Board rejects six-unit residential building in East Boston as too dense for street zoned for single-family homes

How many renters is the existing single-family home available to?

what’s cheaper: an apartment or a single family house? which one houses more households: 10 apartment buildings or 10 single family houses?

Starved for housing?

Right next door is going to be 10,000 units over the next 10 years. The Blue Line is already saturated during rush hour traffic and East Boston is in an area where you must take a tunnel or bridge to get to Boston via car. One of the main tunnels to get into Boston is regularly closed. Congestion isn't a good thing..... There are areas with a lot more single family housing such as Hyde Park & West Roxbury, why not push it there? Eastie has enough congestion and is already adding that large chunk of housing at Suffolk Downs, this doesn't include the regular development across the whole neighborhood, specifically the waterfront.

Hi thanks for your comments, even though you didn't leave your name, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but lets get the facts straight. If a family wanted to buy and renovate this property they had the three plus years it sat here abandoned after a fire and on an overgrown lot to do so.

In response to your comment about not being out to improve the community ... I think many would disagree and adding a new building for new families to contribute would make the community a better place for everyone ... at least the majority of my closest abutters I worked with over the last year agreed it would make the community better compared to what was there.

As for Waldemar being solely a single family neighborhood that's simply not accurate because there are multi family buildings on each end and in the middle of of Waldemar including 18 units; 16 units; 38 units; 9 units at 5 Walley so in comparison a six unit is not excessive and would have brought new homeowners to add value and appreciate the neighborhood. Some people enjoy condominium living and doesn't make them any less valuable homeowners than someone in a single family. As a matter of interest the streets behind Waldemar are mostly multi-family.

From my reading of your reply I’m seeing a lot of assumptions in your response. For instance, (1). I have been transparent throughout the entire community process and anything but disingenuous and as I understand it Sean you are a member of the neighborhood committee and during this process I emailed to the committee design changes I made in response to neighbors concerns and asked they be posted on the Facebook committee site to generate discussion and collaboration with residents outside my abutters but got no response from any committee member and nothing was posted; (2). during the ZBA presentation it was covered thoroughly that all the neighbors I worked with wanted Home Ownership at any approved project they would support and they as well as other members of your group on more than one occasion stressed there are hundreds of affordable housing units on the highway side of Waldemar Ave.; (3). The units would have been sold to new homeowners at market rate whatever that might have been; (4). I didn’t suggest my project proposal could solve the housing crisis but every project that is approved helps ease that crisis by affording more housing. (5). it’s not my described housing crisis as you, in substance said, there is a housing crisis in Boston and housing is in demand; (6). I didn’t attempt any work around to zoning through the ZBA, as you point out the ZBA has authority to grant or deny variances and I worked closely with a number of my abutters, made some good friends in the process, and ultimately reached a design many would support and then presented it through the community process to the ZBA at which point mainly residents who live nowhere close to 20, like yourself, opposed because they desire to keep Orient Heights single family homes intact. While I understand that desire I would also suggest this is an area in transition and it is not practical to expect to keep Orient Heights section of Boston a single family zone because it’s so close to the city itself; public transit into the city including two 2 train stations that can have commuters into Boston within 10-15 min; major highways in and out of the city; ferry access to Boston via the T to Maverick; (7). a proponent presenting a project to the ZBA who put so much effort and time into collaborating with his close neighbors who would be most affected by the proposal and had so much support I would argue should have received ZBA approval for those efforts Not denied at the request of other residents who live farther away and historically oppose any proposal outside a single family; (8). At my neighborhood vote prior to ZBA I did receive 38 opposition votes but there were also two other cases on for vote that night and they each received 37 and 38 no votes leading to the inference it’s the same people voting no no matter what the project is because the people who don’t mind change are not logging on to vote because they are not concerned so the no votes are not necessarily representative of the community but rather one group.