BHA Charlestown/Bunker Hill Redevelopment | Charlestown

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From ~500 to ~2,000 cars? Did I read that right? Plus tackling the north Washington st bridge and wynn/assembly...Boston needs some infrastructure stat.
 
This project is outstanding! But this is Boston. It will take 10 years to break ground.
 
There was a public meeting last week that the Charlestown Bridge describes as "raucous". Dozens spoke, but the Bridge quoted people who currently live in the project as being for it, and people who live outside being against it. The latter group is also calling for a five-year moratorium on all development within Charlestown...

http://charlestownbridge.com/2016/1...ts-organized-opposition-at-community-meeting/
 
TomOfBoston said:
This project is outstanding! But this is Boston. It will take 10 years to break ground.
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We add barely a few thousand units inside 128 over the last 2 decades, and already the nimby are screaming, 'they're killing our children,' while they build hundreds of thousands units in the sunbelt and everywhere ...where there's barely any public transportation.
 
odurandina said:
We add barely a few thousand units inside 128 over the last 2 decades, and already the nimby are screaming, 'they're killing our children,' while they build hundreds of thousands units in the sunbelt and everywhere ...where there's barely any public transportation.
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Odurandia -- Please this getting totally out of control

There has to be some relationship between number of units built and number of units needed

This part of the US is not growing at the same rate as the "Sunbelt" -- might have something to do with the first 3 letters?
 
Is Martin Walsh's goals for the number of residential units (53,000 from the groundbreaking of 1 Greenway to 2030) too ambitious?

http://sampan.org/2014/10/boston-mayor-releases-plan-for-53000-housing-units-by-2030/

In any case, how many residential units should we build between the start of construction on 1 Greenway and 2030?

i'd like to see this project, and the other 'big one' built as proposed. i believe the market will support 60,000~70,000 units by 2030. i also, may join the ranks of people who welcome a pause once it is accomplished.

*Have we become so accustomed to our politico's visions not being realized that there now exists a cynical, snarky schism between a justifiable, ambitious goal and the empirical reality of what it will look like to actually make it come true? Not that any of you all aren't fully aware of the implications, but, i mentioned to Globe readers on numerous occassions how people will be notably shocked at what 53,000 in units would look like, including 60-70 massive apartment towers, cranes from Charlestown to West Roxbury, and more and more people ditching their cars.
 
There has to be some relationship between number of units built and number of units needed
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Yeah, there is. Most people call it "supply and demand." Most people also generally look at rising prices as an indication that "supply" isn't meeting "demand." Most people.
 
whighlander said:
Odurandia -- Please this getting totally out of control

There has to be some relationship between number of units built and number of units needed

This part of the US is not growing at the same rate as the "Sunbelt" -- might have something to do with the first 3 letters?
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The city of Boston is growing almost twice as fast as the country as a whole, so, yeah...

Census Figures:

Boston 2010: 617,594
Boston 2015: 667,137
= 8.02% growth

US 2010: 308,745,538
US 2015: 321,418,820
= 4.10% growth

And if you want to talk sun belt growth:
Arizona 2010: 6,392,017
Arizona 2015: 6,828,065
= 6.82% growth

Phoenix 2010: 1,445,632
Phoenix 2015: 1,563,025
= 8.12%

So, Boston is within a tenth of a percent of what I've been told is the poster child for Sun Belt growth (really, within margin of error). Being against the is project on some supposition that there is no need/demand for more housing is misguided.
 
Hate to jump on the NIMBY bashing train but fuck these NIMBY'S. Yes I understand that the 23 story towers near the Tobin are a little high, however imposing a ban on charlestown construction is the wrong move. Development on Rutherford Ave and Sullivan Square could really help to improve and liven this neighborhood. Also this development has plenty of parking.
 
dwash59 said:
The city of Boston is growing almost twice as fast as the country as a whole, so, yeah...

