One Mystic | 1 Mystic Avenue | Charlestown

Bbbbbuttttt what about the Charlestown neighborhood feel?

It's trash. The current state is a pile of trash. Would you like them to match the orange color of the rusted auto yard, or the red asphalt texture of the new bus lane?

This is my favorite slide:
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Highwayguy said:
As a poor soul who has to bike that everyday l wish l could like that comment 100x.
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Prayers to you. I had to stop biking here after almost getting killed a few times pulling out around the MBTA trucks that insist on parking out onto the sidewalk instead of in their giant parking lot. Glad they finally cleared the brush away from the lowered "path" - never knew when rats were going to freak and ambush you.
 
BPDA Scoping Determination (recall that BPDA did not receive this one well):

bpda.app.box.com

2021-11-02_Scoping Determination_One Mystic Avenue.pdf | Powered by Box

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Later in the document they demand a "significant reduction in scale". The neighborhood context for this project is an MBTA bus repair facility, Assembly Square (with its ever-growing crop of approximately equivalent mid-rises), and a bunch of parking lots and light industrial properties that the same developer owns and is looking to develop in a cohesive and dense manner. Why is 200+ acceptable at Hood Park but not here?

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Hood Park is a master plan for a large site. They have space to spare for a park, hence the 2.0 FAR. This is a city block, which inherently does not have space to spare for a giant park. The only way to read this that isn't snarky is that the BPDA thinks the developer can increase the site area, and we know that they actually might be able to. I wonder if this isn't a play to get RISE Together to go for a single PDA permit like Hood Park - they sold the One Mystic site to Fulcrum Global Investors (the recipients of this letter) when they proposed the larger Sullivan Square project, but that will include a lot of adjoining/surrounding lots. It could be that BPDA is angling for open space in that project to justify the height here (or Fulcrum made a really curious investment, since we all knew the BPDA was going to hate on this).

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What emerging context? At other points they note that the scale is incongruous to the existing area, which would be like if One Marina Park Drive had been rejected because its 200' scale was incongruous with the Moakley Courthouse and a bunch of parking lots. Never mind that the emerging context that matters is Assembly Square, where this scale would fit perfectly, not Charlestown, which is only by the barest of technicalities this project's "neighborhood".
 
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They should propose it as-is, force the BPDA to reject it and then run a campaign against the BPDA while courting Wu's base demanding more housing.

Edit: The BPDA is weak and vulnerable right now. They have a new boss that want's to radically alter the agency. Dare them to reject housing and make it a big public fiasco.
 
393b40 said:
They should propose it as-is, force the BPDA to reject it and then run a campaign against the BPDA while courting Wu's base demanding more housing.

Edit: The BPDA is weak and vulnerable right now. They have a new boss that want's to radically alter the agency. Dare them to reject housing and make it a big public fiasco.
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Wu's all about this sort of thing. She wants the neighborhoods to decide what gets built.
 
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Assembly isnt going to ever really connect well to the rest of somerville with the mcgrath highway in the way, but with enough new development it can definitely connect south towards hood business park and then into charlestown. Thats a really good 2nd choice. Hopefully they can bring this to fruition.
 
Equilibria said:
Wu's all about this sort of thing. She wants the neighborhoods to decide what gets built.
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Wu want's a master plan and that can mean a lot of things, but I don't think it matters what Wu wants. Use Wu's constituency which wants cheaper housing to force her in a direction.

Weaponize voters against politicians.
 
The DPIR was just posted, dated November 12, 2021: https://bpda.app.box.com/s/he527e9h0vlozhjwo151f9g93o1pw20g

That's the fastest turnaround I've seen. Developer must really be pushing.

They compromised on the height and density. Height is down 55 feet to 279 feet. Square footage is down 73,000, total loss of 56 residential units. The developer also added another parcel to the project area to decrease the FAR, 3 Sherman Street, and I think proposed to build a bike shed outbuilding on that lot?
 
