underground
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I'm less concerned about projects that want to build parking building said parking than I am about projects that don't want to build parking being forced to.
Mission Hill Parcel 25 | Tremont St @ Roxbury Crossing
- Thread starter quadratdackel
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Re: Tremont Crossing in Roxbury
I'm kind of dissapointed they'll be using the lot right next to a subway stop for a field. I realize they have a need for a field, just would like to see more dense housing on locations right next to transit.
I'm kind of dissapointed they'll be using the lot right next to a subway stop for a field. I realize they have a need for a field, just would like to see more dense housing on locations right next to transit.
How do you know they're not being forced? Behind the scenes pressure to conform to the zoning or BTD recommendation?
Not to be overly negative, but a few things bother me here: I actually think this development is alright, and like the pedestrian lanes between all the buildings. Other than that, it's fairly disappointing. Sure, there's one relatively tall and bulky building, but given that this really is one the last very large vacant tracts of land left, possibly the last one that's right on a transit line, it would be nice to see something truly visionary rather than the same "mixed material" boring facades and low height fuax moderne triple decker housing that we keep getting here. How about something major, legitimately tall (like Perkins Tower tall) and daring? The whole area along Columbus and Malcolm X might inevitably be doomed regardless to being a barren wasteland forever, but at least a real nexus of activity at Roxbury Crossing could possibly assuage that, simply by proximity.
I also think it's incredibly unfortunate that Wentworth is moving the field. The green looks great where it is now, and perfectly showcases the big red Northeaster building behind it. In contrast to Northeastern's moderately decent residential tower and MassArt's supercool Treehouse, Wentworth, predictably, looks poised to plant a big hulking block of depressingness right on Huntington... I usually see red when people bitch about shadows, but I'm with the director of the MFA when he speaks out about this one. And yes, putting the field back here is a mistake - they could likewise produce something really cool on all these back lots. The city should at least force them to deck over the tracks and expand the SWC park
Lastly, I have to disagree with everyone who always complains about putting in parking in developments along the orange line. The argument that living on the T totally obliterates the need or moral justification for having a car might hold for downtown, but that's about it. The far sides of the orange line remain in the relative hinterlands, and are convenient only to destinations downtown... As for bus access, I wouldn't even consider the 66 at all, it's so terrible. It isn't unreasonable to expect to live in this part of town with this level of moderate urban-ness and still want a vehicle to go to places nearby that aren't accessible, conveniently, by the T, which includes most of Massachusetts. There may be plenty of diehards who love going to great lengths to exclusively use the T, take buses to commuter rails to get to far flung destinations, etc., but plenty of people prefer to have cars and that's also ok. Certainly, for aesthetic and land use purposes it is appropriate to put pressure against surface parking. But not including parking is ignoring the fact that, likely, the majority of people moving in here will bring vehicles one way or another.
Pressure local politicians to fund transit expansions and bike infrastructure, maybe even a daytime congestion charge, but all out war on cars and parking is inappropriate.
I also think it's incredibly unfortunate that Wentworth is moving the field. The green looks great where it is now, and perfectly showcases the big red Northeaster building behind it. In contrast to Northeastern's moderately decent residential tower and MassArt's supercool Treehouse, Wentworth, predictably, looks poised to plant a big hulking block of depressingness right on Huntington... I usually see red when people bitch about shadows, but I'm with the director of the MFA when he speaks out about this one. And yes, putting the field back here is a mistake - they could likewise produce something really cool on all these back lots. The city should at least force them to deck over the tracks and expand the SWC park
Lastly, I have to disagree with everyone who always complains about putting in parking in developments along the orange line. The argument that living on the T totally obliterates the need or moral justification for having a car might hold for downtown, but that's about it. The far sides of the orange line remain in the relative hinterlands, and are convenient only to destinations downtown... As for bus access, I wouldn't even consider the 66 at all, it's so terrible. It isn't unreasonable to expect to live in this part of town with this level of moderate urban-ness and still want a vehicle to go to places nearby that aren't accessible, conveniently, by the T, which includes most of Massachusetts. There may be plenty of diehards who love going to great lengths to exclusively use the T, take buses to commuter rails to get to far flung destinations, etc., but plenty of people prefer to have cars and that's also ok. Certainly, for aesthetic and land use purposes it is appropriate to put pressure against surface parking. But not including parking is ignoring the fact that, likely, the majority of people moving in here will bring vehicles one way or another.
