Honey, we shrank the condos, developers of proposed Roslindale building say, but neighbors still skeptical of plans

Developers of a proposed 137-unit residential building on Walk Hill Street near American Legion Highway told residents last night they've reduced the size of the proposed units - which would make the units a bit more affordable and let them remove a floor from one side of the building.

But residents attending a meeting of the Mount Hope Mount Canterbury Neighborhood Association said that while they appreciate the need for housing and the fact the developers talked of marketing owner-occupied condos, they remain concerned the building is still too large, especially given that it's in an area with virtually no public transit, which means residents would be more likely to drive on the already crowded Walk Hill and Canterbury streets and American Legion Highway.

Longtime neighborhood activist Steve Godfrey said his wife has already told him she wants to move if the building goes up as currently proposed.

Developers Charles Gill and Nabil Boghos say the building would help create a more vibrant residential area, which could lead to the sorts of stores and resturants existing residents say they want - a cafe instead of a Taco Bell, for example.

After an earlier meeting with the association, at which people asked for more affordable housing, Gill and Boghos's architects redrafted plans for the building, to contain one-bedroom apartments of 780 square feet and two-bedroom units with almost 1,100 square feet. The building would have 165 parking spaces, most in an underground garage. And a large, state-mandated green space would separate the building from the brook that runs along American Legion Highway.

Gill, who said he has already paid a crew to clean up the garbage-strewn brook and repaint - twice - graffiti-encrused fences along it, said his market would be Millennials and empty nesters who want to move to or stay in Roslindale. By reducing the size of units a bit, the market-rate prices should come down a little, he and his architects said, adding, that, as required by the city, 15% of the units would be marked down a bit more to make them more affordable to people making up to 80% of the area's median income.

But residents cited traffic as a key concern: Canterbury Street, from which building occupants would exit and enter, is barely a two-lane road as it is. And don't get them started on the intersection of Walk Hill and American Legion, let alone the hordes of drag racers and dirt-bike stunters that roam the area from spring to fall.

Residents said the building is fundamentally different from comparable buildings going up along Washington Street from Forest Hills to Egleston Square because those buildings are near decent public transportation, not like that single bus that only runs up and down American Legion once an hour on weekdays, which means the new residents would be driving a lot more.

And one resident said the traffic effects would be compounded precisely because of the Millennials Gill and Boghos would target. Millennials "are too mobile, too rapid, not to have two cars," he said, adding that they would move out quickly when they have kids, leading to the sort of resident instability the neighborhood doesn't need.

Some actual Millennials attended the meeting and said Roslindale can't just say no to all development without becoming even more overpriced than it already is.

Kristen Halbert, who moved to Roslindale from Cambridge and has put down roots in the neighborhood - she works on both the neighborhood Porchfest and the music program at the Adams Park farmers' market - said she would love to buy a condo in the area. Halbert, who is a graduate student in urban planning at UMass Boston, agreed with residents that 137 units is too many, but said she wouldn't want it to get way smaller if there's to be any hope for folks like her.

She added that Boston Millennials have fewer kids on average than Millennials elsewhere in the US and have more mortgages than Millennials anywhere else, which means they're not just going to be up and moving as soon as they're settled in.

Another association organizer, Lisa Beatman, suggested Gill could satify the neighborhood and still make a profit by putting up roughly a dozen triple deckers instead of a large multi-family building. Gill said he doubted he could make that work.

The developers last week filed a formal "letter of intent" with the BRA. They estimated it would take them another two months to analyze traffic detail, review neighbor concerns and file a more detailed "project notification form" with the BRA. Once that's done, the BRA will appoint a neighborhood advisory group to review plans and give the public 45 days to comment on them.