Growing pains in Southie
Building boom brings an earful of complaints about noise
By Christine McConville, Globe Staff | October 9, 2006
Morning, noon, and night, on workdays, holidays, and weekends, the whir and grind of buzz saws echo through South Boston.
Some of the noise comes out of the old three-deckers that are being converted into fancy condominiums.
Some comes from housing complexes sprouting up on previously vacant lots.
The rest is from the new towers soaring over the neighborhood, altering the cityscape.
South Boston is having a building boom, but some residents say the construction is choking the neighborhood. And they want to push back by instituting a moratorium on new building projects.
``It's Southie, and we want it to stay Southie," said Luanne O'Connor, as she loaded a week's groceries into her car near West Broadway yesterday. ``It's such a great place to live, but it's getting overdeveloped."
O'Connor is not the only one who feels this way.
``People are fed up," said state Representative Brian P. Wallace, a Democrat. ``I get 20 calls a week for people saying, `Brian, what's going on?' "
Tomorrow, Wallace will meet with residents to discuss the building boom, and ways to stop it. He said many of his constituents want a moratorium.
``We've got 5,531 condominiums coming on line in the next couple of years," said Wallace, who has spent months researching development plans. ``The amount of development going on in the town is astronomical, and people are saying, `Enough is enough.' "
Wallace said he is not ready to push for a moratorium. But he wants to gather ideas from residents and solicit help from city leaders.
O'Connor said that at hockey games, and in the library, people tell her they simply want it all to stop, now, before Southie becomes a victim of its own success.
``We've got the beach and Castle Island, and it's so safe," she said. ``We used to have neighbors who knew each other."
South Boston has long been famously insular. Even in the 1990s, as some of the city's grittier sections became gentrified, South Boston stayed true to its working-class core.
Then the secret got out: Tight-knit, clannish Southie is a great place to live.
With its stretches of beachfront, proximity to downtown, and supply of housing that is still cheap compared with other neighborhoods, South Boston became desirable to people who wanted to live in the city, but not at Back Bay prices.
Condominiums replaced many single-family homes, and new residential buildings popped up on long-vacant lots.
And the neighborhood changed.
Last year, for the first time, half of South Boston's 22,000 registered voters were between ages 26 and 45, Wallace said.
``It used to be the elderly who were the big voting bloc ," he said.
Scott Malone , a 35-year-old business executive who grew up in South Boston, said he is amazed at the development and its impact.
``It's almost comical when you hear the prices they're asking for these condominiums," he said. ``If you grew up here, you know what they used to be."
He is concerned that pending development will flood the neighborhood's housing market to an even greater degree .
``They can't even sell what's out there now," he said.
Outside of the Stop & Shop on Broadway, Mary McQueen, a 43-year-old who has spent her life in South Boston, said that the construction has made her daily commute much longer; she's constantly being detoured.
But what really bothers her is watching the once-modest three-family houses turn into pricey condominiums.
``The elderly, the low-income people -- they are all getting pushed out, because they can't afford $400,000 for a condo," she said.
According to Wallace, more change is on the way.
In August, a developer proposed a 246-unit, townhouse-style project that would cover a sprawling block near Boston's new convention center.
Then, last month, the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved a plan for 585 condos on D Street.
All this activity is maddening to residents, Wallace said.
``The streets are closed, you can't go here, you can't go there," Wallace said.
Wallace said the construction-related noise begins most mornings at 7 o'clock.
Not long ago, an irate constituent called him about a work crew on Silver Street.
``I got there at 8:30 at night, and they were still working," he said.
O'Connor said that people are worried that South Boston will go the way of the North End, once an Italian-American enclave whose ethnic flare has been diminished by well-heeled newcomers.
``We don't want this to become SoBo, or South Boston," she said. ``It's Southie."
Christine McConville can be reached at
cmcconville@globe.com.