Last week, we joined with several community partners to send a letter to the BPDA requesting community benefits to accompany the 18-22 Arboretum Road Development, a proposed 230-apartment development just off Washington Street abutting the Arboretum. Our joint letter focuses on funding for the Gateway Path and food pantry certification for an Archdale food distribution site. The full letter is reproduced below.
Category: Housing
Public Meeting 5 Days Right Ahead – Thursday, 9 March 2023 – Return of 4198 Washington Street
As those who follow this weblog know, WalkUP Roslindale followed this project closely through the public process that unfortunately resulted in an effective ZBA denial in the fall of 2021. (See 2 of our posts below). Now, the owners of the property are thankfully back with a renewed push on redevelopment of this 8,982 square foot site at 4198 – 4206 Washington Street in Roslindale Square. Physically, their proposal hasn’t changed: in place of the existing one-story retail structure, it still calls for construction of a new five (5)-story, mixed-use building containing approximately thirty-one (31) residential units, approximately 6,800 square feet of retail/community theater space, and approximately thirty-eight (38) bicycle storage spaces. The sole change, and it is significant, is that the owners have increased the share of income-restricted residential units from 42% to 61%, such that 19 of the 31 units are committed to be affordable to households earning between 60% and 100% of area median income. Not only is this substantively good on its own and makes an already great project that much better, it is also puts the project into the category of affordable residential developments that the Mayor’s Affordable Housing Executive Order of last fall expressly wants to advance more quickly and efficiently in light of the long-standing housing crisis in our city. In other words, this is exactly the kind of project that the Wu Administration wants to see a lot more of. Its time has come.
You can visit the project’s page on the BPDA website for more information. Most importantly, you can find information on the upcoming public meeting over zoom that is scheduled for this coming Thursday, 9 March 2023, at 6:00 pm. We urge supporters of this worthy proposal to attend the meeting and make your voices heard in support. You can register here.
361 Belgrade – Supplemental Filing Comment Period Ends Tomorrow – 3 March 2023 – Show your support!
WalkUP Roslindale previously indicated our support for this long-time-coming redevelopment of the former Clay Chevrolet property back in the fall – Comment Letter in Support of 361 Belgrade Avenue Housing Proposal – and we’re happy to see that the proposal has improved in the interim, especially including a better design and increased affordability. Complete information on the supplemental filing, including the presentation from a recent community meeting on the filing, can be found at the Boston Planning & Development Agency’s 361 Belgrade Project Page.
The comment period on this supplemental filing expires tomorrow, 3 March 2023. We urge our followers to support this project and its continued progress toward becoming reality by sending a brief support email to the BPDA project manager, Quinn Valcich, at quinn.w.valcich@nullboston.gov.
WalkUP Roslindale – 2022 in Brief
So, 2022 definitely had its share of ups and downs, but in taking stock on the eve of 2023, three posts stand out as particularly worth looking back on and noting (in roughly reverse chronological order):
- Taking first place, after a long, COVID-impacted process, the Lower South Street Neighborhood Slow Streets project obtained its final municipal approval and heads to installation this spring. The comments from Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge at the conclusion of the hearing were especially encouraging. This post also features a major advancement for us that started in the fall of this year – we have started to translate our posts into Spanish.
- In second place, we gave significant attention and sought to provide assistance to Roslindale residents in navigating the Orange Line shutdown from late August to late September in two posts that included links to official guidance as well as our own review of available substitute services, especially Needham Line and other commuter rail trains that made additional stops at Forest Hills and Ruggles during that month-long period.
MBTA adds additional service to Forest Hills starting today – 6 September 2022
- In a 3-way tie for 3rd place, we had Mayor Wu’s inaugural group bike ride into downtown Boston from Roslindale (not officially a WalkUP Roslindale event, but many of us were very involved), plus our support for the successful permitting effort around the redevelopment of the funeral home site at 59-63 Belgrade Avenue, and our Poplar Street Walk Audit report (all from August, though the walk audit itself occurred in May).
Comment Letter in Support of 361 Belgrade Avenue Housing Proposal (UPDATED with Spanish translation)
Yesterday, we sent a comment letter in support of the proposed housing development at 361 Belgrade Avenue, formerly the proposed site of Roxbury Prep. Our full letter is reproduced below and is also available as a PDF and also in Spanish.
