BHA Charlestown/Bunker Hill Redevelopment | Charlestown

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"However, perhaps the most intriguing idea within the plan is to reduce density by putting more housing in a different location – thinking beyond the current boundaries of the site....."

Just keep kicking that can down the road. next........

oh, i like his proper usage of the en dash (–). His punctuation is spot on.
 
Is he talking about terminal St. across from the shipping containers?
 
Local newspapers do us all a disservice by publicizing these loons
 
They haven't really declared war. They've just raised their voices. Declaring war would be more akin to they hired a bunch of lawyers or mounted a legal challenge to stop the entire project.

Most likely they'll win a small battle of a 100 units or something being chopped off and this will go through. Meanwhile I continue to be amazed by how moronic many of the "Old" Boston residents are with regards to just about everything.
 
They haven't really declared war. They've just raised their voices. Declaring war would be more akin to they hired a bunch of lawyers or mounted a legal challenge to stop the entire project.

Most likely they'll win a small battle of a 100 units or something being chopped off and this will go through. Meanwhile I continue to be amazed by how moronic many of the "Old" Boston residents are with regards to just about everything.

Being a product of the Bunker Hill project, I feel like I am in the unique position to be able to give an informed perspective that many of the forum members are missing on in regards to this project and the first thing I want to say is that these residents are not moronic. The issues they raised are valid and one that I have personally experienced during my first 23 years that I have lived in Charlestown.

Really the one issue that needs to be correct that should soothe the problem is improved infrastructure. The fear that the increased population can heavily strained existing infrastructure is very true. Charlestown is severely under-served by public transit, with two bus route running through populated area, route 92 and 93. Route 92 runs infrequently on weekdays and Saturdays and doesn't run on Sunday. Route 93 runs more frequently but runs in 20 minute intervals on Saturday and 40 minutes to an hour interval on Sunday. This compared to other neighborhoods where multiple routes run the same area and intervals on Sunday are around 15-20 minutes.

On top of this, Charlestown also doesn't have a heavy/light rail running through the area. The Orange Line, which runs against the highway, serves a minuscule amount of residents in the area. In an area where a significant portion of the population is low-income and relies heavily on public transit, any large development in Charlestown should be accompanied by more investment in public transit/infrastructure in the area (the effectiveness of running more buses however is limited as I will explain in the next paragraph).

The main road that connects Charlestown with downtown Boston is the N. Washington Bridge. The decaying N. Washington Bridge acts as a choke point during rush hour, creating heavy traffic going in and out of the city. At times, I remember it can take around 20-30 minutes to cross that small span which often results in bus clustering together which decreases efficiency. Running more bus down this bridge would do nothing to improve the situation. A better solution is to replace the bridge with a 6 line bridge (like it used to be) to allow traffic to flow better.

In regards to the fire trucks. In comparison, East Boston, another neighborhood separated from Boston by water, is currently served by 3 fire stations. Charlestown, is currently served by 2 and would have to serve a significantly more dense area than East Boston. An easy solution is to incorporate a small fire station in the project (or even have a station built under the Tobin Bridge). Other public services, like schools, can be fixed by expanding the existing facilities there or incorporating them into the project.
 
The decaying N. Washington Bridge acts as a choke point during rush hour, creating heavy traffic going in and out of the city. At times, I remember it can take around 20-30 minutes to cross that small span which often results in bus clustering together which decreases efficiency.
the bridge isnt the choke point, the Causeway/Commercial/N Washington St intersection is what causes the traffic (and further towards Haymarket on N Washington). Adding general purpose lanes on the bridge wouldnt help.

Running more bus down this bridge would do nothing to improve the situation. A better solution is to replace the bridge with a 6 line bridge (like it used to be) to allow traffic to flow better.
the bridge reconstruction that is starting soon includes a BRT lane that will allow buses to jump the queue on the bridge. Unless (until?) parking is removed on N Washington St thats the best that can be done.
 
the bridge isnt the choke point, the Causeway/Commercial/N Washington St intersection is what causes the traffic (and further towards Haymarket on N Washington). Adding general purpose lanes on the bridge wouldnt help.


the bridge reconstruction that is starting soon includes a BRT lane that will allow buses to jump the queue on the bridge. Unless (until?) parking is removed on N Washington St thats the best that can be done.

