Zoning board mostly approves four-building residential and office complex at tip of isolated Dorchester neighborhood

The Zoning Board of Appeal today mostly approved a project that will replace some decaying boat-repair sheds at the end of Port Norfolk with 120 residential units, office space and a wide walkway along the Neponset River where it flows into Dorchester Bay.

The board voted 5-0 in favor of the broad scope of the plan by Ryan Sillery's CityPoint Capital and Rise Together, but said they needed more details on how the project would keep the proposed riverside parkland from becoming the exclusive preserve of the small, isolated neighborhood with just two access roads off Neponset Circle, rather than being a feature everybody from across the state could enjoy - even as the project keeps from overwhelming that neighborhood.

The board gave the developers two months to provide the extra details.

Board member Eric Robinson abstained from the discussion because his architectural firm designed the project, which would sit between the Venezia restaurant and banquet hall and the Boston Harbor Distillery.

The board's attorney, the developer's attorney and the Port Norfolk Civic Association all urged the board to defer any action at all to allow for more time for the development team to provide the additional details - and in the association's case, to continue negotiations on the proposal - but board Chairwoman Christine Araujo, who raised some of the more pointed questions on it, said the board could adjust its approval depending on the answers it gets.

"In concept we are in support, but there are details we are not in support of and that's what's tying us up in knots," she said.

CityPoint's current proposal - some four and a half years after it initially proposed a larger complex with a hotel - includes 120 apartments spread among four buildings next to a renovated marina. One of the buildings would also have office space, an 11,000-square-foot community room and 100 parking spaces in a garage. Another building would have retail space on the ground floor and 15 more parking spaces. A bit more than 2 acres would be set aside for public use, including a wide walkway along the water.

Proposed walkway:

Board member Mark Erlich said he was concerned the plan would succeed too well - that the new area and park would become an attractive destination but that people from outside the area would have no place to park, in a part of the city that has no access to public transit. That, he worried, would effectively mean "privatization" of what is, in fact, a very public shoreline.

Erlich, who said he already likes Port Norfolk, said "this is going to be a very attractive part of the city - you really are creating something new and potentially exciting." But without enough parking, people from outside the area would be unable to get there to enjoy it, he said

RODE Architects's Kevin Deabler acknowledged a tension in designing the publicly accessible parts of the project because one goal of the overall proposal was to minimize the amount of traffic to and from the site through the quiet, isolated neighborhood, that the site "not become the destination that everybody in the city comes to." Still, he said there will be some on-street parking along the buildings for people who do want to visit. More, he said, might be available in the larger of the two garages, at least during the day when residents drive to their jobs elsewhere.

"I get that," Erlich said of neighborhood concerns. "I know Port Norfolk quite well. ... The truth is (the new project) is going be a very appealing part of the Boston waterfront."

"It's a pipe dream that it's not going to be appealing to a lot of people who don't live in Port Norfolk," he continued.

Araujo also expressed concern about public access to the shoreline - something state regulators will also insist on.

"The trouble I continue to have is that the tidelands are 'Commonwealth tidelands' and are held for everybody who lives in the Commonwealth - and that means not an area limited to use by people in Port Norfolk but land that "is supposed to be open to the public," she said. She noted the roughly 20 on-street parking spots provided in the proposal, but then wondered how long after the place is fully occupied before residents petition the city to make them "resident only."

Araujo added she is concerned that the site would become a sort of soulless, cultureless extension of the Seaport without some sort of "programming" to liven up the waterside. She gave as an example the sailing program at Piers Park in East Boston.

Deabler, however, rejected the idea the proposal would result in anything like the soulless Seaport. For starters, it's way smaller. "It's much more of a neighborhood scale and gives both residents and visitors more immediate access to the water.

John Lyons, president of the Port Norfolk Civic Association, urged the board to hold off on any vote. The plan is still too big for the neighborhood and CityPoint has yet to provide firm plans for actually rebuilding the marina, he said, adding just as important, the new project would mean yet another blow to what little is already left of a working waterfront in Boston.

He said CityPoint had failed to show any real hardship, required for variances. "There's no justification other than economic need," and at the detriment of the surrounding neighborhood, he said

He called on the board to either defer action on the proposal, to give residents and CityPoint one last shot at negotiating something everybody could agree on.

As Erlich and Araujo pressed their points about public access and transportation, CityPoint attorney Jared Eigerman also asked the board to defer any action to give the company enough time to provide additional details on ensuring public access to the waterfront - something without which state regulators, who must also sign off on the place, would require as well.

The board's own attorney also suggested a deferral.

But Araujo, saying the issue was not the overall plan but the details - and that the details could be modified at a future board meeting, in a process called "board final arbiter," called for a vote.

Through an aide, City Councilor Frank Baker (Dorchester), supported the proposal.