unit. Where the hell is O'Malley? The BRA? BTD? ZBA? Can't someone from the city talk some sense into these people? We all collectively need to have a serious discussion about parking and transportation, and someone from the city needs to take leadership on this. We can't keep adding more cars to our roads.
I live in the area - we have an entire 5 bedroom house, kids, yet we somehow get by with ONE CAR. We have a few neighbors on our street who have kids and only one car (there's a family at the end of the street who doesn't even have a car!)- I also have friends who live places like Winchester, Arlington, Medford - all with kids and only one car. I grew up in small-town midwest, with multiple siblings, and we got by with one car.
Plus - they're questioning what he can get for rent? those rates are actually pretty reasonable for new construction in the area. the developer wouldn't bother building this if he didn't think he could rent out all his units. Seriously - these people are completely out to lunch.
O'Malley was there, as was Ed Coppinger
And councilors Pressley and Wu and Sen. Rush sent subordinates to listen in.
O'Malley didn't say much, except when somebody demanded to know what he thought about the project's potential impact on local schools, i.e., it would bring in more kids, making it harder for everybody else to get their kids into the Lyndon or Kilmer. O'Malley didn't really answer that question, talking instead about what the city's doing in general about school assignment.
Blanchards bizarre parking
Blanchards bizarre parking shows how auto-centric the city can be. Center St. is a great walking street for many blocks but the city (and drivers who think it's a highway) seems to try to sabotage it at every turn. Allowing chain stores like CVS and Walgreens to line Center with a sea of parking spaces that are never full makes it seem like they prefer ugly suburban sprawl to a walkable neighborhood. Those empty parking spaces could be storefronts. They let Macy's put even more parking where the old gas station used to be instead of requiring sensible development. Who runs the town, liquor stores?
I wonder how much it costed
I wonder how much it costed them to clean up that gas station, their dough ,they get to
enhance their business their way.
Sea of Asphalt = Enhancement!
They didn't need the extra parking. The lot was never full. They don't care about the neighborhood. They would rather see the neighborhood degraded that lose one customer to Blanchards. Good zoning would ensure that development enhances the neighborhood. That could be a restaurant or store, with an office above it and even an apartment on the third floor. That's what commercial streets are for. Not more parking for people who do not need it.
Thanks for mentioning CVS and Walgreen's
The CVS property, and especially the Walgreen's site are a sea of asphalt. THEY are what does not fit in the neighborhood.
This is still Boston, not Route 1 in Norwood or Route 9 in Framingham. There's a historic cemetery next to Walgreen's. But we have no respect for how we develop things. Does West Roxbury want to look like your every day strip mall on a highway? There's no reason we can't develop things sensibly, with respect for the past AND parking.
Can't blame Walgreens or CVS for those parking lots
I'm not disagreeing with your basic point about the Rte. 1-ification of Centre Street, but the Walgreens lot is unchanged from the days when it was an NHD, and the CVS lot from the days when it was Roche Bros.
Can Boston Please
Can Boston please relax with the apartment complex's and stick to the traditional triple deckers so families can remain in this city and it doesn't turn into "Yuppie City" over the next 30 years
Not sure that'd make a difference
I'm a massive booster for triple-deckers, but they aren't by any means "yuppie"-proof. New apartments increase supply obviously - without them there's still the demand for units, which will fall onto triple-deckers and two-families. See what's happening in Southie, Somerville, Cambridge, Brighton, even Dorchester: the tripledeckers are bought by speculators then converted to condos and resold. I would fully support building triple-deckers, but only because they're vernacular architecture and are dense without being overwhelming - not because they'd somehow stop a "yuppie invasion" which will happen anyways unless the city builds more units.
A floor of a triple decker
was what I could just barely afford twelve years ago and I couldn't afford to buy it now. As much as I'd love to follow the traditional path of buying a whole building, living in one unit and renting out the other two or having family live in one, the prices of the now-rare intact triple decker have all become dependent on the idea that the buyer is going to flip and condo-ize.
