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People move to luxury apartments next to nightclub, shocked to hear music from that club
By adamg on Wed, 05/17/2017 - 12:18pm
The Herald reports on the noise battle between residents of the luxury AVA apartments on Stuart Street and Bijou, the club next to which their high rise was built.
Earlier:
That time people moved into condos near the South Street Diner and tried to end its all night service (they failed).
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Comments
"'They’ve been operating for
"'They’ve been operating for six years, but the neighborhood’s changed, they need to be adaptable,' Cornell told the Herald. 'They used to be here alone, now there’s 400 units here, they need to be mindful and respectful.'"
400 units that were built NEXT TO AN EXISTING CLUB. There are plenty of quiet areas. Move to one of those and stop trying to change the character of existing neighborhoods. It's the theater district, FFS, not the quiet living for rich people district. I'm so tired of this. And I don't even like clubs.
true
but can 400 new units get built in those quiet neighborhoods?
yes!
There were absolutely 400 units built in the Parkway, but these people wanted to live downtown.
If noise from an adjacent building is a problem
for people in brand-new luxury apartments, then perhaps we need to re-evaluate the construction methods and building codes for those apartments.
what about the people in the
what about the people in the older non-luxury buildings who dealt with construction noise when the luxury buildings were going up?
jk, we don't have to worry about them because they'll be leaving the area soon enough once the high rents of the luxury buildings cause the rents throughout those neighborhoods and nobody else can afford to live there.
Huh?
Afaik, the only current data shows that all of the new development has overall pushed rents down, not up.
Slightly and for the first
Slightly and for the first time in, what, 6 years? Not time to declare affordable housing solved just yet.
Didn't claim it was solved
Just that OP's claims aren't backed by reality.
Rents for high end luxury units...
.... have gone down. Rents for low and middle end ordinary units have not and they are disappearing fast.
I think it may have the opposite effect
People love luxury and people love new. The more of these new lux condos that go up, the more people will say, "Eeeew! I don't want to live in a 100 year old brownstone on Commonwealth Avenue."
Ill take it if they don't
Ill take it if they don't want them
Oh dear, WE Bostonian
Oh dear, WE Bostonian commoners have failed luxury condo buyers who can't be bothered to do their due diligence and figure out downtown Boston is noisy and people (gasp!) dance to loud music at night. Something must be done about it!
Exactly.
Mediacrity hit the nail on the head. do your due diligence before you buy or rent. If a nightclub was there first, you don't have the right to tell it what to do. you do have the right to choose to live somewhere else. I've heard the same old story about people moving in to luxury buildings who wanted to close down pre-existing 7-11's, check-cashing stores, cafes, etc. If they were there first, then consider that before, not after the fact.
Lack of Housing
Given that there is shortage of Housing in Boston and the greater Boston area, I think prioritizing housing over one theater makes some sense.
This thing is already built!
Please read Mediacrity's excellent post just above this.
Get rid of Fenway too!
It's only used 90-100 times per year and only for part of those days. Let's build a bunch of high rises there instead - better use of the land.
Or?
Actually better yet - the Back Bay was created on fill - why does the Charles need to be that wide? Let's add more land out there...
that is a great idea
think about it.... 40,000 rowdy, cow hampshire residents would not come into the city 81 times a year and lower the quality of life....ah, one can dream.
Go Cavs!
Hey! I have relatives from
Hey! I have relatives from NH and they are wealthy, reserved, and have season tickets right behind third base. So lahhh-dee-dah to you! LOL
Wrong sport
Your ridiculous pretense was old and tired the first time you tried it on, you fraud -- and never more than in this two-word bit of verbal diarrhea. The comment you're responding to is about the Red Sox (they play baseball, a sport you never watch), but you couldn't blurt out your standard "watch me piss on your city and your team" attention-seeking stupidity because you don't actually know anything about baseball. You don't know anything about basketball either, but since the Celtics are currently in the playoffs, you didn't have to break even the most meager intellectual sweat to find out that they're playing a team called "the Cavs".
tl;dr: you just showed your ass in public again.