Wiltonion said:
The DPIR was just posted, dated November 12, 2021: https://bpda.app.box.com/s/he527e9h0vlozhjwo151f9g93o1pw20g

That's the fastest turnaround I've seen. Developer must really be pushing.

They compromised on the height and density. Height is down 55 feet to 279 feet. Square footage is down 73,000, total loss of 56 residential units. The developer also added another parcel to the project area to decrease the FAR, 3 Sherman Street, and I think proposed to build a bike shed outbuilding on that lot?
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Sounds like they knew what was coming and they responded by both reducing height and adding site area, as BPDA requested.

The better question is: why lose 5 floors of housing, just for the sake of losing 5 floors of housing? How is that compatible with a growing, progressive city?
 
Equilibria said:
The better question is: why lose 5 floors of housing, just for the sake of losing 5 floors of housing? How is that compatible with a growing, progressive city?
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It is not, but nobody in power is really interested in growing a progressive city regardless of what they say (and also "progressive" city means so many different things to so many different people).
 
393b40 said:
(and also "progressive" city means so many different things to so many different people).
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Does it? Would most definitions not boil down to “willing to make [sometimes drastic] changes in the name of the common good”?
 
"Progressive" means progress, movement forward. Somehow certain political beliefs associate "progressive" with "liberal" and other negative connotations. It's completely ridiculous, but there certainly are portions of the population that would prefer to NOT advance, move forward, or progress, and would in fact like to have society (or a city) regress and abandon growth, technology, development, along with social changes of equality and equity. In some people's minds the "old days" were the "good days", though those same people are generally not a part of any oppressed group and have very different memories or familial stories. I love and embrace change and progress and am extremely glad to see our population growing and diversifying.
 
gac108 said:
"Progressive" means progress, movement forward. Somehow certain political beliefs associate "progressive" with "liberal" and other negative connotations. It's completely ridiculous, but there certainly are portions of the population that would prefer to NOT advance, move forward, or progress, and would in fact like to have society (or a city) regress and abandon growth, technology, development, along with social changes of equality and equity. In some people's minds the "old days" were the "good days", though those same people are generally not a part of any oppressed group and have very different memories or familial stories. I love and embrace change and progress and am extremely glad to see our population growing and diversifying.
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Usually "conservatives" are "traditionalists" which I think is why "liberal" (an opposite of "conservative") gets tied to "progressive". However, I do agree that it's possible to be "progressive" without necessarily being "liberal".
 
Blackbird said:
Usually "conservatives" are "traditionalists" which I think is why "liberal" (an opposite of "conservative") gets tied to "progressive". However, I do agree that it's possible to be "progressive" without necessarily being "liberal".
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Mods, please move this conversation elsewhere. This is archboston, a community that celebrates change. Im as progressive as John Adams... Not here though.
 
It's certainly a missed opportunity on the unit count, but I like the redesign of the retail space, and the bike shed is an easy tack-on even though it's weird to not be in the building.
 
I really appreciate their response to the BPDA's required alternative analysis, which would be building this project conforming to the existing zoning:

Similarly, creation of as-of-right housing at the Site, as dictated by 2.0 FAR, would result in an underutilization of a prime Transit Oriented Development site (TOD). Under current zoning the Site would yield approximately 128 residential homes, resulting in net loss of 511 badly needed residential homes, including 87 IDP homes. Land to create IDP and workforce housing in Boston is scarce and TOD land is even scarcer. Full utilization of this TOD site is optimal because residential uses create relatively little traffic, and thus the Project as proposed will create vastly greater benefit with very few additional impacts. The result of the underutilization of this TOD site is creation of housing in non-TOD areas, creating more traffic and associated impacts. Underutilization of this TOD site could also result in the creation of housing on “greenfield” sites, which is vehicle dependent and often involves the clear cutting of trees and vegetation, causing adverse impacts due to climate change and loss of regional biodiversity

Developers should be crystal clear when asked: why is your project so tall? do you think the FAR is too high? Can you decrease density? The answer is yes, we could, but this is why we shouldn't.
 
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