Pressure local politicians to fund transit expansions and bike infrastructure, maybe even a daytime congestion charge, but all out war on cars and parking is inappropriate.
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First of all, more than just the 66 goes through here. Second, the 66 is a top-5 bus, so clearly it is used by many, many people.
Third, why is it always extremes with the car people? Anything less than 200 parking spaces is a "war on cars"? What's wrong with doing 100 instead?
The fact of the matter is: they are planning to dig THREE LEVELS DOWN in order to build a parking garage. That is a MASSIVE amount of work and money, especially for a project of this scale. That kind of excavation will drive up the cost of the project immensely and could easily be detracting from other aspects.
So the question for the developers is: what was sacrificed to dig three levels down, were you forced to do it by parking-crazed bureaucrats, and would you prefer to only dig one or two levels of parking garage?
Third, why is it always extremes with the car people? Anything less than 200 parking spaces is a "war on cars"? What's wrong with doing 100 instead?
The fact of the matter is: they are planning to dig THREE LEVELS DOWN in order to build a parking garage. That is a MASSIVE amount of work and money, especially for a project of this scale. That kind of excavation will drive up the cost of the project immensely and could easily be detracting from other aspects.
So the question for the developers is: what was sacrificed to dig three levels down, were you forced to do it by parking-crazed bureaucrats, and would you prefer to only dig one or two levels of parking garage?
Yes, there are other bus routes that go through here... That lead south and deeper into Roxbury - and those aren't going to be destinations for most people who will likely be moving in here. And the 66 is a very high volume bus, which always late and nearly always jammed up at choke points throughout its route. Ruggles is close but again, most of its routes are outbound, with the CT buses running along routes similar to the 66. And, really, either way none of that changes the fact that I don't think there's anything unreasonable with wanting to live in Mission Hill and having a car, nor do I think there's anything unreasonable about building a development with capacity for many vehicles - just so long as they're underground. People are going to bring their cars either way, and the neighborhood and the city government that protects the neighborhood's interests have a legitimate interest in preventing the overrunning by new cars of local neighborhood streets with cars from a large new development such as this. That in and of itself is not NIMBYism. And one can't simply say to families that have lived here for a generation or two, "this is the city, so deal with it".
To be honest about my own ideology, I would definitely like to see an overall more aggressive push to get cars off the road and encourage alternative forms of public transportation. For my own commuting, I usually either take the T or bike. I would like to see less of a focus on cars in new residential developments as well. But I do not think that is unreasonable for the city or the neighborhoods to exert pressure on new developments to put parking in to prevent new cars spilling over into their neighborhoods. And I really don't think that for many people, living towards the end of the Orange line on a few bus routes that take you further southwest, or crosstown through extraordinarily heavy traffic most of the time, qualifies as being particularly convenient public transportation options... You can get by if you have to or choose to, and can commute to work downtown, but plenty of people are still going to want their cars for the rest of life and that's just fine.
To be honest about my own ideology, I would definitely like to see an overall more aggressive push to get cars off the road and encourage alternative forms of public transportation. For my own commuting, I usually either take the T or bike. I would like to see less of a focus on cars in new residential developments as well. But I do not think that is unreasonable for the city or the neighborhoods to exert pressure on new developments to put parking in to prevent new cars spilling over into their neighborhoods. And I really don't think that for many people, living towards the end of the Orange line on a few bus routes that take you further southwest, or crosstown through extraordinarily heavy traffic most of the time, qualifies as being particularly convenient public transportation options... You can get by if you have to or choose to, and can commute to work downtown, but plenty of people are still going to want their cars for the rest of life and that's just fine.
fattony
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This "how much parking" question is a chicken and egg problem. If we continue to treat the T like a machine for moving people from "the real world of cars" into the downtown Disneyland, then nothing changes and our outer nabes never become more walkable. Now is the time to flip the script and push for a change in the right direction.