This would improve efficiency in a big way...unfortunately for the next 4+ years walking is just as fast.
 
This thing is on hiatus till after Labor Day...
 
If I was the developer I'd just walk away and leave the housing project as is. Sometimes you have to do that in order to get anything built.
 
Oh ye of little patience.

These mixed income PHA-replacement deals go through iteration after iteration. Go read about the process Corcoran went through on Columbia Point. Took years and years before shovels turned dirt. They have done these sorts of deals in multiple cities other than Boston, some of which have even crazier processes than Boston (I'm squinting angrily at you, Pittsburgh). Corcoran knows damned well how long these can take, and fortunately for those of us who want to see this succeed, they've got fifty times more patience than the average archBoston poster.

Does anyone here really think Corcoran hadn't considered the possibility that any first proposal might get cut down in density? If anyone here thinks that, than anyone here should reach down between their legs and yank their head from outta their ass.

This is far from dead, and it is far far far from the point that Corcoran should think about walking from the table.

And yeah, it might end up less dense, and yeah, I'd find that a shame. Life's hard. Corcoran will get over it and do well on the project and move on and do well with other projects thereafter.
 
translation;

don't anger the neighborhoods until after the election.
 
Oh ye of little patience.

These mixed income PHA-replacement deals go through iteration after iteration. Go read about the process Corcoran went through on Columbia Point. Took years and years before shovels turned dirt. They have done these sorts of deals in multiple cities other than Boston, some of which have even crazier processes than Boston (I'm squinting angrily at you, Pittsburgh). Corcoran knows damned well how long these can take, and fortunately for those of us who want to see this succeed, they've got fifty times more patience than the average archBoston poster.

Does anyone here really think Corcoran hadn't considered the possibility that any first proposal might get cut down in density? If anyone here thinks that, than anyone here should reach down between their legs and yank their head from outta their ass.

This is far from dead, and it is far far far from the point that Corcoran should think about walking from the table.

And yeah, it might end up less dense, and yeah, I'd find that a shame. Life's hard. Corcoran will get over it and do well on the project and move on and do well with other projects thereafter.

And in the meantime as everyone diddlefucks around to play kiss ass with NIMBY's who, it should be noted, willingly moved to one of the densest neighborhoods in the city, residents continue to live in a dilapidated housing project circa 1941 and housing prices continue to rise.

Doesn't affect me any but really it speaks to the problem the city continues to have right up to and including the enablers of NIMBY's who pop up now and again.
 
And in the meantime ..... residents continue to live in a dilapidated housing project circa 1941 and housing prices continue to rise.

This part of your post is a completely valid complaint and I agree with it 100%. It truly sucks.

…. who, it should be noted, willingly moved to one of the densest neighborhoods in the city …..

Yeah, I sort of agree. However, they have good arguments about how poorly they’re served by transit and how this increase in density will indeed exacerbate that. As others have pointed out previously, those transit failures ought to get corrected quite aside from this development, hence I sort of agree with you. But there will be impact, and neighbors get to express concerns over them and get to try to stop them if they want. Not every NIMBY argument is pure evil and wrong-headedness.

.... as everyone diddlefucks around to play kiss ass with NIMBY's …..

BPDA doesn’t really play a lot of kiss ass with NIMBYs these days. The NIMBYs will probably get rolled here, after winning a few concessions, and it’ll be BPDA doing the rolling. Those asses are going to feel more kicked than kissed when it’s all done. The mayor doesn’t want over a thousand City-owned units to slide into complete decrepitude (as in: code-compliance class action suits and HUD penalties on subsidy streams and so on) and neither do any of the Council members; some sort of mixed-income replacement is very highly likely to happen here. It’ll take too long, and you’re right that the tenants are suffering for it. But it's highly likely to happen.

but yeah, all easy for me to say: I don't live there.
 
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