I could have been somebody ,
I could have been somebody , I could have been a contender. Three deckers , a street of them , $26 K each , plus or minus , pre busing !
Spoiler alert...
These people aren't worried about yuppies - they're worried about the kind of people who rent instead of own.
So they're worried about
So they're worried about anyone who wants to live in the city but isn't a millionaire?
Because that's the way it is trending.
Lower density triple deckers
Lower density triple deckers will be more expensive than apartment buildings that can put more units on the same space. The yuppies you dread will be more likely to be the ones moving into lower density triple deckers and single families than in apartment buildings which are becoming the only thing middle class/working class families can afford. If you want to avoid being overrun with the rich, build housing that non rich people can afford (denser units, since land is the big cost here) and decrease the amount of parking (which adds to the units overall price). Especially near a transit station, the less parking you have per person the more people you can get in a neighborhood with less bad effects (traffic) and more beneficial ones (property manager maintaing building, local businesses will have more customers, more people walking will make it safer/more pleasant to walk, more people using the commuter rail and buses there will make a case for better and more frequent service, etc.
Residents of Lagrange and
YOU LIVE IN THE CITY OF BOSTON. WHICH, AS THE NAME IMPLIES, IS A CITY. CITIES ARE DENSE. CITIES HAVE LOTS OF PEOPLE IN THEM. CITIES CONTAIN MULTITUDES. CITIES AREN'T KNOWN FOR ENFORCING SINGLE-FAMILY-HOUSING ZONING.
Jesus H Tapdancing Christ, why don't these people go move to Milton or Medford or Munson or whatever goddamn podunk western suburb they want that's full of single-family houses, each with an immaculate lawn and a driveway free of the dread horror of unread newspapers. The rest of us are trying to build actual neighborhoods where people can live and work.
Jesus H tapdancing...
You just made me choke laughing on my coffee--thank you!
Far be it from me to defend the residents of Lagrange Street
But ...
Not everybody who lives in Boston actually wants to live in a super dense area where everybody walks to their local cafe and goes on shopping excursions in their Zipcars.
So? Why does every last inch of the city have to be turned into CondoWorld? This is a large city and there's more than enough room for both super-dense downtowns and more spread-out residential areas. Your comment about "SINGLE-FAMILY-HOUSING ZONING" suggests you really need to start taking some trips to places like West Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park, Dorchester, Roxbury, Brighton and East Boston, where, in fact, there are large quantities of single-family houses - in zones that are, in fact, enforced for single-family or two-family homes.
I'm not seeing why people shouldn't be able to ask questions about an apartment complex being jammed into their neighborhood and I'm not seeing how that's hurting people who do like living in the South End.
Now, granted, this particular project would replace a fire-ravaged, abandoned old factory, right on top of one of the neighborhood's busiest commercial intersections, across from a large liquor store and bounded by train tracks, a cemetery and a drug store with a huge-ass parking lot, so fire away with the NIMBY comments. By all means point out that West Roxbury already has a large number of apartments (some just a couple blocks away in a building on Bellevue Street). Point out that many of the people at last night's meeting have kids who will never be able to afford to live in the neighborhood they grew up in, etc., etc.
But as somebody who lives in a single-family house in one of the city's more remote areas, by choice (my wife and I compromised: I'm from a big city, she's from a small town), I get a bit grumpy when people bring up the "but this is a CITY, so like it or move" argument. Yes, this is a city, but we're not all the same.
Could have it both ways?
I figure, the area on Centre Street is busy and bustling and getting to the point where you could walk to whatever you needed - from my apartment near LaGrange I can get to two pharmacies, two supermarkets, and a bunch of restaurants pretty much within half a mile (not to mention banks and dentists).
