Boston College Master Plan

The Globe said:
Cool response to BC's pitch
Neighbors oppose baseball stadium

By Andreae Downs, Globe Correspondent | May 6, 2007

More than 60 Brighton residents came out last week against Boston College's proposal to build a 2,000-seat baseball stadium near their homes on former Archdiocese of Boston property. The proposal is part of the college's master planning process, which is being overseen by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Monday's meeting at the Brighton Elks Lodge was the second of three meetings of the new Boston College Neighbors Forum, a grass-roots response to BC's expansion plans. The meetings were called by community members to build "consensus in response to Boston College's expansion proposals," said Michael Pahre, a Foster Street resident and one of the organizers.

At the April 30 meeting, abutters reviewed what they knew of the university's master plan for fields near Lane Park and Foster Street, both residential streets.

BC's nascent plans, which are still being developed and are to be filed with the BRA in June, include locating baseball, softball, and two multipurpose fields on the Brighton Campus -- the college's name for the newly acquired land. Also planned for the land are a 14,000-square-foot sports support facility and a 200-space garage, according to Jack Dunn, Boston College director of public affairs. Dunn said the 2,000- seat baseball stadium, which is 1,500 seats larger than the current field near Chestnut Hill Reservoir, will still be one of the smallest baseball stadiums in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which BC joined two years ago.

But residents agreed that while they like having athletic uses for the fields near their homes, they do not want a stadium and its attendant noise. They also plan to ask that there be no synthetic turf, which they worry might cause run-off of chemicals into nearby Chandler Pond and the water table, and no lights, according to Pahre.

Dunn said artificial turf reduces player injuries, allows for more play, and allows good drainage; the fields in question flood regularly, neighbors say.

If the stadium can't be relocated to the Brighton campus, an undergraduate dorm planned for Shea Field, near the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, could not be built, Dunn said.

At an April 12 meeting of the neighbors group, neighbors developed a statement asking that 95-100 percent of the school's roughly 8,900 undergraduates be housed on campus, and that no undergraduate housing be built on the newly acquired land. They plan to send a statement opposing the stadium and the results of future meetings to the Boston College Master Plan Task Force, residents appointed by the mayor to work with the Boston Redevelopment Authority and BC on the university's plans for growth.

In addition to the Shea Field dorm, BC had proposed at a Task Force meeting in March to build a 600-bed undergraduate dormitory on the property it bought from the archdiocese in 2004.

According to Dunn, the current proposal would house 90 percent of BC students, up from 85 percent now.

The neighbors group has also asked that the college not demolish single-family houses it has purchased on Foster and Wade streets. BC's plan had called for replacing the homes with housing for Jesuit priests and other seminarians.

The college has promised to put its proposals online along with maps, task force minutes, meeting schedules, and other information.

? Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
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this one will be heading to the courts for 10 years only to win approval and have to be redesigned for another 5.
 
I like the campus as it is already, and since I might go there it is easier to have an opinion about it, but I don't really care what they do, it will still be a great campus either way
 
Boston Archdiocese to sell headquarters for $65 million, move to Braintree

By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston this afternoon announced that it is selling its headquarters property in Brighton to Boston College for $65 million.

The sale is expected to close Aug. 1, and will include 18 acres of land and multiple buildings. The archdiocese will retain only one building, St. John?s Seminary, where it has been training priests since 1883.

"We have reached a significant milestone in announcing this agreement," Cardinal Se?n P. O'Malley said in a statement. "Proceeds from this sale will allow the archdiocese to invest resources for the benefit of our parishes, clergy, St. John?s Seminary and the many important programs that serve a large number of people."

The archdiocese will move its administrative offices to a modern, four-story, 140,000-square-foot office building on Brooks Drive in Braintree. The building is owned by The Flatley Company, whose billionaire founder, Thomas Flatley, has been a major archdiocesan benefactor.

Boston College, a Catholic university that has long desired more land for dormitories and academic facilities, will launch a much-anticipated expansion across Commonwealth Avenue; the university is describing its current home as its Chestnut Hill campus and the archdiocesan land as its Brighton campus.

Boston College had already purchased 46 acres from the archdiocese since 2004, including the mansion that had been the home of Boston?s first four cardinal-archbishops. The college is planning late next month to file a master plan with the city, proposing over the next decade to use the archdiocesan land for several new undergraduate dormitories, a baseball field, and housing for Jesuit priests.

The archdiocese said it hopes by July 2008 to complete the move of the approximately 200 employees who work at the Brighton headquarters to Braintree. The archdiocese is also hoping over time to move other employees who work at a variety of sites around Boston to the Braintree building.

The archdiocese is only moving administrators to Braintree. The seat of the archdiocese will remain the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, in Boston's South End, and Cardinal Sean P. O?Malley will continue to reside at the cathedral rectory. The archdiocese will also continue to maintain its social service operations, parishes and schools in the city; there are also two Catholic universities, Boston College and Emmanuel College, and two Caritas Christi hospitals, St. Elizabeth's and Carney, in the city.
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Snapped with my phone today. Just to give a general idea.

