This lot, and many around them, should be checkered with 15 to 20 story buildings. The transit access is excellent, and developers should be given "zoning variances" to create affordable housing in an area that increasing becoming, dare I say it, "gentrified". This could of really become a hub within a hub.
The Residences at Forest Hills | 3694 Washington Street | Jamaica Plain
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This lot, and many around them, should be checkered with 15 to 20 story buildings. The transit access is excellent, and developers should be given "zoning variances" to create affordable housing in an area that increasing becoming, dare I say it, "gentrified". This could of really become a hub within a hub.
odurandina
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i dare must agree. Still, i like this.
Add 1 or 2 more floors for crisssakes. Fix the cladding to something more attractive, and build.
i'd like to see this project done in a spectacularly beautiful, red brick. ....i guess this is my confession, that if you build this type of development in as green an area as this neighborhood is, they should build it with reverence for the traditional Boston Rowhouse.
Why? Why not?
Add 1 or 2 more floors for crisssakes. Fix the cladding to something more attractive, and build.
i'd like to see this project done in a spectacularly beautiful, red brick. ....i guess this is my confession, that if you build this type of development in as green an area as this neighborhood is, they should build it with reverence for the traditional Boston Rowhouse.
Why? Why not?
Two letter answer. VE. I too, like the way this looks, I just think the whole area could of been way more dense. Heck, maybe the increased profits from taller buildings would of allowed developers to build those brick rowhouses.
But perhaps this is just a start. There are many other parcels in this neighborhood that have potential. As in many other up-and-coming places in the city, the early developments were better than what existed, but still lower quality that now, looking back, could of been achieved. Overall, I give this thing a B+.
whighlander
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Odurandia -- pure Red Brick is limited to Beacon Hill and the North End -- it was an era -- but it ended mid 19th C with the Granite of Alexander Paris and then the more stone than brick in the Back Bay and South End
Building a bunch of red bricks a la Acorn St. near Forest Hills would not be close to authentic
BostonObserver
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Odurandia -- pure Red Brick is limited to Beacon Hill and the North End -- it was an era -- but it ended mid 19th C with the Granite of Alexander Paris and then the more stone than brick in the Back Bay and South End
Building a bunch of red bricks a la Acorn St. near Forest Hills would not be close to authentic
Whiggy, those two buildings are not the original facades.
odurandina
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thanks Whigh. :thumbup:
Starting near the end of your post. You assert: “Financial dictates have made the decision for us.” Bullshit. We have made the decisions for us. Some of us (you, for instance) then pretend that it all fell from the sky because The Guiding Hand of The Market Can Only Act in This Way (you know, the way Saint Ronald would have wanted). You assert “we are going to have to depend on solutions led by the private sector” and so on. But you mention the Eisenhower years, for cryin out loud, with not the faintest hint of irony! Effective tax rates on top earners were north of 70% in the 1950s, and they were boom years driven to some real extent by the fact that the US government had flattened much of the international competition for American products (and yes, the governments whose people got flattened had asked for it), and the government was hunting down gay people and harassing civil rights workers as part of the McCarthy witch hunts. That’s the decade you quote as the good old days when the government knew its place? I usually lean very much in the direction of letting private sector carry as much of the load as possible, but you’re being silly here.
As for the particular points you made earlier in your post. Yes, of course I was talking about using tax dollars to assist some businesses, and of course those tax dollars come from other taxpayers. Next you can explain to me that water is wet. But I was proposing such spending precisely because I was talking about using governmental action to try to leverage one act of beneficial private development to spur another beneficial act of private development, and I was recognizing that in the second one I might be causing harm to existing businesses. Perhaps I should describe this not as a subsidy but as a takings relief. Prompting a business relocation in the way I was proposing doesn’t quite fit into the concept of an eminent domain taking, but gets close. And if the idea worked, the boosted tax revenue could hopefully cover the relocation expense. The public good being served is to minimize disruption to community; an admittedly unusual way to define “public good”.
You also suggested zoning relief in certain areas. An idea! Sounds really interesting! I’m potentially all for it! That might be a way to get things done! But how the hell do you square it with the rest of your post, which is all about “can’t let the government do this, must let the private sector lead”? How does government provide zoning relief without having first done the zoning? According to every libertarian I’ve ever met, zoning is pure evil government interference in the private sector and ought never to be allowed. Zoning is done by and for taxpayers’ elected representatives, so you can’t pat yourself on the back for having not gotten the taxpayer involved, if zoning relief is your answer. Having said that, if areas like this got upzoned to spur TOD, I’d be up for that. So maybe we half agree on something.
http://www.universalhub.com/2017/board-approves-250-apartment-project-across-forest
Approved. No one spoke in opposition (which means they should have tried to go taller).
Approved. No one spoke in opposition (which means they should have tried to go taller).
Ugh. I should have gone to this one. I hate this design. Ugly, bland, and way too interior-facing for this area. And yes, should have been much taller.
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The elevator core for this seems to be under construction and getting pretty high, but I've only been able to see it from the busway. You can see it here through the new Forest Hills Upper Busway u/c: https://i.imgur.com/jMTqSuP.jpg
--I would embed the photo but my posts always get deleted when I do that so hopefully this works!
--I would embed the photo but my posts always get deleted when I do that so hopefully this works!
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I'm depressed about this project. I guess it adds needed housing, but it's going to look like utter shit, and I think Forest Hills could have held out and gotten a better project. It's major hub that has a lot of potential, and this is exactly the kind of third-rate garbage that I would have expected somewhere other than here.
HenryAlan
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I don't know, I think it's kind of cool. I like the non-traditional shape to the buildings. The only significant change I wish could happen regards the commercial buildings, fronting Hyde Park Ave. and next to the parking lot. I realize they aren't actually part of the project foot print, but I'd like to see them demolished and replaced with floor one commercial, and four to five stories of residential above.
As long as they keep the commercial spaces, I'm fine with the taxpayers as they are. Usually with these kinds of projects they end up tearing out the small intimate commercial spaces and then replacing them with enormous spaces that nobody could afford and wind up with endless turnover (like in Jackson and Dudley, although the latter has a few issues there).
I would have liked to see the commercial strip extended to the Arborway, tho... although maybe the market wouldnt have supported it.
My main complaint is the design: it looks like a slightly denser version of every suburban, depressing drive-in housing complex. All the interaction between building and tenant will take place in the enclosed parking lots, not on the street. The plantings will be sterile, the streetfaces cold and bland, and you're just gonna see yawning driveways and big parking lots peeking between the buildings. That's my prediction. Hopefully I'm wrong.
goldenretrievers
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mods, as beeline requested, please mark this thread as "under construction"