Allston-Brighton Infill and Small Developments

[BeansTheCat]

Radio tower, studios could make way for apartments on Leo Birmingham Parkway in Brighton​

"A developer has filed plans to replace a building housing radio stations and an antenna tower on Leo Birmingham Parkway across from Lincoln Street in Brighton with an eight-story, 338-unit apartment building."

"The building would be all electric, with no gas hookups, and would have 175 parking spaces in an underground garage, according to the filing."

https://www.universalhub.com/2024/radio-tower-studios-could-make-way-apartments-leo
https://www.bostonplans.org/projects/development-projects/83-leo-m-birmingham-parkway

This is one of the best projects I've seen recently in AB. There's tons of new housing, significantly less parking than units, and it's located near 3 decent bus routes as well as Boston Landing. The bike network is dramatically improving in this area (on Leo Birmingham, North Beacon, and hopefully Western Ave soon) and it sound like there will be a BlueBikes dock on site. It sound like all of the existing large trees are being kept, and roughly 80 more will be planted as well. Really the only complaint I have is that they're not building taller.

 

[BeansTheCat]

Couldnt they kill 2 birds with 1 stone by just painting their roof white? A tiny little patch of grass is really not going to contribute anything and its taking away units that could be added to the development. Instead let the building take up the entire plot and paint the roof white, or add a green roof or something. Now you have the majority of the lot helping combat the heat island effect vs a tiny little spot and you get as many new units as can fit….win/win.

That's completely reasonable. It wouldn't surprise me if enforcing a white roof is either very difficult or impossible for the city, but it would clearly help.

However, instead of continue to guess why more open space was desired, I decided to find out if any justification had been given. BPD did provide a recommendation (see page 4), and here is what they said about open space: "A new project at this location presents an opportunity to provide usable open space for future building residents. This project could be improved by increasing usable open space and increasing side and rear setbacks to create a more contextually sensitive building..."

It's basically "the other lots on this street have more open space so you should too". Probably the worst reason possible to deny this, especially without giving recommended setbacks/open space.

 

[shmessy]

Couldnt they kill 2 birds with 1 stone by just painting their roof white? A tiny little patch of grass is really not going to contribute anything and its taking away units that could be added to the development. Instead let the building take up the entire plot and paint the roof white, or add a green roof or something. Now you have the majority of the lot helping combat the heat island effect vs a tiny little spot and you get as many new units as can fit….win/win.

From the render, it looks like the roof is taken up by solar panels.

 

[stick n move]

11 Faneuil St​

“Working closely with neighbors, community organizations and the BPDA, the design at 11 Faneuil Street went through multiple iterations to create a building ties into the ongoing development of the Market Street corridor and fits into the neighborhood context of Brighton. The third story brick expression at the base of the building references back to existing multi-family developments along Market Street with the modern inflection at the fourth floor reacting to the developments around the Boston Landing Commuter Rail Station.”

https://embarcdesign.com/project/11-faneuil-st/#forward