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That crane is huge. Hope someone is able to get some pictures as they take the top off of that building. Huge project.
 
The NIMBY's are conflicted. Those who didn't want athletic fields suggested dorms. Now the anti-dorm contingent has spoken up.

From today's Globe:
BC expansion called too close for comfort
Neighbors worry about new dorms

By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | June 7, 2007

For an entire enclave of Boston College neighbors, the seminary and the archdiocesan headquarters have always been seen as a crucial buffer between their homes and the rowdiness of a college campus. For BC, that same land has been seen as a critical opportunity to expand.

Now that the tranquil, wooded 64-acre swath could be replaced by college dormitories and athletic fields, irate residents said they fear they will not be living near a university campus anymore, but pretty much living on one.

And with that, a new and bitter front has been opened in the long battle between Brighton residents and BC.

"This is a tipping point," said Michael Pahre, who lives on Foster Street near the property and who blogs about BC's expansion plans. "It will be a staging ground for more expansion on this side of Commonwealth Avenue, and it will drive people out of the neighborhood."

Residents said their experiences with unruly students walk ing through their neighborhood -- trashed lawns, trampled gardens, smashed windows, and snapped car antennas -- make them recoil at the prospect of living beside more of them.

BC reached an agreement with church leaders last month to purchase the 18 remaining acres of the archdiocesan property for $65 million, the last of several purchases by BC in the past few years. BC officials say the acquisition will help them remake a crowded urban campus and provide space to build dormitories and athletic and academic facilities.

"It will take us to another level," said Thomas Keady Jr., BC's vice president for governmental and community affairs. Keady said the dormitories would reduce the number of off-campus parties that frustrate residents. Dormitories are well monitored, and students who live on campus are typically well behaved, he said.

"If we build 600 beds on the property, that will take 600 kids out of the Allston-Brighton community," he said.

As part of a master plan for its campus, Boston College wants to build dormitories for 600 students; the new dorms would make it possible for BC to provide housing for nearly all of its roughly 9,000 undergraduates.

The plan also calls for building athletic fields and an athletic facility with offices and a parking garage. School officials have also discussed whether to build a walkway over Commonwealth Avenue to bridge the two sides of campus. The archdiocese plans to retain St. John's Seminary.

BC has been discussing its plans with the Boston Redevelopment Authority and various neighborhood groups for the past few months and plans to file its master plan with the authority this summer, a city requirement.

Keady said the college is trying to assure residents it is a good neighbor and is meeting with them regularly to hear and address their concerns.

"There's a trust factor here," he said. "But what we don't want is people selling their homes."

Neighbors are unconvinced. They say the expansion will mean more property destruction and lawns littered with beer cans.

Alessandro Selvig, a Lake Street resident, was so angered by BC's proposal that he is running for the Brighton City Council seat to try to stop it. The election is in the fall.

"It will destroy the neighborhood," Selvig said. "If there are dorms across the street, I don't want to live here."

Neighbors said they recognize the university's right to develop the property, but insist that academic or administrative buildings are more appropriate for a residential neighborhood.

William F. Galvin, secretary of the Commonwealth, who has lived on Lake Street for 25 years, said he sometimes loses sleep because students are yelling and banging on street signs on their way home. It is enough of a problem that BC should refrain from putting dorms next to families, he said.

"I can time the closing of every saloon in Oak Square from the parade down the street," he said. "This plan would be a disaster for neighbors."

BC students said that they resent being branded as drunken louts and that most of their revelry is harmless.

"You get some kids late night, drunk, singing 'Sweet Caroline' on the way home. How harmful is that, honestly?" asked Patrick Fouhy, a junior and editor in chief of BC's student newspaper, The Heights. "If you choose to live there, you have to expect it's not a perfectly quiet area. You knew that coming in."

Neighbors said BC's plans fundamentally change the equation.

"People said, 'You knew there was a college over there when you moved here,' " said Sandy Furman, who lives on Lane Park. "But we didn't know there was going to be a college over here."

Many colleges in the Boston area have encountered resistance when they look to grow. Suffolk University, for example, had hoped to build a 22-story dormitory at the edge of Beacon Hill, but neighbors' objections forced them to relocate the project to Downtown Crossing.

The outcry is fairly predictable, an observer said.

"Any time a large, undeveloped tract changes hands in a dense, urban area, people are going to be concerned," said David Luberoff, executive director of Harvard's Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston.
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And doesn't Galvin object to Harvard's proposal to tunnel a stretch of Soldiers Field Road?
 
This neighborhood is so used to having the archdiocese land basically undeveloped that no matter what was proposed, by any developer, the neighbors would have objections. Housing, mixed development, retail, school, hospital, housing for the elderly...the reaction would probably be the same...noise, density, traffic, etc. Basically, what is being said is "We've had this land to ourselves for years, we want to keep it as it is!" It's almost a sense of entitlement that this land is ours.
 