Last call for comments to ZBA on 59-63 Belgrade
If you haven’t yet reached out to the Zoning Board of Appeal to support the proposed project for 59-63, please do so by the end of Friday, August 19. See our earlier post for details.
Please help support housing at 59-63 Belgrade Avenue
Please contact the Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) and your elected officials to show your SUPPORT for badly-needed new housing at 59-63 Belgrade Avenue.
This proposal will replace the Folsom Funeral Home, which is closing, and will provide:
- 31 new apartments, a mix of one and two-bedroom units
- 6 income-restricted apartments
- Ample on-site bicycle storage
- New transit-oriented housing directly next to the commuter rail and Roslindale Square
Please send a polite, brief support email in your own words to the following individuals with the subject line: “Please Support 59-63 Belgrade Avenue”
- ZBAPublicInput@nullboston.gov
- Ricardo.Arroyo@nullboston.gov
- Julia.Mejia@nullboston.gov
- Michael.F.Flaherty@nullboston.gov
- Ruthzee.Louijeune@nullboston.gov
- Erin.Murphy@nullboston.gov
- Nika.Elugardo@nullmahouse.gov
- info@nullwalkuproslindale.org (bcc for WalkUP tracking purposes)
This is an important infill proposal that will provide needed new transit-oriented housing, displace no one from the site, and enhance the entrance to Roslindale Square on Belgrade Ave. WalkUP Roslindale previously submitted a comment letter in support of the project to the BPDA.
Please submit your support emails before Friday, August 19th! The ZBA hearing will be held virtually on Tuesday, August 23rd.
Thank you!
WalkUP Roslindale Comment Letter on 59-63 Belgrade Avenue
Today, we sent a comment letter to the BPDA on a proposed residential project at 59-63 Belgrade Avenue. We generally support this project as it is constant with our goals and mission, and also offer some suggestions for how the proposal could be improved. Our full letter is below, also available as a PDF.
WUR Housing Chair Rob Orthman’s Letter in the Roslindale Bulletin re 4198 Washington Street
We remain incredibly disappointed in the ZBA’s decision denying zoning relief to the 4198 Washington Street project as this proposal, more than many, presented a stark choice between affordable housing and community amenities on the one hand, and passive private car storage on the other. We hope Mayor Wu will scrutinize this issue closely and exercise her right to appoint members who will not prioritize parking above other urgent needs or anoint themselves de facto transportation policy czars. In any event, we were pleased that the Roslindale Bulletin chose to print a letter this week from WalkUP Board Member and Housing & Development Chair Rob Orthman. The full text of Rob’s letter is reproduced below:
NEW MEMBERS OF THE ZBA WITH EXPERIENCE IS CRUCIAL
To the Editor:Regarding the article in last week’s issue, ‘4198 Washington project fails for lack of parking’, we as a city are desperately in need of a new Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) and overall zoning reform. The recent decision by the ZBA to deny a worthwhile project at 4198 Washington Street in Roslindale Square is just the latest example of why. This is a development with levels of income-restricted housing far exceeding the city minimum requirements. It includes new, enhanced spaces for a community theater and local yogurt shop; both businesses owned by Asian-Americans. The location is transit-rich, right on the rapid bus lane to and from Forest Hills and close to the commuter rail station. And yet, members of the ZBA pedantically only focused on a lack of on-site parking in evaluating the project merits. The board members put aside support from City Councilor Arroyo, the Mayor’s Office, and many residents, and instead gave voice to bad faith efforts put forward by some residents opposed to the project to pit business owners of color against one another in an effort to defeat the project. The ZBA and opponents seem to think parking is more important than anything else including desperately needed homes for people and better spaces for our small businesses. It belies basic logic to think customer parking would be negatively affected by this new building when customer spaces are signed for 2-hours; why would any resident leave their vehicle in a spot to get ticketed every day? Having new customers living a stone’s throw from our local businesses would only benefit our business district as is. To hear the board architect proclaim that the community theater could simply be moved to a different, smaller space in the building to accommodate underground parking was particularly shocking, as if she is in any position to tell a business owner what is best for their business or what kind of space they need.
Mayor Wu takes office with the vast majority of ZBA members as holdover appointments on expired terms from prior administrations. It is imperative to have new members of the ZBA appointed that understand we live in a growing city and need to get serious about building new housing, particularly income-restricted housing, and supporting our local businesses, especially owned by individuals of color, that want to stay and grow here. More broadly, we need zoning reform that stops requiring every single development proposal to go through endless community meetings and bureaucratic approvals that only benefit the opponents of progress like happened here. We need to move past this parking-above-else mentality that is stifling progress and keeping us stuck in a place that does not benefit anyone except those who simply oppose change, no matter how they disguise it.
