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Students would be barred from proposed new apartment complex on Mission Hill
By adamg on Tue, 02/16/2016 - 4:58pm
A developer wants to tear an old wooden house at Tremont and Sewall streets and include the facades of six neighboring row houses as the fronts for a new apartment complex that would include 33 apartments, including some rare four-bedroom units.
Developer Jason Savage, who has been building on Mission Hill for 16 years, says the project would include:
Prohibiting rental leasing to undergraduates in order to address community concerns about impacts from undergraduate students residing in Mission Hill.
Savage writes the new project will rise to five stories away from Tremont Street, but will have just 14 more bedrooms than the buildings it will replace or subsume, along with ten off-street parking spaces and space for storing 33 bicycles, he writes.
The Project acknowledges the importance of the corner condition of the Site, appropriately scaled to relate to existing buildings on the street, and creates an architectural element that marks the corner with a new retail space and highlights the introduction of new construction coexisting with the urban fabric of the larger block. The design enhances the distinct character of the existing row houses along Tremont and Sewall Streets, with new construction stepping back from these structures to minimize the visibility of the main portion of the new building.
The Project's 4-story corner volume will be clad in masonry to relate to the existing buildings. It will feature a glassy retail space at the first floor anchoring the corner and relating to the new retail spaces at neighboring 1478 and 1482 Tremont Street, and at 1467 Tremont Street. The 5-story setback volume will be clad with a lighter, rain screen panel system, similar to the adjacent 1478-1484 Tremont development.
Small-project review application (92M PDF).
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Comments
Equal protection under law:
How is discriminating against students legal?
They're not a protected class
Prohibiting people based on their gender or sexual preference, race, ethnicity or age, that's against the law. But the law says nothing about students.
Does that mean it is
Does that mean it is perfectly legal to discriminate against someone based on non-protected class classifications?
non-protected classes
Weird / Interesting! It does seem like one can discriminate based on employment type, membership in an organization, political affiliation, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
Not an attorney but...
The law says one cannot discriminate regarding the source of one's income. Someone doesn't have to divulge their profession or source of money (and if that's targeted, the it would be illegal). If one discriminates based on age, well, age is a protected class. Either way, it seems very fishy and I think they're lying to people. Students are people, too, and NIMBYism is not a good enough reason to bar a class of people from establishing tenancy.
Age is a protected class
only for employment for those 40 and over (with some exceptions). Age is not a protected class in federal housing law.
I know
several undergraduates who scammed their way into an apartment by saying, "I am an employee of XYZ Organization" (their part-time job) and not disclosing that they were a student at all.
That said, these undergraduates were the more mature type who preferred to live in grown up apartments because they wanted to study and not listen to other people partying, so no one noticed.
Scammed
Saying what you need to say to get a decent roof over your head should not be called a scam. And if it is, then I am all for scams.
Fahk the students! ...finally
Fahk the students! ...finally there is someone out there that actually is thinking about the general community. Shit, ban yuppies to and just make it entirely affordable- housing units
Because enough people agree
Because enough people agree with it. (You think there's actual equality under the law?)
Prohibiting rental leasing to
Is that even legal?
I had the same question. What
I had the same question. What, if anything, establishes the legality of that?
And if so, is a non-undergraduate 20 year old allowed to rent there (assuming they can afford the rent)? And what about the 50 year old who decides to go back to school and becomes a full time undergraduate?
And what about...
When a family is living in one of the units and little Johnny graduates from Boston Latin and enrolls in UMass Boston? Does he have to move out of his parents home?
Presumably,
Little Johnny would not be the name on the lease in this scenario.
The lease is the defining doc?
If it just comes down to the name on the lease, then just one of the college roommates needs a parent willing to put the unit in his or her name, and voila!
Surely it prohibits college kids from living in the units, not merely from being on the lease...
Right?
Leases often say only people
Leases often say only people on the lease are allowed to live there, plus their spouse and children.
I doubt they gave it that much thought
But your point shows why it's unworkable and a bad idea.
Its sort of like the same
Its sort of like the same guidelines landlords are using stating no more that 5 undergraduates can legally inhabit a rental unit. This is just going a step further.
I have mixed feelings...
On the one hand, it seems shady, if not downright discriminatory to bar students from living somewhere. On the other hand, as a former resident of Parker Hill Ave, students are a cancer on this otherwise charming neighborhood.
Obnoxious, immature students
Fixed that for you.
According to the writers of
According to the writers of such law, the answer would be "yes". No black undergrads, no white undergrads, no latino undergrads, yadda yadd yadda...allowed.
Enough with the students
I hope so...
speaking as a former resident,
Wouldn't it be easier to just prohibit non-students from living on the Hill?
he probably charges rents way
he probably charges rents way too high for the average native Mission Hill person, just yuppies will be able to afford his outlandish rents, I fear.
Should the developer charge
Should the developer charge below-market rent? That's basically expecting the developer to make a donation to the tenant.
