Board approves transit-oriented apartment building with un-transit-oriented number of parking spaces across street from Hyde Park train station

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved plans to replace the former Junior's garage at River and Business streets in Hyde Park with a four-story apartment building with ground-floor space for a coffeehouse.

Despite efforts by the city over more than a decade now to reduce the number of parking spaces for "transit-oriented" residential buildings, the proposed River Street Residences would have a garage able to hold 30 cars in a mechanical "stacker" system, even though the building is right across the street from the Hyde Park commuter-rail station and just a short walk across the River Street bridge - which remains open to pedestrians - from Hyde Park Avenue and its stops on the 32 bus route.

"It seems like a lot of parking, a one-to-one ratio [of spaces per unit] for something right across from the train station," board member Eric Robinson said, adding stacking system have not always proven foolproof.

Developer Bhavya Patel of Sharon originally proposed more units and less parking, but had the plans changed after residents and elected officials in one of Boston's leafier neighborhoods said they wanted more parking, his attorney, John Pulgini said.

The BPDA approved the project in December.

That concession was not enough for nearby residents and the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association, who voiced opposition, saying the building would still be taller than other buildings recently approved along River Street and that it would contribute to traffic problems at the intersection of River and Business streets once the currently closed River Street Bridge is replaced, possibly sometime in 2025. One neighbor expressed concern the new building would also lead to an increase of crime in the area.

Patel's plans all show a current diagonal cut through from River Street onto Business Street closed off, with its space combined with the triangle that is now there to create a new 3,000-square-foot public parklet. But while Patel agreed to the change, its not part of his project - it's something the city would have to plan and build.

Craig Martin of the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association said this could leave Business Street becoming a dead end if the MBTA, which owns the land along the straight part of Business at River, ever decides to expand the station, for example, by taking the land for new parking.

The building would have five apartments rented as affordable, to people making no more than 70% of the Boston area median income, Pulgini said. Aides to City Councilors Ricardo Arroyo (Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roslindale) and Ruthzee Louijeune (at large), cited these units - 17% of the total, rather than the 13% required by the city - as reasons to support the project.

1318 River St. filings.