Robert Orthman
Roslindale
4198 Washington Street Mixed Use and Affordable Housing Project Rejected by Zoning Board of Appeal Due to Lack of Parking
We are extremely disappointed to report that the Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA) today rejected the zoning relief application for the 4198 Washington Street development proposal. This project has transformative potential for our community, checking all the boxes for what 21st-century neighborhoods urgently need. 40% of the units would have been reserved for lower income residents, significantly exceeding the usual affordability parameters. The project would have included a brand-new, larger space for the Rozzie Square Theater (Boston’s only improv establishment owned and operated by a woman of color), as well as enhanced commercial ground-floor spaces for Delicious Yogurt and other commercial tenants. As a result of the ZBA denial, these positive community impacts are now much further away, if they ever materialize at all.
Perhaps most important to WalkUP Roslindale’s core mission, this proposal would have leveraged its highly transit-oriented location along the Washington Street dedicated bus/bike lane in the heart of our neighborhood’s walkable commercial center, which we believe readily justified the lack of on-site parking. Moreover, the developer had pledged to subsidize CharlieCards for residents and secured leases for off-street parking for up to 20 cars within a half mile of the site. Despite the support of several elected officials who spoke in favor of this project, including our district councilor Ricardo Arroyo, three members of this 7-person board, including two administrative hold-overs (notably including the Roslindale-resident chair of the Board), voted against the project specifically due to its substitution of more affordable units and improved ground floor space in lieu of on-site parking. It is deeply regrettable that under the current zoning regime, a 4-3 vote in favor of a project means the zoning relief is rejected.
In our view, the current decision-making process in this city for most projects is untenable. Rejection of such urgently needed mixed-use development elevates the needs of cars above the needs of Boston’s residents — a 20th century view of development that is out of step with the needs of today. By forcing the developer to go back to the drawing board despite strong support both from the community and many elected leaders, we are sending the message that cars, and their associated human health, environmental, and social problems, still dominate over many more critical human priorities. Finally, forcing the developer to dedicate more space to car storage necessarily means:
- Less space for affordable housing
- Less space for community amenities like the Rozzie Square Theater
- More motor vehicle use in our neighborhood, with commensurate increases in traffic and pollution. Once parking spots are built, they tend to be filled, and there is no way to “unbuild” that space, even as we look to a future that must be much less car-centric.
Unfortunately, under current law, the developer cannot come back to the ZBA for an entire year. These sorts of rejections and long delays severely disincentivize developers from developing affordable, mixed-use, transit-friendly projects like this project in our neighborhood and, indeed, everywhere in Boston.
In the meantime, we have our work cut out for us. Our zoning system is fundamentally at odds with the needs of our city and neighborhood, effectively forcing everything through a zoning relief process that is tilted toward preserving the status quo at a moment in time when the status quo desperately needs to be changed, especially as it relates to our relationship with individual motor vehicle use and ownership. Supporters who believe that we need to move in a new direction and stop prioritizing cars over people should write to their district and at-large city councillors (addresses below) as well as Mayor Wu, who took office just today, and advocate for (i) the kind of forward-thinking development policies and regulation that she supported in the campaign and that would, in turn, support projects like 4198 Washington Street and (ii) new appointments to the ZBA who will put community and affordability ahead of car storage.
Mayor Wu contacts:
- Mr. David Vittorini, Senior Advisor to the Mayor (david.vittorini@nullboston.gov)
- Ms. Uju Onochie, Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services (uju.onochie@nullboston.gov)
City Council contacts:
- District 4 City Councilor-Elect Brian Worrell (brianworrellre@nullgmail.com)
- District 5 City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo (ricardo.arroyo@nullboston.gov)
- District 6 City Councilor-Elect Kendra Hicks (hicksfordistrictsix@nullgmail.com)
- At-Large City Councilor Julia Mejia (julia.mejia@nullboston.gov)
- At-Large City Councilor Michael F. Flaherty (michael.flaherty@nullboston.gov)
- At-Large City Councilor-Elect Ruthzee Louijeune (info@nullruthzeeforboston.com)
- At-Large City Councilor-Elect Erin Murphy (erinforboston@nullgmail.com)