I'm have to voice that I see the logic of fattony's devil advocacy. It's a paradox - low-land value, but useful venues should be transit accessible, but being transit accessible makes it too valuable to such type of venues.
Anything near any station is a case for a dense, urban transit oriented community. Until demand is satiated with supply or collapses (and realistically, we can't expect that we'll see demand satiated with supply anytime soon, just relieve a little while we will live with some amount of gentrification), no station will make sense to be anything else but a dense, urban, transit-oriented community.
We need as much housing as possible to relieve demand. But carless access to essentially industrial zones has it's uses, there's a reason why old warehouses tend to house gyms, sport training spaces , martial art spaces, art galleries, and storage are in such areas. Brickbottom shouldn't stay an industrial zone, but the outcome we will get is needing cars to reach such venues (not to say we won't have any in urban areas, but I hope you can see the pattern I'm trying to say here).
----
I also don't like the idea of the cities dictating what one should do with private property. Brickbottom Small Area Plan still has to respect ownership, TOD-philosophy says the area should be something residential (with some commercial), but I don't like the idea of essentially dictating U-Haul (despite though it's a faceless cooperation) sell or go into the residential landlord business. But I'm not sure where to draw the line besides lines like safety.
----
Also the Mercedes-Benz bothers me a lot more. I'm pretty sure storage would be useful for a signification number of people in the community. The car dealerships would not except to the maybe the one person who find themselves working there.
Right, yea, I agree with you.
you can be transit accessible without being right on the doorstep of the station tho.
Also, it's a nice idea that it's going to be carless but in reality it's not, and it completely undermines the potential of a t station.
I mean look, they are putting a huge sign saying 'Drive in storage' right beside the new station.
I'm not advocating getting rid of Uhaul, rather just questioning their expansion plans.
I'm not for compulsory purchase of private land/business but they seem to be making good use of it in Union.
And while I have a problem with helicopter herb and his cars, that's an existing business.
I was equally annoyed about his commercial van expansion.
For me, a lot of this has to do with the way East Somerville (including inner belt and Brickbottom) is treated in general.
The lack of sound barriers on 93.
The state of the kensington underpass.
The fiasco over cobble Hill
The constant trash problems under McGrath and along New Washington st.
The lack of any imagination re. the inner belt.
and on and on.
I've lived in the area for 14 years now and it seems that ward 1 is often the after thought, the carpet that all the dirt gets swept under.
When the GLX project was reined in and re done, it was clear to everyone that East Somerville station would be hardest hit by the new designs.
and sure enough, the station serving the poorest area on the route was butchered the most.
But that's ok, because at least it was still a station and could kick start something new and vibrant that could be beneficial to everyone.
US2 and CX have been in the works for years and now when you take the T to Lechmere and Union, it looks very impressive.
The brickbottom plan gave a glimmer of hope that things might be different this time and that east somerville might get the gate way it deserves.
Instead passengers will be alighting to 6 stories of drive in storage.
I know I'm banging on a bit here but I really think this project dictates the theme of what will come around this station and I don't like it, hell, I don't even understand it.
