Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District
DZH,
i'm sure you realize he's just reminding the board; the BRA didn't spare the wrecking ball from Downtown and much of the South End. Undoubtedly, a controversy that will probably never end. They took out a lot of slums and failing buildings, but a high number of capable structures as well. But we have a reasonably dense city nearly in proportion to it's might. ok, maybe not. The Dainty Dot was a blow.
Capping height at 149 (or 250') all over the city for non-educational residential and mixed use buildings is going to lead to more problems in the future; not-only can you not replace them with anything but 'extremely tall,' ...soon, nearest to the core, where the economics dictate more 300-400' buildings, the only parcels left will be obvious no-go's.
In the long run, Boston might be better-served if we were to get a mix height and density like what we're seeing (proposed) in the Fenway and Mission Hill and have it creep outward. Remove a few sets of 3 or 4 triple deckers, and replace them with the odd 300-400' tower, then a medium-height 'Serenity' type of thing, and infill. Build groups of parcels right the first time. It's the direction Boston will be forced to go anyway.
Otherwise, you're inching closer to the day when the BRA is once again forced to set about razing entire streets. i hope we don't do that, or get into replacing entire streets with too many parcels capped too low (but we probably will).
However slowly the evolution toward this type planning takes place, i wonder if the day ever comes where someone says, in order to save more historical treasures elsewhere in the City, "instead of developing Dorchester to look like recent developments on the New York Streets, we should just skip to the next level: Vancouver." One could argue we are Vancouver. If it's going taller than a brownstone, if someone says we should build that thing 80-150' taller – they could be right.
