Forest Hills Village | Jamaica Plain

The city's affordable housing requirement is feeble and foolish. It does absolutely nothing to bring down housing costs--it likely accomplishes the complete opposite. The only way to bring down housing costs is to build more housing--way, way more. The community's simultaneous demands of more affordable housing and lower density are dumbfounding.

As far as the fear that development will increase traffic: who cares. This development will be built over a major public transportation node (bus, subway and commuter rail)! As long as this new development will contain some of the necessities--like a supermarket--then why the hell do you even need a car?

If it were up to me, cars and traffic would not even be a factor in Boston's planning decisions. The city is way over its car capacity as it is and nothing can be changed to remedy this short of leveling it entirely and starting over. Boston was simply not built for cars--at least not this kind of volume. We have to accept this. Planning in this city should be indifferent to cars and focus exclusively on people.
 
So the best solution is a single family home on half an acre, near a subway, but with a two car garage? That costs 100K? Good luck... maybe these people should move to Nebraska.
 
No bids on T parcel, deadline shifts
March 2, 2012
By Rebeca Oliveira

(Courtesy Illustration) Parcel U is the long rectangle at the center of the map.
FOREST HILLS—The MBTA has not received any bids in its third attempt to sell a surplus parcel south of the Forest Hills T Station on Hyde Park Avenue. The bidding deadline was extended to this week.

The parcel was offered at a reduced price, MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo previously told the Gazette. Bidding documentation states the minimum price for purchase as $1.1 million. Its 2007 asking price was $1.65 million.

Bids were originally due Feb. 15, but the deadline was extended to Feb. 29, after the Gazette’s press time, due to a lack of bids.


Parcel U, encompassing almost 123,000 square feet, is one of a handful of parcels that the T has been trying to sell, with limited success, since 2007.

The Forest Hills Improvement Initiative (FHII) Use and Design Guidelines, completed in 2008, dictate that Parcel U should house locally-supportive businesses such as hardware stores, bookstores or dry cleaners.

It also states that 4,000 square feet should be set aside for community use in housing something like a day care facility. It further asks for 150 housing units, half of which should be affordable; 130 residential parking spaces; and for 30,000 square feet, or 24 percent of the parcel’s area, to be left as open space.

Parcel U is bounded by Hyde Park Avenue on the west and Ukraine Way on the north. It extends just south of Walk Hill Street. It is also on a steep incline down to the commuter rail tracks on its eastern boundary.

Parcels V and W, subject to the same FHII guidelines, were sold in 2009 and are developed by local developer WCI Corp. A new Harvest Co-op Market and a bank are slated to open there in September.

The MBTA is required by law to sell to the highest qualified bidder. Adherence to the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s (BRA’s) Use and Design Guidelines, which were developed with input from the community and will be sent out with the parcel documentation, will determine if a bidder is qualified.
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http://jamaicaplaingazette.com/2012/03/02/no-bids-on-t-parcel-deadline-shifts/
 
The Forest Hills Improvement Initiative (FHII) Use and Design Guidelines, completed in 2008, dictate that Parcel U should house locally-supportive businesses such as hardware stores, bookstores or dry cleaners.

It also states that 4,000 square feet should be set aside for community use in housing something like a day care facility. It further asks for 150 housing units, half of which should be affordable; 130 residential parking spaces; and for 30,000 square feet, or 24 percent of the parcel’s area, to be left as open space.
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Well,with restrictions like that, I'm SHOCKED no one bid.
 
The open space requirement is particularly annoying for this location. It's not like there are any decent parks nearby.
 
The city's affordable housing requirement is feeble and foolish. It does absolutely nothing to bring down housing costs--it likely accomplishes the complete opposite. The only way to bring down housing costs is to build more housing--way, way more. The community's simultaneous demands of more affordable housing and lower density are dumbfounding.

It's not "the community" making demands. It is the few interested parties which stand to make a lot of money off the construction of subsidized housing while rewarding their foot soldiers. A 'community' or 'affordable' developer gets to make a profit on a development with no financial risk to them, as that risk is picked up by taxpayers, and the people which agitated on behalf of that subsidized developer get paid off with cheap rent in new construction. Happens all the time and is a big part of of the reason why I hate CDCs. They always claim the mantle of 'the community' and helping people when in reality its a shakedown of everyone else to reward themselves and their supporters.

The BRA's 'affordable' housing funds virtually never get used in the neighborhoods in which they are collected. They go into a general slush fund for 'affordable' housing which never has been very well accounted for. Go ahead and try searching for the information. You won't find it. The city can't give an accurate accounting of where all the money has gone, how many units have been built with the funds, and what the average cost has been per unit 'affordable' housing. The whole thing is nothing but legalized extortion to pay off political allies and constituencies. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of units of 'affordable' housing which somehow hasn't been spent or built in the past decade without the local press insomuch as batting an eyelash.
 
