Brookline Infill and Small Developments

Smuttynose said:
to my knowledge hasn’t resulted in any actual new development.
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I have no idea what I’m talking about here, other than growing up in Brookline, but I imagine that, given the fact that Brookline has always been a solid place to invest in property, and prices have been generally resistant to overall market downturns, there’s less urgency for owners to sell at any particular time, which is what leads to development. If you’re a shop owner on Harvard, you’re always going to get a good price when you sell regardless of how the market’s doing, so if you’re not ready to sell, you’re not going to sell.
 
The Bartlett, right behind the Brookliner, making vertical progress.
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stick n move said:

New affordable senior housing building opens on Centre Street, with apartments still available​

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“An apartment building which recently opened at 108 Centre Street includes 54 affordable units for seniors, and some of them are still available.

The building, built and operated by the housing nonprofit Hebrew SeniorLife as part of its broader Center Communities of Brookline complex, opened earlier this year. It features 54 one-bedroom apartments designed specifically for seniors aged 62 and older, offering a mix of affordability levels to serve different income brackets.

“This building is 100% affordable,” said James Brown, Executive Director for Center Communities of Brookline…..”

brookline.news

New affordable senior housing building opens on Centre Street, with apartments still available - Brookline.News

An apartment building which recently opened at 108 Centre Street includes 54 affordable units for seniors, and some of them are still available. The building, built and operated by the housing nonprofit Hebrew SeniorLife as part of its broader Center Communities of Brookline complex, opened...
brookline.news brookline.news
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I was thinking about this development and this thing is soo much uglier than it needs to be. With essentially the same massing and a smidge better materials this could have looked a million times better.

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They both use precast brick and black fiber cement panels. Its just that in the top example theyre arranged like a kindergarden art project. If they just arranged them better they could have had a much better product. Randomly splotching windows and boxes across the facade is never going to look good. Put the brick in vertical columns with darker colored slightly recessed floor plates in typical classical design language and youre 90% of the way there. Just because its affordable senior housing doesnt mean it need to look like crap.
 
stick n move said:
I was thinking about this development and this thing is soo much uglier than it needs to be. With essentially the same massing and a smidge better materials this could have looked a million times better.

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They both use precast brick and black fiber cement panels. Its just that in the top example theyre arranged like a kindergarden art project. If they just arranged them better they could have had a much better product. Randomly splotching windows and boxes across the facade is never going to look good. Put the brick in vertical columns with darker colored slightly recessed floor plates in typical classical design language and youre 90% of the way there. Just because its affordable senior housing doesnt mean it need to look like crap.
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I honestly believe that there is intentional design sabotage with affordable housing in the US. There is a strong thread of "poor people don't deserve better" that runs through large segments of our society. "Good design" is reserved for those who can pay for it. Poor people get the remnants.
 
JeffDowntown said:
I honestly believe that there is intentional design sabotage with affordable housing in the US. There is a strong thread of "poor people don't deserve better" that runs through large segments of our society. "Good design" is reserved for those who can pay for it. Poor people get the remnants.
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I hear you, but the cost to build affordable housing is typically higher than the cost to build private market rate buildings.
 
JumboBuc said:
I hear you, but the cost to build affordable housing is typically higher than the cost to build private market rate buildings.
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The numbers are astonishing. From a recent Ezra Klein article:
"[...]costs of producing multifamily housing — both market-rate housing and affordable housing — in California and Texas. Per square foot, it cost 2.3 times as much to build market-rate housing in California as it does in Texas. If what you care about is affordable housing, the gap is even worse: It costs more than four times as much to build a square foot of affordable housing in California as a square foot of market-rate housing in Texas[...]"
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"[...]It also takes, on average, 22 months longer to bring a project to completion in California."
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I'm certain the Boston metro area is comparable to California. I think Klein makes a compelling case for onerous process, particularly community input. I would say in Massachusetts it is, amongst other things, the law granting a presumption of standing to abutters. What's particularly disappointing is the obtuse and small-minded nature of the proposed response from our politicians (e.g. ADU's, etc.).
 
