Hey, there! Log in / Register
Purple development on Indigo Line in Uphams Corner would add residential, light industrial space
By adamg on Fri, 12/11/2015 - 5:51pm
Architect's rendering.
Developers have filed plans for a city-owned vacant lot in Uphams Corner that would include 80 apartments, eight townhouse condos and a building for light-industrial and office use.
The Indigo Block, proposed by a team lead by the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corp., would sit on a 2.75-acre lot at 65 E. Cottage St., next to the Uphams Corner stop on the Indigo, or Fairmount, Line.
The residential program aims to serve the City of Boston's working and middle class families and individuals. The apartments are proposed to include approximately 22 one bedroom, 48 two bedroom, and 10 three bedroom units. Approximately 44 units will be reserved for families making at or less than 60% of the area median income, approximately 10 units will be reserved for families between 61% and 80% of the area median income, and approximately 26 units will be reserved for families between 81% and 110% of the area median income.
The eight townhouses would be sold at market rates.
The project would include 54 spaces set aside for apartment residents, with another 13 shared with the tenants of the industrial/commercial building. The townhouses will have their own parking.
A two-story, 24,000-square-foot industrial/commercial building would be aimed at small companies:
Some categories of potential users include wholesale distributors, small manufacturing, food business, high-tech manufacturing, and general wholesale. ... Second floor office users could include architects' or contractors' offices, small publishers or printing firms, or other light industrial users (i.e., artists and artisans) that do not need first floor spaces with loading dock connections.
Indigo Block project-notification form (31M PDF).
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Please tell me
Please tell me the developer isn't named Killgrave.
But if it is
tenants will really really like living there.
How does this work?
But the other units, reserved for particular income levels... are they sold to the highest offer from someone meeting the income limit?
Or are they otherwise subsidized, and the buyer selected by some kind of lottery/bureaucracy, like some other area properties?
(a) the 80 affordable units
(a) the 80 affordable units aren't for sale; they are apartments that will be rental
(b) you know the answer is the lottery system for affordable housing, just like every other property in this city that is deemed "affordable".
(c) if they were for sale, your idea of looking for the highest bid will likely just lead to either: (i) foreclosure on an over-extended loan or (ii) being won by someone who is hiding income or supplementing it with help from relatives. As crappy as the lottery system is, an auction is an even worse way to do affordable housing.
Site of the original Wonder
Site of the original Wonder Bread factory. You can still see the bricked in ovens in one of the back buildings.
Near Permanent Downmarket Housing Warehouse
Is the rent too damn high? You bet. Want to know why? Affordable Units. That's why.
Many, many, many multi-family units in the city are affordable for years based upon the mortgages given to private CDCs and investors. There is a large development just near the intersection of HP Ave and American Legion Highway that is deemed affordable until 2076. 2076!!! Not public housing mind you, it is private housing leased to lower income people with government paying the difference between ability to pay and market rate. That is a guaranteed income stream to the owners until my yet to be born grandkids will be my age.
A lot of the ownerships are local community development corporations or investors who are more than happy to collect a government check no matter what the market fluctuation is over the course of years. There is no incentive to build a stable, market rate building when you are competing with the guvermint.
These massing of affordable units skew the market for everyone (i.e. Your rent payment is higher while theirs is lower). How about this City owned lot be offered up at market rates to a market rate developer, build a nearly all market rate housing, which is how the neighborhood got developed in the first place and allow investment in the area that isn't skewed with funny money?
Also, the station across the street from here? The MBTA, you know the people who can't get a signal fixed, just finished a year or two ago Upham's Corner station, the second time that they built a station there in the past 25 years. Who cares, right? It was all your tax money anyway building the station and will help build the apartment building.
Wait, are you claiming that
Wait, are you claiming that CDCs are some sort of scam to get rich? Because I don't exactly see a lot of Fat Cat CDC Presidents walking around town. I don't think the head of Dorchester Bay Community Development or Nuestra Comunidad are driving Beemers, just saying. .
Rich?
Where did I say rich? I said steady income from government money. These organizations building low income housing aren't working for free, neither is the union labor, the construction companies, nor the politicians who feed off of the Union and construction donations and the votes gained from getting those who get the subsidized housing placements.
Each of those actors has a drive to keep building more affordable housing with my and your money whether it is the use of "grants" (tax giveaways), tax breaks, or higher rents for the market renters to pay for the subsidized renters.
You are naive not to think that.
Each of those actors has a
I'd be more willing to buy into your theory if we weren't in the middle of an all time historic crisis of housing affordability. If there's such a huge drive, then why is there such a huge shortage of inventory?
LOL. Ad hominem.
You are thinking too short term.
There's a housing shortage in the most desirable areas of the region. If there was a housing shortage on Dudley Street, Blue Hill Avenue, Washington Street in Weymouth, South Common Street in Lynn, etc, there would be private developers flocking to underutilized sites in those areas.
LOL at you.
A) There's NOT a housing
A) There's NOT a housing shortage in those areas? LOL. The City of Lynn would kill for a bunch of CDCs to come in and build affordable units. Read their Consolidated Plan. Read their Annual Action plan.
B) You named four places. Four places do not dictate the overall affordable housing market.
There's just no evidence that what you're saying about CDCs has even a hint of truth to it. We're in a crisis situation with a shortage of low-income and affordable units. It's a fact that you can look up. Read anything by Barry Bluestone, read anything by the Joint Center for Housing Studies, or read anything from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. They'll all tell you the same thing.
nice paranoid theory.
is Trump coming to town?
This development may be next
This development may be next door, but, it's the opposite side of the station from the entrances. Are they planning a way onto the platform from that end?
first thing that came to mind...
Ok...
Interesting comparison between this and the south Boston renderings below--architects finally found some black people to put in the pictures.
But why do the black people have to be dressed up?
And the others in the photo are just wearing regular clothes.
Racist.
Clowns, all of them
The BRA should require drawings to feature people dressed in only clown outfits.
Looks like a building
Looks like a building designed by children and for children which pays homage to Barney the purple dinosaur. Hideous. The architect should lose his license to practice.
Isn't that a rendering of Orchard Gardens School?
Plastic institutional residential.
God knows we need more housing in this city, but why does every new multi-family proposal have to look like junk?