You all seem aghast at this
Yes, you don't have to rent to undergraduates. This is status quo in Boston. Don't hold the landlord responsible; often, he/she has to promise this in order to get approval from nearby residents.
Basic issue of fairness
The reason why people like myself are surprised is because it's not fair that students should be treated this way. Sure, they should ideally live on-campus, but eventually, it becomes cumbersome or too expensive. The rents are really expensive near universities for everyone, and if that were different, the students would owe less (or more middle and working class students could afford higher ed), and other people would be adversely affected by the influx of students.
Owner occupied residences, yes
Non-owner occupied have to be fair in who they rent to.
Extremely not true. Both
Extremely not true. Both cannot discriminate against protected classes, which being a student is not. Owner occupied has a bit more leverage in things like children, but even then lead laws trump that.
And just why do other
residents have the right to approve or reject this project?
And if we decide to give them that right, then why isn't the burden of proof on them when it comes to outlandish claims like "OMG - students will be the rumination of us all."
Does not compute
Who, exactly, is he envisioning renting the 4-bedroom units if not young people who have no long-term connection to the neighborhood? Maybe they're not undergraduates (although I'd love to hear how he plans to have potential tenants prove this and how he plans to enforce it), but the end result is more or less the same.
Just a thought but possibly
Just a thought but possibly *families*? You know, those things that have been almost priced completely out of the city because two parents with kids can't compete price wise with four undergrads who are each paying their own way?
Jason Savage has been trying
Jason Savage has been trying this for years. He his infamous for creating higher end apartments in Mission Hill in hopes of selling them as condos/renting them to families. However, because of the student population no families will move to or pay the high rental rates in Mission Hill. This property will be leased to students within 2 years of being built.
I rented a property on Parker Hill Ave as a student of Northeastern from Savage my Junior year. He wanted to sell the units as condos and got no offers. Ended up selling to another property management firm who rented to students and students only.
He has been building for 16
He has been building for 16 years and NOW he noticed the student problem? His "promise" cannot be enforced. Who is reviewing the applications and giving the ok? Who is or can inspect the property to see who is living there? How is he marketing the property; come move your family to a crime ridden neighborhood with 24 hour student parties?
Sorry I wasn't more specific
But the filing says the no-student clause was at the request of the community, so it's not like he just decided one day he hates students.
Sorry I wasn't more specific
But the filing says the no-student clause was at the request of the community, so it's not like he just decided one day he hates students.
Actually as someone in the
Actually as someone in the industry Jason Savage owner of Savage properties already prohibits undergrads from some of his properties. He allows undergrads in some units and unlike many area land lords actually follows the law of no less than four undergrads per apartment.
No more than 4 undergrads *
No more than 4 undergrads *
No more than 4 unrelated
No more than 4 unrelated people **
Yep, unrelated
I lived in one of Savage Properties rentals in Mission Hill for a year. We had 5 girls splitting a 4 bed, all in undergrad programs. 2 of the girls were sisters so we managed to scoot around the 4 unrelated persons rule.
What The Actual Fuck...
"The design enhances the distinct character of the existing row houses along Tremont and Sewall Streets..."
Where's his architect and where's my sledgehammer? Someone's drafting table is in real need of a good smashing. The corner lot building I can somewhat tolerate; but why must he just start grafting things onto those late 1850s rowhouses? A free-standing rear lot building would be MUCH better. And if space is tight in that block: perhaps develop part of the project on the parcel at Tremont and Faxon?
I suspect the Landmarks Commission is going to be just as pissed off by this as I am.
We have already lost the Burkhardt Brewery warehouse and now this fuckery.
Integrating existing architecture?
I love it. Building onto the back of buildings that already exist and already match the neighborhood is so much more preferable than knocking it down and throwing up those garbagey panel-clad whitebread buildings that are springing up all over the city. It keeps the scale at street level appropriate. Shame they couldn't incorporate the little green building at the corner, too, since it's a decent looking little triple decker, but anything is better than wholescale razing and replacement with trash.
Just wow
All these years running this site and I had no ideas that students were so beloved by Bostonians.
Just out of idle curiosity, how many of you people getting all angry about the no-student thing actually live on Mission Hill, or Allston or the Fenway?
I think it's less that
I think it's less that students are beloved by Bostonians, and more that many Bostonians, especially of the demographics who would typically frequent a site like this, ARE current students or recent graduates, who chose to stay in Boston, and thus don't have as strong a hatred of students as older generations of Bostonians.
I came here for school, and stuck around because while here for school I built relationships with people and developed a deep love/hate relationship with this city. It became home.
For what it's worth I live in Roxbury, but can see Mission Hill out my window. And I'm on this side of the SW Corridor because Mission Hill rents are a bit higher than I'd like.
It's unethical if not illegal
I don't like who you are, therefore I won't rent to you. I can't believe anyone could get away with that.
Anyway, when I was a student, I was a great tenant and a great neighbor. Much more that I can say about a lot of the townie garbage.