Busy and bustling in my mind also is a good place for apartments. Maybe these people need parking because they work more than a few miles away (likely), and they want to be able to go out and about on the weekends (probably). Fine, if they are going to be living on a pretty busy street with no street parking, then providing spaces is a good idea.
But then, walk a half mile or less away from Centre Street on LaGrange, really in either direction, and you end up in a neighborhood that is much more residential and quiet, with houses with one or two families, the same living situation that Adam was looking for and the same one that all these NIMBYs want to keep.
West Roxbury can support both types of city living, so I'm not sure that trying to keep the neighborhood to just houses is really fair to what the neighborhood could be.
And yeah, also, that factory has got to go. :)
If projects like this aren't
If projects like this aren't built on busy mains streets they will be built on quiet streets like yours until there are no more quiet streets left.
Not my street
No vacant lots left on this street or any of the ones around it, so the developer would have to buy up lots of houses first (and then have to figure out how to put a large project on the side of a hill, which would be interesting to watch).
Again, though, I'm not arguing against this particular project, just the idea that people who live in single-family homes are, by default, not worthy of being called Bostonians. That, I will fight
He's not trying to take your house away...
...or mine, for that matter. But how does owning a single family house give us the right to tell other people that they can't build apartment buildings?
I, for one, feel extremely fortunate to have a single family house all to myself and still be in walking distance to the T. Nothing about that gives me the right to deny others the ability to live near transit through market protectionism.
I mean, literally speaking,
I mean, literally speaking, the public gets to have input because the developer needs variances to the zoning code in order to build this. So the city solicits public input to determine whether said variances are warranted. On large-ish projects like this, that usually involves a community meeting or twenty. You have just as much right to show up in support of this as anyone else has to scream and oppose it. But as others have said, usually it's the vocal minority who does. Don't think the ZBA and City Hall folks don't realize that though.....
single family is fine
but if you want a decent new single family house in the city, it's not going to be affordable for most people. Cost of land in the city is really high - if this were a vacant lot with no contamination issues that the developer inherited, then I guess single family might work (although it'll probably be in the $300/SF range) - otherwise it'll be completely "affordable" (using government money) or, in this particular case, pushing the million-dollar range.
single family went up in Boston's hinterlands when land was cheap - if you have high-value land, single family just doesn't make sense from a development perspective unless you can command luxury prices. West Roxbury isn't exactly a luxury market, though... and even if it were, a tight lot like that on a busy street is not really the ideal place for million-dollar houses. Yeah - it's nice to have housing choices, but I think people need to realize that single-family lifestyle comes at a cost. Plus - There is a city-wide need for more housing, and this can't all happen downtown - it needs to also happen in the city's fringe areas - and a neighborhood like West Roxbury needs to strategically invest in more density and housing diversity otherwise it will end up hurting them (and neighboring communities) in the long run.
Additionally the arguments this group is leveling against apartment buildings are completely false. nationally, average car ownership rate of people in apartments is 1 per 1 unit (less in Boston and even in West Roxbury). Multi-family residential (even if low income) has absolutely no effect on surrounding property values, even, in many cases, raising them, while at the same time providing more affordable housing options. more stuff here:
http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/files/rr07-14_obrinsk...
Funny
Funny to here Medford described as a "suburb they want that's full of single-family houses, each with an immaculate lawn and a driveway". I think Medford probably has more apartment buildings than West Roxbury and it certainly has its share of triple-deckers and 2-families.
Enough already.
Personally, this is why I feel sometimes that developers should just, heck, develop their property and the hell with the neighbors. I understand that neighbors should be allowed to ask questions, but this particular situation has gone beyond the pale, in my opinion, to being obstructionist.
You can't argue/persuade/negotiate with crazy and/or militant ignorance.
And as a life long apartment dweller, I would love to have a chat with the charmer who compares us with being "slobs". I currently live next to a a single family home where the guy keeps rusting old cars in his backyard, right near the piles of rusting hubcaps and assorted car parts.