Boston.com said:
By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

A developer plans to buy MBTA-owned property in the Forest Hills section of Jamaica Plain to build an estimated $40 million mixed-use project.
The development would be about 130,000 square feet consisting of about 120 housing units, 10,000 square feet of retail space, and about 120 parking spaces, according to Kamran Zahedi, president of Urbanica, the development company.

The Boston-based firm submitted a $1,050,000 bid to buy the 2.8-acre site along Hyde Park Avenue called “Parcel U,” which the MBTA has been trying to sell for the past several years, according to T spokesman Joe Pesaturo.
Zahedi said by phone Friday he is hopeful construction would begin in the summer of 2014. He said the project would take about three years to complete and would likely be built in phases.

He said his company plans to start design on the project within the next month and begin the process to seek city approval within the next six months.

The T’s developer designation conditions allow Urbanica up to 18 months to secure city permits and zoning approval.

Zahedi said his company plans to market the housing to people from a mix of income levels. The project will include some units designated as affordable housing, he said.

He estimated about 64 of the units would be marketed as for-sale and would be situated across a series of townhouse buildings. The other 56 units would likely be housed in one building and rented.

But, he said the breakdown of how the units will be sold and at what price is likely to depend on potential changes dictated by the housing market and the city approval process.

The project will be designed to reach high standards for energy-efficiency, Zahedi said.

Urbanica’s plans for Parcel U were first reported on by the Jamaica Plain Gazette.

A community planning initiative completed in fall 2008 suggested Parcel U should contain 120 housing units, 5,000 square feet of retail, 30,000 square feet of open space, 4,000 square community space and about 120 residential parking spots along with bicycle parking.

Parcel U, located near where JP and Roslindale meet, was first put up for sale by the MBTA in a public bid process in fall 2008. The public transit agency then asked for a minimum bid of $1.6 million.

The MBTA reoffered the property in several rounds of bidding with lower minimum prices. But no bids were received until the latest round in which Urbanica was chosen as the developer.

Two other sites, “Parcel V” and “Parcel W” were bought in a package deal from the MBTA and are under development.

The MBTA has tried to lease a fourth site in that area, a 3.16-acre parking lot called “Parcel S.” But no bids were received in an initial round and the agency has no current plans to reoffer the parcel, Pesaturo said this week.
E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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What's with the seemingly arbitrary gaps between every few buildings?
 
Maybe to charge a little extra for some of the houses, because they will also have side windows and not just front and back?
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
A parking spot for every housing unit? TOD-FAIL.
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Just because there's a train station doesn't mean that the person shouldn't be given the right to own a car and just because a person owns a car, doesn't mean that person won't use Mass Transit. They are not exclusive. Plus, you can charge more per person without having to clog up the street with parked cars.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
A parking spot for every housing unit? TOD-FAIL.
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Doesn't what is basically suburban TOD require parking? Let's be honest and admit that there really is very little at Forest Hills right now and that Roslindale Village and South JP are just far enough away that people aren't going to walk all the time (1+ miles each). Also people are going to have to drive to get to a real grocer unless they take the orange line up to Jackson sq. to shop at the Stop & Shop up there
 
And enterprising residents that don't drive a car could always lease out their parking spot to some commuter. ;)
 
One thing that most certainly isn't good are 30 individual driveways backing up to Hyde Park Ave. It would be much better to have communal parking in the back.
Benefits: minimizing curb cuts onto Hyde Park Ave and financial encouragement to use public transportation, walk or bike. Monies from the Condo association/developer could be used for snow removal for both the driveway parking area as well as sidewalks.
 
It looks to me like there is one shared driveway in the middle, that leads to underground parking for all of these townhouses.
 
Ron Newman said:
It looks to me like there is one shared driveway in the middle, that leads to underground parking for all of these townhouses.
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Agreed. People are looking at the pedestrian walk to the front door and thinking it's a driveway. That's what I saw at first, too, but you are absolutely right. There are only two dirveways in that drawing, one that is between the commercial building and the town houses, and the other that bisects the townhouse blocks.

I like the way this looks, it will be very good for the Hyde Park side. Hopefully, we'll start to see some domino effect, with one project stimulating value in the next one. Even at full build, the map at the end of the linked article doesn't have enough to make Forest Hills become a full fledged urban experience, but at least it won't have as many stretches of empty no man's land.
 
Oops, time to get my eyes checked!
As far as grocers go, Harvest Naturals just opened about 1/4 mile away across the tracks on Washington St.
Once the Casey Overpass comes down and the surface roads are finished in 2016, this area should be posed to take off. If only the MBTA would greenlight the Arborway Yard project.
 
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