Census Figures:

Boston 2010: 617,594
Boston 2015: 667,137
= 8.02% growth

US 2010: 308,745,538
US 2015: 321,418,820
= 4.10% growth

And if you want to talk sun belt growth:
Arizona 2010: 6,392,017
Arizona 2015: 6,828,065
= 6.82% growth

Phoenix 2010: 1,445,632
Phoenix 2015: 1,563,025
= 8.12%

So, Boston is within a tenth of a percent of what I've been told is the poster child for Sun Belt growth (really, within margin of error). Being against the is project on some supposition that there is no need/demand for more housing is misguided.
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Dwash -- I Never said that I was against the project

All I said was that Odurandia's making statements comparing inside Rt-128 to the entire sunbelt is silly

Here's Texas by comparison
2000 20,851,820 22.8%
2010 25,145,561 20.6%
Est. 2014 26,956,958 7.2%
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and for detail of one city - San Antonio
1990 935,933 19.1%
2000 1,144,646 22.3%
2010 1,327,407 16.0%
Est. 2015 1,469,845 10.7%
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You'll note that these are sustained high growth rates
 
When property is cheap, it's an indication of ready supply and people can move in. If we had housing as cheap as Texas, we'd likely see growth rates that high or higher due to better wages and social mobility. Development should not stop until housing costs are low enough to make any construction unaffordable - that might me a much larger Boston metro - and all the more vibrant of a city
 
Scipio said:
The project is currently in a 90 day review period that ends next month, and the Charlestown Preservation Society and Charlestown Neighborhood Council are coming out against it: http://charlestownbridge.com/2017/0...rvation-society-opposes-one-charlestown-plan/

It's a mix of density, height, and process complaints.
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This is almost a perfect microcosm of the self-defeating cycle this metro area has gotten itself into**. This proposal in a general sense* represents an outstanding improvement to the urban form, a good path towards better supporting the affordable units on site, helps alleviate housing pressures more broadly by increasing total units, will help folks in the affordable units build stronger social networks (higher % of employed neighbors). I could go on and on.

But the local community's opposed, and some portion of their opposition can't just be dismissed. Does Boston do a good job of school expansion planning to deal with such a development? nope, and neither do most other towns around here. So the school concern can't just be dismissed as rampant NIMBYism.

Does Boston do a good job of transportation planning to handle growth either generally or on a site-specific situation like this one, where thousands of units could be added? Sorry, that's such a silly question to even ask, we can barely keep up with basic maintenance of what we have, which is already insufficient in scope. So the transportation concerns also can't just be dismissed.

This frustrates the hell out of me. This is in general* a good proposal. I wish I had some way to better sell it to local neighbors, but what I wish I had even more was some actual processes in place to truly deal with the school and transportation implications such a large infusion of residents would mean. It's not enough to just say "you're living in a city, get over it, you damned NIMBYs", even though there's truth to that, too, in a limited way.

*I say "in general" because I agreed with some of the design-specific critiques others have made up thread: this proposal could use some tweaking on the aesthetics.

Anyhow, I hope the developer and BPDA can work through this without the proposal getting whacked too hard.

**This isn't completely unique to the Boston metro area, of course. We're maybe doing this to ourselves worse than a lot of other metro areas, but we do have company.
 
Part 1. The Building Dept is proposing bold density exactly where it should go. The ideal places to do this is a surprisingly low number. We can argue those details all day (CityLover in 3... 2.... 1.....), but the bottom line is, the number is finite. ....The neighborhood groups' may be too conservative about development but they aren't dumb. Running the play book: Jackboot on the throats of the Planners, and make sure the City continues to build like it's 1915. Use up the sites for tall-midrises/low-highrises to the vanishing point, enforcing the building of 25~40% of the proposed density until there are as near as makes no difference, nil appropriate sites left to do (big density).

Then complain in the Globe that it's the City's fault that housing prices are INSANE.

We could end up so utterly bogus that we could even top out as low as 60~70,000 units inside the 128 belt before we turn into a full-scale nimby hell hole like South Hollywood/Los Feliz/Echo Park.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...-villain-thats-making-it-unaffordable/422091/


utterly.

Part 2: Globe Story in 2036; City proposes bulldozing 3-deckers in Dorchester, Roslindale using it's eminent domain authority...
 
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High housing prices are not exactly a problem if you already own the property. Most NIMBYism is about incumbents creating barriers to entry, not about aesthetics or ignorance.
 
West said:
Does Boston do a good job of school expansion planning to deal with such a development? nope, and neither do most other towns around here. So the school concern can't just be dismissed as rampant NIMBYism.
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What school expansion does Boston need? It is well documented that Boston has way too many buildings for the number of children in the city. There is a reason why schools are regularly closed.

Maybe there should be some more focus on neighborhood, walkable schools, but on a whole, Boston has more than enough capacity for more students. And the whole walkable thing brings in a shit load of politics and history not relevant to whether this development should be approved.
 
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