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Developer nearing completion of residential building in West Roxbury seeks approval to add more units to it
By adamg on Mon, 04/29/2019 - 6:59pm
A builder putting up what was originally billed as a 13-unit, three-story residential building on Spring Street in West Roxbury is now seeking BPDA permission to add five more units to the nearly complete structure.
At 13 units, the building at 45 Spring St., in front of the Star Market, did not require BPDA review. But the extra units would push LaRosa Development's project over the 15-unit minimum for required BPDA oversight. LaRosa, based in Norwood, is also seeking to add an extra ground-floor storefront.
Unusual for new construction these days, the expanded building, if approved, will have 17 three-bedroom units and one two-bedroom unit. LaRosa says it will provide a total of 30 parking spaces.
Even with the extra units, the building will not need zoning-board approval.
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Comments
Good
Good, the city needs more housing and clearly this is in line with the neighborhood's vision for the area
What Neighborhood?
It's Spring St. in WR. Not a lot of neighbors along that stretch of the road. Maybe the "Vision" you refer to is the one held by current and future developers.
Dedham line
You can easily see the former route of the Dedham line on the map here. Bring it back I say.
Seems like BS that they 'suddenly' decided they might want to build a few more while they were working on the first batch but build it baby build.
That would be a problem
Once you get down a bit to Belle Ave, they have sold off the right of way and there is a whole street of new homes where the tracks once were.
I don’t know about the merit
I don’t know about the merit of this particular project, but if history is any guide, notorious Joe LaRosa will get his way. He has two-decade record of doing so. LaRosa is the quintessential flight by night developer who hired then Zoning Board of Appeal chairman Joseph Feaster to represent him in front of the ZBA!
http://archive.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/06/07/zoning_official...
Nowadays, LaRosa is a little more discrete about hiring City staff with influence. He doesn't have the current ZBA chairman on his payroll as far as I know, but the architecture firm who works on most of LaRosa's project is the firm of the building inspection commissioner -his son now runs it.
https://www.baystatebanner.com/2015/05/06/neighbors-question-integrity-o...
RIP Joe
Looks like you will have to attack someone else by linking 15 year old articles as Joe recently passed away.
You must be thinking of a
You must be thinking of a different Joseph Feaster; there are quite a few people with that same name. To the chagrin of many of us, former ZBA chairman Joseph D, Feaster, Jr. is still routinely advocating for many dubious developers in front of the ZBA. See video from earlier this year (2019).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxr9UnCdsjo&feature=youtu.be&t=10468
On that day alone, Joseph D Feaster represented three different clients within one hour in front of the ZBA that he used to chair.
I Heard the same....
I Heard the same....
Under the circumstances, I would expect there to be a delay in the project.
Looks to me like a classic
Looks to me like a classic developer trick to circumvent the rule that would require some affordable units; split the project in two. Boston’s IDP (the Inclusionary Development Policy that typically mandate 13% of the new units be made "affordable" ) only applies to building of 10 units or above that need a zoning variance. The first 13 units didn’t need a zoning variance, so there was no requirement for the developer to comply with the IDP policy.
Not sure if the BPDA can impose some affordability requirement for these additional units, but I surely hope they do.
Traffic flow??
Anyone know how exiting traffic from this development is going to be routed? Taking a left out of this property towards the Spring/VFW intersection looks impossible.