Actually the city and the
Actually the city and the developers behind the Back Bay were planning on building St. Botolph's Island in the middle of the basin until Mayor Curley's crooked politics drove the monied developers out of the city and into western streetcar suburbs instead. When the Fenway, Commonwealth, and Bay State Road couldn't be fully built out like the rest of the Back Bay due to a waning interest in townhouse/grand hotel construction, it was obvious a second large effort of land making in the Charles River basin wasn't going to be a profitable venture.
That's very cool info
I'd also argue the Boston/Cambridge real estate market definitely supports the construction of our own rich person enclave like Star Island in Miami Beach in the middle of the river.
Bring back Botolphs Island!
Because there was no link to
Because there was no link to said island and I was curious:
http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2010/05/24/an-island-in-the-...
I also remember hearing that the reason Dartmouth St is so wide is because it was originally going to continue as a bridge into Cambridge. Not sure if this is related at all, let alone true.
It was meant to be another
It was meant to be another river crossing as Dartmouth runs through the entire South End to what was the real South Bay at the time.
if you think these luxury
if you think these luxury buildings are doing anything to solve Boston's housing shortage, you must be either one of the developers for these luxury buildings, or a resident of one. because nobody else thinks these are helping at all.
Thankfully we have data that
Thankfully we have data that shows building luxury housing does bring down housing prices over time.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-18/want-cheap-rents-buil...
Anecdote
In 2013, my husband and I moved from Boston to the San Francisco Bay Area, an area with such a serious housing shortage such that securing housing in Boston was, by comparison, bascially free and like shooting fish in a barrel.
We would go to view an apartment that was mediocre at best (old, in poor repair, in an undesirable location, with bedrooms that only fit twin beds) and listed as a one year lease at, say $2,000/month. When we arrived, we would find 30-50 [yuppie, tech] couples lined up on the sidewalk, attempting to bribe the landlord to give them that particular apartment. They'd offer to sign 3-5 year leases, and pay double or triple the asking rent. For a dump that I wouldn't have even bothered viewing in Boston right after college graduation.
Now, if there had been luxury apartments available, these nitwits could have taken their $2,000 a month "bonus" rent and their $2,000 a month regular rent, and spent their $4,000/month rent budget on a luxury apartment, leaving the mediocre dump for someone who had a regular job with a regular salary.
Thank you! People who
Thank you! People who actually live in Boston understand that all of this luxury tower building is not driving down housing costs. We have been keeping our eye on the market for years and prices are still climbing. Citation not needed, armchair real estate agent wannabes.
You have no right to a quiet neighborhood
You do, however, have the ability to do some basic research before you buy in.
I live in a quiet area outside the city because I don't like noise. When I was close to making an offer, I dropped by several different times of day and week to see how noisy it was.
This isn't rocket science.
Not quite
No, you don't have a right to such quiet you can hear the spring peepers at the golf course and forest down the hill from you, even if you do move to, ahem, certain parts of Roslindale.
But you do have a right to a certain modicum of quiet - the city of Boston does have a noise ordinance and BPD does have noise meters and they're not afraid to use them, as shown by the citation apparently issued to Bijou.
That doesn't absolve you of responsibility of checking out your prospective neighborhood before putting down first and last month's rent and a security deposit, but enough with this crap about how you live in a city and you have to put up with ALL NOISE ALL THE TIME AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT MOVE TO FRICKIN' SUDBURY.
A nice aspect of Sudbury
is per one NFL reporter / local race relations expert Albert Breer, there's no racism in Sudbury ever even one time, which is pretty appealing.
Noise in Boston
Noise in Boston
https://www.boston.gov/departments/environment/rules-noise-boston
see also http://noisefree.org/
particularly http://noisefree.org/cityord/boston.pdf
What noise battle?
I live in that building and right above the club. Yet to hear this mythical noise they speak of.
A lot of people live in this area because of the clubs and theatres. Move to the burbs if you dont like noise. Some people just love to complain.
"I'm a rich asshole , what should i do today??"
