Brookline Infill and Small Developments

The Seaport and East Boston have this thing called the airport that they have to deal with. They can't build tall towers.

Anyway the seaport is being built very densely and providing lots of new (mostly expensive) housing and office/retail space. Eastie is a historically dense neighborhood that is getting even denser. You don't need height to have density.
 
oh, i wasn't talking about the lack of skyscrapers in the Seaport. i'm talking about all the assholes who post in the Globe about the Seaport being ruined (at just the current scale), and other Globe bullshit peddling.,

Sure, in a perfect world, a few moderately tall buildings might peak above 260' zoning.... But the Seaport is fine just the same.
 
odurandina said:
A very poor rationale. Don't need it. This part of Brookline is urban, (like Somerville). But you still should not have to use an "equal to" type of justification (such as comparing the neighborhood to Somerville) for Brookline to plan modest increases of density in Boston's urban core.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? The point was that there are already bigger buildings along the same bleeping road, so it's not as if this would be out of scale for Brookline. Even the largest building in the original proposal is still right in line with many of the residential buildings surrounding Coolidge Corner and Washington Square.

I certainly wasn't saying "at least there are still some taller buildings in Brookline." I was saying that there is already a precedent for going larger on Beacon Street! They shouldn't have cut a single floor or a single square foot from the original proposal.
 
i know. i simply wanted to admonish something we all do too often: offering equivalency to justify what will be modest. incremental growth (as you took the initiative to demonstrate). That's precisely what it is: What is required and nothing more... scaled up, but appropriate in Brookline's urban peninsula i never said build a 500' building in Brookline. The original proposal was perfect.... one size-cutting event isn't the end of Boston's metro; but endless size-cutting is having an accumulative effect of which, ultimately, the result will be disastrous.

I respect what Brookline is, and what it should be. Brookline needs to participate in the future greatness and "scaling up" of Boston in some reasonable way. Nothing out of bounds. This doesn't rise to the acceptable level; it's just tossing away land (by design) and sticking it's middle finger up at Boston.
 
DZH22 said:
But hey, I guess some of you would rather raze more Dainty Dots and Times Buildings than build at the appropriate scale in sensible locations the first time around.
Click to expand...

I would have preferred the original scale as well, but this statement is absurd.
 
I'm not surprised at all this was reduced - I'm sure the developer expected it - but it looks like we didn't loose too many residences, which are more important (in my opinion) than the hotel rooms.

I would have preferred the original plan, too, but in all honesty I think this will look better at least.
 
Scroll through historical Street View and you can get the whole evolution. A failed (pre-peak-quinoa) b.Good, Cognac Bistro, then the Indian place that has since taken over the Rubin's space near the Allston line. They were mid-renovation on this place when the development idea came along - there's an unfinished roughly 15x15 wooden shell practically leaning off the side of it in the latest picture.

Devotion School up the street (PDF) is looking every bit like the product of its time that its ugly (now demolished) post-war wings were. The new stuff is all mismatched exterior materials and asymmetrical windows - yay 2010s! But I'm sure it will be a freaking palace inside.
 
Saw the old Remax building at 420 Harvard Ave was knocked down in the last few weeks. I went back in this thread to 2015 and didn't see any info.

Turns out there's a 25 unit, 4.5 floor building going in under Chapter 40B. Looks like it was originally going to be a bit taller at like 6 stories. Everything in the immediate area is 1 story storefronts with single family homes behind.

Project Info | Architectural Plans

zzTGN1I.jpg
 
Not trying be a dick... it’s harvard street though. Ave = Allston.

This is pretty dramatic for the area... just in terms of nothing changing there since I was a kid.
 
^ Agreed that between this and the gas station being redev'd that this is a lot of change for little old Harvard St.

By no means am I advocating keeping the one-story taxpayers, but I will say that Harvard St from, say, Thorndike down to Devotion School is one of the most harmonious stretches of road in all of Boston and I'd hate to see too much change too quickly here. And those trees... those glorious trees really tie that room together.
 
Sorry for the tangent, but I think it's relevant to Harvard Street... can someone explain to me the origin and economics of the concept of 1-story "taxpayers" ? I get that for owners it's advantageous to keep tax liability down, but I never understood why keeping tax liability low should in an investor's eye be more important than maximizing value and return? (It sounds to me like a person, ignorant of how taxes actually work, chortling about how they don't want a raise at work because they don't want to pay more taxes)
 
Shepard said:
Sorry for the tangent, but I think it's relevant to Harvard Street... can someone explain to me the origin and economics of the concept of 1-story "taxpayers" ? I get that for owners it's advantageous to keep tax liability down, but I never understood why keeping tax liability low should in an investor's eye be more important than maximizing value and return? (It sounds to me like a person, ignorant of how taxes actually work, chortling about how they don't want a raise at work because they don't want to pay more taxes)
Click to expand...