When developers need
When developers need variances, it is wise to have the neighbors on their side. They can't just "develop the property".
An attitude like this is
An attitude like this is almost as bad as some of the people quoted above in this post. The city is dense and should be, but there's also a place for residential parts a little further outside the core that are a little less dense. It doesn't have to be all one way or all the other. West Roxbury itself isn't all single family homes as it is, really depends where you are in the neighborhood. Now, personally, I'm fine with more density and apartment units along Centre St. etc and do not subscribe to the more extreme views expressed last night, but let's not go completely in the other direction and castigate people who want to live in Boston but not necessarily in large condo buildings either.
And apropos of nothing else, I'm not sure Medford qualifies as a "goddamn podunk western suburb." It's pretty dense in many parts.
Residents of each
Residents of each neighborhood have a right to voice their opinion. Not every neighborhood has to be as dense as the next. Personally I like the appeal of cities with distinct neighborhoods. You don't and that's fine. Guess what... you don't get to dictate how other people and their families live their lives and give input into how their neighborhood is being developed. People like Roslindale and West Roxbury beacause they are less dense and are not crowded with towering skyscrapers which block sunlight and take away from the pedestrian-friendliness and sense of community. If you abhor that then don't move there. No one is forcing you.
Ignorance
erik g's comment are unfortunate but common. There is a large % of people that think:
"Hey, it's the city! Every street can be treated like Landsdowne Street after a Sox game! more bars! more condos! who cares if I litter or let my dog piss and crap everywhere...it's the city!, it's supposed to be dirty!"
There are residential sections to ALL cities. Just like there are commercial and retail sections to suburbs. I don't know why this is a hard to understand.
Go back to the burbs if you can't be respectful to your neighbors and neighborhood, you wanna-be-yuppie.
- The Original SoBo Yuppie who is siding more and more with life long residents.
Medford?
Medford really only has a couple of neighborhoods that don't have substantial amounts of apartment buildings or other rental property. Hillside, South Medford, Wellington, Riverside, Medford Square - all multifamily development. West Medford - much of that is mixed multifamily or apartment blocks, too.
Lawrence Estates, Brooks Estates, North Medford - that's about it for single family.
West Roxbury is more suburban than that.
West Roxbury v. Medford
I'm. Not too familiar with Medford, but you may similarly be unfamiliar with West Roxbury. Despite protestations to the contrary at that meeting, there are plenty of multi-unit hushing structures throughout the neighborhood. Not as high a percentage as you'll find in Roslindale or JP, but probably more than you'll see in Hyde Park.
Some of them may not be
Some of them may not be leaving because they are your police officers, firefighters, teachers, or other city employees who are required to live in Boston. (Do teachers have a residency requirement?)
Ah, West Roxbury
This meeting seems to be Westie in a nutshell. My favorite line is
As I read this, they concede that property values will continue to rise, just not as quickly. Moreover, who are these abutters? The Lagrange Street is on the front, Eastern Bank on one side, Walgreens on the back, and the rail line, on an embankment, on the other side. There is but one house that is close to the proposed development. First too little parking, now too much. And regardless of that, the residents are somehow worried that it would get tenants.
Feel free to diss my neighborhood, and many could do and do a good job at it, but this meeting did show West Roxbury at its worse.
In breaking business news ,
In breaking business news , the developers say screw it and announce the sale of the property to ( fill in blank, waste haulage company , school bus terminal , package delivery service , helicopter flight school , ect. ect. ) .
Just start letting junkies
Just start letting junkies and squatters in. Then they'll get praise for cleaning it up!
Maybe
It has to do with the fact, this developer already has 500+ units in Westie!
Give him a thousand
Is he a good landlord? Is he a good neighbor? That's not what was reported from the meeting.
Meanwhile, on the other side of West Roxbury Parkway, Vinny Marino is building things and being a prick while making his proposals, but at least we see the value of building new housing and see that his development proposals could be good.