"Oh right, lets attack someone elses livelihood"
As far as sound goes, i've been woken up by sirens dozens of times, and woken up by bijou about zero times...maybe we should ban emergency services too.
They can't be luxury condos
They can't be luxury condos if the builder didn't spend the extra money to use the best acoustic material to block out street noise below. Luxury condo buyers beware. Corners are being cut when it comes to cost and building materials. Does the BRA review sound acoustics and what materials are being used ? What kind of tests are done on the acoustics before getting humans to live in the units?
Well
The BRA doesn't oversee "sound acoustics" of a construction. Nor does the replacement of the BRA, BPDA. The developer does, and if they choose to cheap out, they choose to cheap out.
The developer is beholden to building codes which are about life safety. If they were smart they would have had the architects design the walls so they have sound absorption, reflection, and other methods of sound control and used that as a marketing bullet point.
If you're curious about acoustics, I point you to Acentech, one of the local acoustics consultants who Know Their Stuff.
Some Articles for your pleasure reading:
https://www.acentech.com/blog/can-a-fitness-center-play-nice-with-others...
https://www.acentech.com/blog/vibration-considerations-in-buildings/
This Proves Once and For All
that the Uhub commentators will side with anything as long as the other side is a real estate developer.
Really? Everyone is choosing the right of a club to blast obnoxiously loud music as the hill to die on?
The article says the club was recorded with music levels of 112 decibels! That's insane. You start doing permanent damage to your hearing at 125 decibels.The maximum limit is 50 decibels so the club was over twice the legal limit.
But no, the other side is people in a nice building so they must be the villains.
Well
I've always had an issue with people who live to the largest city in New England and think it's going to be a quiet cow pasture. Especially those buying in the the most dense mixed neighborhoods.
If city noise bugs you, the city might not be the best place to throw your trust fund around. Hire a driver.
112 Decibels Is Not City Noise
112 Decibels Is a rivet gun or standing near a jet engine.
There is room for gray area between cow pasture and active aircraft carrier deck.
In fact, the city agrees. That's why they instituted the noise ordinance I referenced above.
The residents of that building aren't asking for the club to shut down and become a cow pasture. They are asking them to comply with the city laws. Why is this so controversial?
Watch Vlad's Strawman Boogie Down!
Wow - dancing strawman!
That 112 dB was on the dance floor, dear. Not outside of the club.
Nice try, though.
The decibels were measured
The decibels were measured inside the club, which is an enclosed building, not like on the side of the road.
Nobody at AVA was being exposed to anything even close to 50 decibels let alone 120.
Quite quick to shoot down universalhub...you might be one of them real estate dudes..or maybe the person that complains from the apartment complex lol. gtfo
Misleading Sentence
That is 112 inside the club, specifically on the dance floor. The 50 decibel rule is for OUTSIDE the club.
No. This UHub commentator is
No. This UHub commentator is not siding with anyone. Just spend the money on the technology to make your luxury units more soundproof. All you LLC developers from New York have the green to do it. That way, everybody wins. It's a drop in the bucket to luxury developers.
This is similar to people who
This is similar to people who live in South Boston and scream and yell about the lack of government subsidized parking. Its been that way for decades, so dont live there if thats an issue for you.
Or those that live above a restaurant
Bar or coffee shop and complain because they share their unit with roaches or rodents.
The developers didn't notice!
The developers didn't take that into consideration because their jack hammers, backup beeping mega trucks, saws and hammers drown out that nice music.
Seems like the resident's recouse should be asking the developer for a refund, since the developer didn't take this into consideration. Just turn the damned place into a dormitory. We need more dorm space and I don't think the kids will mind.
I know the feeling
I moved to Southie and was shocked to see double parking in front of Starbucks. Boo hoo.
dim bulbs with deep pockets
These luxury condo buyers should have researched their investment before buying... it's not like that nightclub is hidden. Cities are noisy: no surprise there.
Deafening loudspeakers damage children's hearing.
Deafening booming loudspeakers at public events on City Hall Plaza damage children's hearing. Deafening loudspeakers defeat the whole purpose of gathering community together because it's too difficult to meet neighbors and too difficult for conversation.