My understanding (I could be wrong) is that chopping down buildings happened at a time when it was hard to fill the apartments. They couldn't collect enough rent to cover the tax bill.
 
fattony said:
My understanding (I could be wrong) is that chopping down buildings happened at a time when it was hard to fill the apartments. They couldn't collect enough rent to cover the tax bill.
Click to expand...

Yes, it was a pretty common occurrence in the late 60's & 70's. It was all about the property tax bill. I believe prop 2 1/2 helped to curtail a lot of that practice.
 
But where have the owners been since rental vacancy in Brookline has started hovering around 0% ... was that 15 or maybe 20 years ago? Longer? Surely they're getting inundated with calls from hungry developers. Why so little movement?
 
I wonder if it has to do with Brookline's high off-street parking requirements.
 
Shepard said:
Sorry for the tangent, but I think it's relevant to Harvard Street... can someone explain to me the origin and economics of the concept of 1-story "taxpayers" ? I get that for owners it's advantageous to keep tax liability down, but I never understood why keeping tax liability low should in an investor's eye be more important than maximizing value and return? (It sounds to me like a person, ignorant of how taxes actually work, chortling about how they don't want a raise at work because they don't want to pay more taxes)
Click to expand...

Taxpayers are so named because they were a cheap building constructed by the owner to cover property taxes in newly developed areas, with the expectation that as the property appreciated, larger buildings would go up. Usually done alongside thoroughfares in streetcar suburb or semi-urban developments.

What I am less sure about is why so many of them persist. I am going to guess that the roads along which many of these buildings remain werr probably developed towards the end of Boston’s denser wave of expansion. When you think about places like Brookline, Allston, Centre St in W Roxbury, Mt Auburn in Watertown, etc, those all are areas that were developed pretty late, right before the rise of the automobile.

kz1000ps said:
^ Agreed that between this and the gas station being redev'd that this is a lot of change for little old Harvard St.

By no means am I advocating keeping the one-story taxpayers, but I will say that Harvard St from, say, Thorndike down to Devotion School is one of the most harmonious stretches of road in all of Boston and I'd hate to see too much change too quickly here. And those trees... those glorious trees really tie that room together.
Click to expand...

So true! The loss of Irving’s was sad but expected... it’s apparnetly being turned into condos called “the Irving”. A rather sick irony that an Ellis Islandization of a Jewish name is being turned into WASP cachet.
 
Last edited:
The Town of Brookline has acquired the medical office building at 111 Cypress St. as an expansion of the High School campus. The planned building would deck over the Green Line fronting Cypress St (and essentially cover Brookline Hills station, though no T access is in the design documents.

https://www.brooklinema.gov/DocumentCenter/View/17585/Cypress-Street-111---BHS-2018

Down the street, the Town will replace the Roberts Wing of BHS with a new STEM Wing:

https://www.brooklinema.gov/DocumentCenter/View/17584/Greenough-Street-115---BHS-STEM-Wing-2018

And nearby (next to the Stop and Shop on Harvard St) the coolest preschool building I've ever seen:

https://www.brooklinema.gov/DocumentCenter/View/14559/Harvard-Street-127---BEEP-2018-PDF
 
Last edited:
Equilibria said:
The Town of Brookline has acquired the medical office building at 111 Cypress St. as an expansion of the High School campus. The planned building would deck over the Green Line fronting Cypress St (and essentially cover Brookline Hills station, though no T access is in the design documents.

https://www.brooklinema.gov/DocumentCenter/View/17585/Cypress-Street-111---BHS-2018
Click to expand...

I'm sad to hear that. I know there's been talk for a year or so on using that medical building, and overall I suppose it's a reasonable place for expansion. But, decking over the station will inexorably change the experience of that station... having gone to high school there, the big open areas around the station are big part of the incredibly laissez-faire continuum of the whole high school stretch from greenough on down. It may sound like mawkish nostalgia to those who don't get it, but it'll be a big change. Perhaps a perfectly fine one.. I'm certainly not advocating against it, merely observing. I'm sure if the station winds up being enclosed in some fashion, there will be excuses /"reasons" for the town to ensure it's a "secure" area with cops etc too... more security, society of fear, protect the kids etc etc etc. No, Im not crazy.

Down the street, the Town will replace the Roberts Wing of BHS with a new STEM Wing:

https://www.brooklinema.gov/DocumentCenter/View/17584/Greenough-Street-115---BHS-STEM-Wing-2018

Great. That little parking lot was pointless.

And nearby (next to the Stop and Shop on Harvard St) the coolest preschool building I've ever seen:

https://www.brooklinema.gov/DocumentCenter/View/14559/Harvard-Street-127---BEEP-2018-PDF[/QUOTE]

S&S proper was also considered as one of the sites for the new k-8. Not sure what's going on with the old Baldwin site right now (which ended up being chosen).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top