JeffDowntown said:
I honestly believe that there is intentional design sabotage with affordable housing in the US. There is a strong thread of "poor people don't deserve better" that runs through large segments of our society. "Good design" is reserved for those who can pay for it. Poor people get the remnants.
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My dad works at HSL specifically 100 Center st. and apparently the process of getting even that lot developed was insane. He has been talking about this process forever (about 8 years if I remember correctly). they were originally going to develop both 108 and the one on the other side of 112 (which they also own) and they where both going to be mixed-income (same amount if not more as affordable), and the town would not let them (i think because of hight if I remember correctly) so the only way they could convince the town to even build this one was to make it 100% affordable, keep it under 10 stories and promises not to develop the one on the other side of 112. This is a perfect example of why hosing is impossible to build here, What was there before was an ugly abandoned house that had a smoking hut in view of the street, and the NIMBYs would rather that then any amount of development over 4 stories. While I don't think he really cared how it looked, I would imagine that if they could have made it mixed-income they would of had more money to mak it look nicer. So again NIMBYs ruin the ability to have nice looking buildings. I'm usually quite far left, but the criticism of Ezra Klein's Abundance from the left has really disillusioned me, because it's so clear that regulation and process are being weaponized against progress.
 
M.Morgan11 said:
My dad works at HSL specifically 100 Center st. and apparently the process of getting even that lot developed was insane. He has been talking about this process forever (about 8 years if I remember correctly). they were originally going to develop both 108 and the one on the other side of 112 (which they also own) and they where both going to be mixed-income (same amount if not more as affordable), and the town would not let them (i think because of hight if I remember correctly) so the only way they could convince the town to even build this one was to make it 100% affordable, keep it under 10 stories and promises not to develop the one on the other side of 112. This is a perfect example of why hosing is impossible to build here, What was there before was an ugly abandoned house that had a smoking hut in view of the street, and the NIMBYs would rather that then any amount of development over 4 stories. While I don't think he really cared how it looked, I would imagine that if they could have made it mixed-income they would have had more money to mak it look nicer. So again NIMBYs ruin the ability to have nice looking buildings. I'm usually quite far left, but the criticism of Ezra Klein's Abundance from the left has really disillusioned me, because it's so clear that regulation and process are being weaponized against progress.
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Progressivism in this country turned into elites making things difficult for citizens and small businesses while stacking the deck in favor of corporations decades ago.

The problem is the rolling back of social democratic protections in the 70s and 80s, and no amount of regulations or bureaucracy can take the place of a fair tax structure and strongly redistributive policy. Consequently, what goes for the left in this country is always trying to do things backwards and you end up with endless petty rules that in the end do nothing to address fundamental wealth inequality, which is the first and only real problem we face.

All the feel good measures, all the stuff that every liberal considers essential policy, is meaningless without a redistributive tax plan and social safety net coming from the national level. Arguing for anything other than this is a distraction.
 
FK4 said:
Arguing for anything other than this is a distraction.
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I completely disagree. It strikes me that the left has placed too much emphasis on redistribution, and too little emphasis on policies that make it difficulty to address supply constraints. Case in point, in the Klein article I linked to earlier, you'll find the following just a paragraph down:
Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, tweeted that Chicago had “invested $11 billion” to “build 10,000 more units of affordable housing.” That nets out to $1.1 million per unit. If you dig into the process for selecting affordable housing projects, you’ll find there’s a rubric that awards each project up to 100 points for fulfilling different goals. A project gets 10 points for “advanced level” green-building certification; it gets 11 points for “BIPOC development control” or a woman-led development team; it gets seven points for fulfilling certain accessibility requirements; “cost containment” is worth three.
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It's hard to see how a progressive tax policy, or for that matter any other redistributive demand-based solution, can address the various blue-region housing shortages, when a single unit of affordable housing costs $1.1M to build in said areas.
 
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