If they develop the land in the right manner, they will have the drunk college students walk across the new campus, and head to the comm ave passover as opposed to walking down lake and foster streets. Students are in the area regardless if they live on campus or not. With the new campus will also come more BCPD patrols around the campus also reducing incidents.
 
I lament the loss of land to B.C. in great part because of the wonderful open space afforded to the community. Many people strolled through the seminary campus and enjoyed the orchard in the spring and the changing leaves in the fall. I also am saddened that precious quiet and privacy for seminarians during their 5 year preparation will likely be lost.

There is, however, a bit of irony in the neighborhood's present fears of development. Originally, when Archbishop Williams founded the seminary in the 19th C., the site included both sides of Lake St. all the way down to, and including, Chandler's Pond. Also the land on which the elementary school now sits was sold to the city during the Depression. The chancery and archbishop's residence were relocated to the Brighton seminary property from Bay State Rd, near B.U. sometime during Cardinal O'Connell's tenure. Selling parcels of Seminary property has thus been a long-standing practice.
 
^^^^^^^

So Mike, I'm not at all familiar with the area but if read what you wrote correctly, then the present neighborhood (Lake St. neighborhood) where the residents are complaining about BC's possible expansion.......if it wasn't for the archdiocese selling off some it's land years back, that neighborhood wouldn't even exist? How ironic is that and how typical!!
 
If there's one use that will probably preserve "open space" and "changing leaves in the fall," it's a college campus...especially considering the college appears to want to develop athletic fields there.

I agree with palindrome. If Bill Galvin can't sleep tonight, well before any of this is built, his problem is with the status quo, and he should be seeking reconfiguration of the campus to divert students. If there are dorms closer to Oak Square, many would have no need to walk down Lake Street to reach the current campus at all!
 
atlantaden said:
^^^^^^^

So Mike, I'm not at all familiar with the area but if read what you wrote correctly, then the present neighborhood (Lake St. neighborhood) where the residents are complaining about BC's possible expansion.......if it wasn't for the archdiocese selling off some it's land years back, that neighborhood wouldn't even exist? How ironic is that and how typical!!
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Right you are!
 
How arrogant of BC! To think, she was there THREE GENERATIONS!! and BC has the audacity to propose a dorm!!!! My heavens what has this world come too?

Brighton fears thud of BC expansion

June 11, 2007

THANK YOU for your coverage of Boston College's expansion into Brighton and its complete disregard for the impact that a 600-bed student residence would have on families residing in the area ("BC expansion called too close for comfort," Page A1, June 7).

Urban neighborhoods have long been threatened by institutional expansion, and the negative consequences are plain to see: increasing violence, diminishing green spaces, deterioration of the urban school system, increasing traffic problems. Allston-Brighton is deeply affected by such problems and is under siege by both Harvard University and BC.

The level of arrogance of these institutions is best illustrated by the BC student's statement to your reporter: "If you choose to live there, you have to expect it's not a perfectly quiet area. You knew that coming in." Many residents of the neighborhood have links to the area that go back more then three generations. It was really quiet back then.

Allston-Brighton is an urban neighborhood: diverse, vibrant, and full of residents who care about their community. It will not become an urban campus.

MARIA GUADALUPE RODRIGUES
Brighton

MY FAMILY has lived in the same house near St. John's Seminary for four generations. This has always been a quiet neighborhood with young families and senior citizens until recently, when we suffered the invasion of so-called well-behaved BC students.

Their revelry is not "harmless" when they wake up and frighten young children with their singing "Sweet Caroline."

It is not "harmless" when they urinate on your front lawn or try to pry open your front window calling out some unrecognizable girl's name.

Now BC wants to build a stadium on these grounds with lights, noisy roaming fans, traffic, and parking issues that will accompany it .

The school wants to build dorms to house 600 undergraduates , all in the heart of a residential neighborhood.

It will be a sad day to have to leave our family home, but the simple fact is Brighton is being squeezed by the large universities and is losing its identity.

A better option, more suited for a residential area, would be to use this property for academic and administrative facilities.

GLORY DALTON
Brighton
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palindrome said:
A better option, more suited for a residential area, would be to use this property for academic and administrative facilities.

GLORY DALTON
Brighton
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But, Glory, you never know when those professors will break into a song.

.
 
General statement: if building a dormitory in close proximity to a university is considered inappropriate or malignant land use, the folks with the loudest voices in opposition need to step outside of their neighborhood and see how others live in Greater Boston...
 
The thing that always makes me laugh about the Newton/Brighton nimbys is that Boston College has been in Chestnut Hill for almost 100 years. Some of these residents act like the area was completely residential until a month ago when a huge university appeared out of nowhere. If they didn't want to deal with students and the university expanding, they shouldn't have chosen to live there.
 
Roving gangs of rowdy students pissing on their lawns.
 
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