*Some* people in *every* neighborhood are going to want to own cars. They should have to pay for it, and pay dearly. There are a lot of people who want a home near the Orange Line and those *people* or more important to the city and the economy than their cars. The notion that everybody everywhere needs a car for things other than commuting is what keeps our streets so congested and so many of our transit accessible neighborhoods always just on the cusp of real car-free livability. It's not about punishing people with cars, its about making the cars compete with people for real-estate. I choose people every time.
P.S. I'm a car owner and I pay through the nose to have an off-street parking spot in Central Square. That is how it should be.
*Some* people in *every* neighborhood are going to want to own cars. They should have to pay for it, and pay dearly. There are a lot of people who want a home near the Orange Line and those *people* or more important to the city and the economy than their cars. The notion that everybody everywhere needs a car for things other than commuting is what keeps our streets so congested and so many of our transit accessible neighborhoods always just on the cusp of real car-free livability. It's not about punishing people with cars, its about making the cars compete with people for real-estate. I choose people every time.
P.S. I'm a car owner and I pay through the nose to have an off-street parking spot in Central Square. That is how it should be.
I agree with that in principle, but only to an extent.. The congestion clogging te city streets in London is precisely what led to the initiation of the congestion charge, and their public transit blows ours out of the water. Adding more cars to the street, if anything, should push more people to give them up and/or demand better alternative transit options, if anything. And building parking certainly isn't detracting from the obvious transportation improvements we need - it might humor a few car-nazis but it's not really going to effect the major chance we need, which is a major public policy shift at the state and government level, all that much. A few other points: most quibblingly, central square has a lot more bodies in the immediate vicinity of the T station then Rox crossing, and a much superior proximity to "destinations" like Harvard sq, Kendall, as well as all of downtown. It's much more "in the thick of it". More importantly, Matthew points out that adding parking will drive the cost of construction up, but what's so bad about that? As fattony says, you pay dearly for parking and the new tenants here will, in the form of higher rents or prices. There will be the same affordable housing as before and the rest will go to rich newcomers with no room for the middle class, just like every other development that happens in this city anyway.
JeffDowntown
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I would suggest, though, that the only way you get new transit oriented neighborhoods is to start somewhere.
Central Square is fortunate -- it has location, has had a T stop for a century and dodged the bullet of the I-695 land clearing.
Roxbury Crossing is not so fortunate -- it is a location in need of creation, but it has OK proximity to colleges and Longwood. It has had a T stop for only 25 years, and is did not dodge the massacre of I-695.
Give the area a push, and a few decades to grow up.
fattony
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See, that is the chicken/egg thing I was talking about. If you never increase the density of Roxbury Crossing because it doesn't have high density already, then it certainly will never have high density. We need a policy shift to get more neighborhoods to critical mass. And you rightly point out that continuity from one walkable area to the next (i.e. really just one big walkable area) is essential. Roxbury Crossing is in the middle of LMA, NEU, Fenway, Dudley, and JP. If we treat it as isolated from those places then it is destined to continue to feel isolated.
In some parts of the city there is no hope for building affordable housing (Downtown, BB, Seaport) but here we have a choice. We can build more units with less parking and charge less for each unit OR we can build fewer units and more parking and charge more. While I agree that all housing units built help to alleviate upward pressure on rents, that doesn't mean we should squander opportunities to keep prices low and certainly we shouldn't squander opportunities to build more units period.
C
cozzyd
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The cost of parking could be fully borne by the car-owners by charging a lot for it. I assume "free" parking won't be included in the rent?
I think this is unreasonable because it privileges car owners at the expense of everyone else. Fewer housing units are produced. A less pedestrian-friendly streetscape comes out of it. The streets become more traffic clogged and less safe. Building those underground parking spaces can cost between $50,000 and $100,000 per space easily. It shouldn't be done lightly. The more effort spent on parking, the less spent on other matters, and that makes life worse for everyone.
Car owners get a perk, everyone else pays. When you say that "preventing spillover parking" is your priority, you are sacrificing other issues -- issues that may, in fact, be more important to the local community than free parking. Roxbury Crossing is surrounded by blocks where car ownership is low: generally between 30% and 50% of households have a car. And it's not just the residents of the new development who pay -- these kinds of regulations affect the entire market for housing in the neighborhood. Everyone pays.