Sometimes....
... (most of the time) Roslindale and West Roxbury seem to exist in totally different worlds. ;-}
BS
I grew up on the line between Roslindale and Westie, people "from here" literally cant tell the difference. Growing up most kids from Roszie play sports and go to school in Westie. As you get older your friends are from both neighborhoods. Everyone drank in the same woods and went to the same Holy Name and CM dances.
I didn't go to school in West Roxbury
I went to school on Morrissey Blvd. after going to dances at Sacred Heart.
In short, I'm from Roslindale and smart.
Of course, back in the day I had a want to explain the difference between Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and West Roxbury using the zip codes. Rozzie was one up from JP, while West Roxbury was one up from Roslindale. Of course, nowadays JP could contend for the top, while Roslindale can look at itself as solidly middle class while West Roxbury is upper middle class, a better quality of lace curtains.
Bet you know a lot of Paul
Bet you know a lot of Paul Revere and the Raiders songs........
I doubt that your past experience....
... matches the current situation. Particularly...
> most kids from Roszie play sports and go to school in Westie
Not sure that this is even remotely true now.
Sports, yes
Parkway Soccer is a perfect melting pot of middle class mostly white kids from Roslindale AND WR.
But are most kids in Roslindale today ....
... "white"?
Rozzie Sports
I'd say it's about 50/50 split between JP and Westie leagues for Rozzie kids. For baseball it's Parkway or Regan League. For soccer, it's Parkway or JP Soccer. I coach in Regan League, and there is only a slight majority of JP kids over Rozzie kids.
You're forgetting hockey
And Rozzie has produced D-1 talent in recent years. That's Parkway, although I was surprised that the Bavises (Bavi?) came up through Hyde Park Youth Hockey.
As for Little League, junior (if he decides) will play in whichever league used Healy Field. Gotta keep it Rozzie!
50%ish
Pretty much 50/50, isn't it?
Of course the schools aren't, but that's a different thread.
It's states of mind
A while back someone was commenting that Roslindale was moving away from the orbit of West Roxbury and into the orbit of Jamaica Plain. Of course, me being me, I objected, noting the other orbits (I run over to Hyde Park too often not to have my mind as well as my body affected.) I think comparing this to the whole battle to keep what coffee shop out of JP unless they satisfy community demands shows what Roslindale really is.
That and we have more black people than those other neighborhoods (Hyde Park excepted, of course.)
The rivalry lives!
Petco
Let's wait until the meeting in two weeks where people will, no doubt, freak out about the
halfway house, methadone clinic, brothelpet food store threatening to ruin our town before we declare how different we are from JP.Yes, that issue bothers me
But after I pick up the Domino's pizza on the way home, perhaps I'll stop by Staples and get a notebook to take notes on that meeting. Of course, I should really be saving up for what I need to buy at Advance Auto Parts.
Trust me, the people who I see in the Square could not care less about chain versus independent store by and large. Of course, were JP folk really opposed to Whole Foods? I mean come on, it's Whole Foods.
Ya
About 3-4 years ago Ridgecrest was an absolute dump that brought nothing by trouble to the area. Im sure you remember High Point around the same period. That's is, if you had already moved here from Sticksville USA.
You are in some kind of time warp
High Point was built back in the 80s, and it was meant as subsidized housing. I have only been in there once, as it is a gated community, but it seems okay. The original Ridgecrest dates back even longer, and other than parking I haven't heard anything bad about them. Again, if the developer and his 500 units in West Roxbury were so bad, how come it wasn't brought up at the meeting?
You all realize that even in places like Needham they have apartment buildings.
Let's just get real
and make it a bank. That is all we really need in W. Rox because we don't have enough!
More condo's for East Boston,
More condo's for East Boston, a proposal was made to the BRA for 151 Liverpool Street , East Boston, around the corner from Boston Harbor.
18 units 2 units will be affordable and the rest will be at market rate.