Copley Place Expansion and Tower | Back Bay

[mpm617]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

It may sound dirty but you've hit the nail on the head. Why do people who can afford the home of their dreams have to share it with people who know how to work the system? Menino needs a reality check. Off-site affordable housing is the ONLY way to make it fair for everyone.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

If this project was mixed-income from inception then the guy would have a point, but it's not and he doesn't.

 

[type001]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

I agreed with all the comments. This is a luxury condo building. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

 

[JSic]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Why does every tower have to have some units set aside as "affordable"? There's high end, there's low end and and there's everything in between. This tower is clearly meant to be high end. I don't get it.

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Mixing people of differing incomes is good. I don't see what's wrong with having the usual quota in this development.

 

[choo]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

I think the city's effort to maintain affordable housing in the city is good and important on a macro level. But micro managing these things into every project can curtail development. If luxury housing was affordable, it wouldn't be luxury.
The contribution to the affordable housing fund (or whatever it is called) is the way this project should and will go, IMHO.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Mixing people of differing incomes is good. I don't see what's wrong with having the usual quota in this development.

How are the affordable people going to afford the condo fees in a luxury apartment building?
____________________________________________________________
Harry Mattison, in his Allston Brighton blog, wrote a recent note about what several cities are experiencing with families who have low income housing vouchers moving into areas where there was little or no low income housing previously. His links are:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/us/09housing.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/memphis-crime/2

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1099213.html

 

[Beton Brut]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Mixing people of differing incomes is good.

This is very true at the neighborhood level. In a building, not so much. The lower-income component of a project like this will likely not be as attractive as something purpose-built at a nearby location. Think about it: is it better to grudging cram low-income home-owners into spaces around elevator shafts and mechanical spaces, or into purpose-built, or adaptively reused buildings in the neighborhood?

Also consider: the lower-income residents aren't going to have access to the pool and gym and other building amenities. Won't this be divisive? It's not as if everyone's kids are going to be playing in the pool together.

This isn't a "separate but equal" argument -- it's more to each its own purpose. We don't build for the rich the same way that we build for the upwardly mobile, or the working class. I agree that as a society, we need to do more to create a better pathway to home-ownership, via financial literacy programs and low interest loans to qualified home-buyers. The on-site requirement for low-income units does nothing to achieve those goals.

 

[chumbolly]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Mixing people of differing incomes is good. I don't see what's wrong with having the usual quota in this development.

Ron, I think that maintaining economic diversity is critical to a city's urban fabric. And creating affordable housing is a key element of that. But putting affordable housing in this building is like handing out vouchers to Au'jourd hui instead of food stamps. The goal should be to use affordable housing dollars to efficiently create as many safe, dignified units as possible. Housing the urban poor in a luxury building makes a farce of that.

Also, it would piss off people like me--who do not qualify for affordable housing but could never afford to live in this proposed tower (woe is me in my Somerville two-fam)--to see people get a subsidy to live in a building with a concierge and all the bells and whistles. And by "people like me," I mean me. Or would the poor people get a stripped down version of what the rich people paid for? No marble foyers? How about granite countertops? Would they be prevented from using the buildings luxury amenities? Would they have a separate door from the street? Please don't answer these questions earnestly; they're rhetorical.

 

[Patriots_1228]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

wait a minute....so a few poor people get to live in a shiny glass tower with spas and pools and what not? isn't the point of money the more that you have the better stuff you get?

 

[tmac9wr]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Yea, do we live in Russia or something?

I agree with pretty much all the comments being made here. It's absolutely foolish to force developers into building affordable housing units into a project that is clearly for the luxury market.

To quote the tv show Arrested Development:

Stan Sitwell: "The only thing I ask is out of the 450 homes we build, one be given to a disadvantaged family from the inner city."
Gob Bluth: "That's great, so the other 449 families live in fear? I mean come on, where's your decency?"

I still think it's a bad idea to force affordable units into a development like this.

 

[joebos]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

The people who benefit from affordable housing are not always poor. It assists people at number of income levels who still can't afford to live in the city. The one friend I have who has taken advantage of these types of programs is an architect.

Based on some of the comments here you would think they're pulling bums off of the street and giving them a luxury condo.

 

[chumbolly]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

The people who benefit from affordable housing are not always poor. It assists people at number of income levels who still can't afford to live in the city. The one friend I have who has taken advantage of these types of programs is an architect.

Based on peoples comments here you would think they're pulling bums off of the street and giving them a luxury condo.

Quite true--I was surprised to see how high the income limits are for the affordable housing I've seen come on the market in Boston. The point remains, however, that social spending should be going to meet needs, not providing luxuries. Just because we choose to tax the developers of luxury buildings to pay for affordable housing does not mean we should provide those in need of affordable housing with luxury.

 

[joebos]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

The point remains, however, that social spending should be going to meet needs, not providing luxuries. Just because we choose to tax the developers of luxury buildings to pay for affordable housing does not mean we should provide those in need of affordable housing with luxury.

I don't disagree with you. I would say having some diversity within a community is a need. Also, we don't know how the developer is handling this yet so the comment that we're providing "those in need of affordable housing with luxury" seems a little premature.

 

[Ginjitsuman]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

I don't care who lives in it, just build the damn thing!

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Also consider: the lower-income residents aren't going to have access to the pool and gym and other building amenities. Won't this be divisive? It's not as if everyone's kids are going to be playing in the pool together.

Usually when affordable units are included in such a development, there is no difference between the amenities available to the 'affordable' units and everyone else's. If the 'affordable' residents want to tell the neighbors what their income level is, that's the only way anyone would find out who they are.

 

[JimboJones]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

You say that the "lower-income residents aren't going to have access to ... building amenities?"

Where do you get this information? I have never heard of such a thing. If you live in a building, you get to use everything everyone else does.

The property taxes on a unit such as this are lower because the "value" is less, since there are often restrictions on the resale.

For the same reason, condo fees will be less than comparable units, as far as I know (and have always assumed).

 

[pelhamhall]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Tent City itself was an exercise in communism.

This socialist (at best) tenured MIT professor is just stirring up trouble. He should ride his recumbent bike back to Cambridge to bark at the moon with the rest of the psychos who still believe in the tooth fairy or that Al Gore won in 2000.

Why did the Herald give this man an audience? This is South End News style animosity.

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

what's wrong with Tent City? I've never heard anyone call it anything other than a successful development. It is certainly better architecture than Copley Place across the way.

 

[Beton Brut]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

You say that the "lower-income residents aren't going to have access to ... building amenities?"

Where do you get this information? I have never heard of such a thing.

Educated guess on my part. Am I wrong to assume that the apartments will be adjacent to mechanical spaces?