The proper answer to the management of parking in neighborhoods is to adopt Shoup-style reforms: start charging market price for parking, ensure that the costs of parking fall on the primary beneficiaries of parking, and use excess revenue to improve the neighborhood and bring benefit to everyone. Nobody will stop you from buying and using a car, but we will stop you from freeloading on the community.
Until the city adopts these reforms, we have to resist the 1950s-style urge to bloat developments with tons and tons of parking. It really just hurts the city to continue cramming more parking spaces: more traffic congestion, more pollution, worse streets, fewer housing units. And when the city does finally reform, the pressure to build more parking will relent because under proper management, so much is not needed. And developers will analyze the actual market and approach the city with proposals to build the right amount of parking, not what some bureaucrat thinks.
Please read this article to understand the issue in finer detail:
Oh good! I was hoping it was this empty lot. The article I read yesterday just said 'Parcel 25' as if everyone knows where that is. I really hope that this will transform the area. I think the check cashing place closing and the Dunkins opening up at Tremont and Parker helped, but for whatever reason there are still about 2-3 empty storefronts between the station and Parker St. Seems like there's a lot of action going on in this area. Boston Clutch works will start construction next week.
That article seems to be focusing on Portland and doesn't cite where he gets the figures... but he sounds like he knows what he's talking about and his other points (re: regulating out rooming houses, etc - from his book synopsis) seem legit. But again, Mission Hill doesn't have parking quotas, at least officially. And since that's the case, let's say the developer puts 3, 4, 5 floors of underground parking and the units are astronomically expensive - in the end they're only going to be as pricey as the consumer will pay, and I find it hard to see that driving up prices in the neighborhood any more than they already will naturally rise once this incredibly scummy backstreet area gets filled in and cleaned up.
Anyway, at the end of the day a much bigger obstacle to affordability is size, not parking - since this is quite a large site by the area's standards, I wish they built a nice tall and skinny, legitimately tall tower - and kept the rest.
Anyway, at the end of the day a much bigger obstacle to affordability is size, not parking - since this is quite a large site by the area's standards, I wish they built a nice tall and skinny, legitimately tall tower - and kept the rest.
afarnitano
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Re: Parcel 25- Roxbury Crossing
The brick exterior of the Roxbury Crossing Senior Building on Gurney Street is nearing completion. Took a picture this morning but can't figure out how to upload it.
The brick exterior of the Roxbury Crossing Senior Building on Gurney Street is nearing completion. Took a picture this morning but can't figure out how to upload it.
afarnitano
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Re: Parcel 25- Roxbury Crossing
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Re: Parcel 25- Roxbury Crossing
I stumbled across these on Goody Clancy's site accidentally...
"View from T"
"Corner of Gurney & Tremont"
"Parcel 25 Courtyard"
"Parcel 25 is a mixed-use, transit-oriented development that will shape a vital new urban space, and create retail, affordable housing and office space on a long vacant lot at Roxbury Crossing. Developed by Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services, the shape, scale, and uses of the project came out of a community based planning effort with real attention to financial feasibility, led by Goody Clancy, and supported with great enthusiasm by the community and City officials."
http://www.goodyclancy.com/on-the-boards/2289/
I stumbled across these on Goody Clancy's site accidentally...
"View from T"
"Corner of Gurney & Tremont"
"Parcel 25 Courtyard"
"Parcel 25 is a mixed-use, transit-oriented development that will shape a vital new urban space, and create retail, affordable housing and office space on a long vacant lot at Roxbury Crossing. Developed by Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services, the shape, scale, and uses of the project came out of a community based planning effort with real attention to financial feasibility, led by Goody Clancy, and supported with great enthusiasm by the community and City officials."
http://www.goodyclancy.com/on-the-boards/2289/
Re: Parcel 25- Roxbury Crossing
It looks really nice but I thought there was one large building embedded into this? There is a sort of ghosted-out building in the first image, not sure what that is. And despite looking so nice, this is one area that literally has ZERO neighbors and is next to the T. Very unfortunate that they didn't opt to go taller here.
Edit - or is this a different development than what Im thinking of?
It looks really nice but I thought there was one large building embedded into this? There is a sort of ghosted-out building in the first image, not sure what that is. And despite looking so nice, this is one area that literally has ZERO neighbors and is next to the T. Very unfortunate that they didn't opt to go taller here.
Edit - or is this a different development than what Im thinking of?
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