The developers who replaced a ramshackle old building on Tremont Street at St. Cyprians Place with a six-story, 16-unit building are now proposing to replace a neighboring ramshackle building with a 24-unit addition.
Because the site is a short walk to the Ruggles T station and Northeastern University, Boston Real Estate Collaborative and Urban Core Development will ask the city to let them bypass the normal requirements that they provide parking spaces.
The new units would be "designed specifically for students walking to and from
campus," they write in a filing with the BPDA.
Also unusual for Boston: Proposed plans for two three-bedroom and two four-bedroom units. Four units in the building will be marketed as affordable.
Construction should take 14 to 18 months once the addition receives city approvals, the developers say.
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Comments
Why do we never hear news
By anon
Wed, 02/01/2017 - 9:09pm
Why do we never hear news about a developer building houses for families?
Not a lot of space left for single-family homes these days
By adamg
Wed, 02/01/2017 - 9:31pm
Where would you put them?
There are occasional new houses that go in in places like Roslindale, Hyde Park, Mattapan and West Roxbury, but we just don't have much room left for subdivisions (and where we do, the developers always get sued).
Single families in Rosi
By anon
Wed, 02/01/2017 - 9:58pm
They built a pair of new single families on Albano a few years back - $750k+ each. I don't that is something we 'need' more of here.
Im fine with expensive houses getting built here and there but it's not a policy thing.
This building would have
By Kinopio
Wed, 02/01/2017 - 11:20pm
This building would have units with 3 and 4 bedrooms. Nothing is stopping families from living in them.
Supply and demand say "no"
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 8:21am
Check out the new exhibit on housing https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/real-estate/...
It isn't just a "tiny space" demonstration - there are graphs and charts about supply and demand.
The conclusion: more than plenty of 3 br units - in fact, there are too many three bedroom units in Boston. No shortage of family housing - more of a shortage of families who want that housing.
It is thus ridiculous to say "what about families" and also ridiculous to say "needs moar parking" when there is no demand for units with the added expense for more bedrooms and more parking in tight urban areas.
Not to mention that there is an awful lot of those resources close in to the city and not all of it is expensive by local wage standards.
Families who want or...
By whyaduck
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 10:46am
that families can afford.
Pray tell, what "resources" are "close in to the city" and "not all of it is expensive by local wage standards." If you are referring to parking availability, parking is expensive for many, whether via commuter rail parking lots or parking in the city proper. We all do not make a six figure salary, Swirls.
You don't know the area
By anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 12:20pm
Plenty of relatively close in housing in Lynn, Revere, Everett, Quincy, Malden.
Just because Bostonbooknewton is your world doesn't mean that more affordable and close-in areas don't exist.
Families don't move to Boston because of the schools. Not because there aren't enough places to live.
They've been a few new triple
By 2
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 9:16am
They've been a few new triple-decker builds in JP, one being on Forbes St (which looks cute on the inside, if a bit small). Unfortunately, they are prohibitively expensive for most families. I'm pretty sure all of the new builds start at 800k+, if not 1mil.
(Psst, Adam, is there a way for me to change my password permanently? The website doesn't allow me to change my password, so when I request a new one, I'm forced to use the invisible code I'm sent until it expires and then go through the process all over again)
Green street
By blues_lead
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 10:55am
There's also one going up on Green Street right now.
How about building apartment buildings
By whyaduck
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 10:39am
where people can afford to live there?
What people can't afford to live there?
By anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 12:22pm
Tell us, again?
If the prices are high, it is because LOTS of people can afford to live there.
Did you take ECON 101?
I did, so I get to ask if you took PSYCH 101
By adamg
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 12:54pm
What we're seeing in Boston is not entirely the dead hand of Adam Smith at work here but speculative greed. Developers are aiming for the jet set based in part on an optimistic assumption that the bubble (if you took ECON 101, you know what a bubble is, right?) will continue endlessly (and of course, if you took HISTORY 101, you might know that bubbles never last forever, that eventually they collapse, often with pretty harmful effects).
Important note in this discussion: This particular building is not, in fact, aimed at the same market as Millennium Tower and so discussing it in that context is kind of off topic. I dunno, would that be RHETORIC 101? URBAN STUDIES 101? Man, you could probably build a interdisciplinary independent study around this thread.
thats it adam
By Scumquistador
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 1:01pm
you've convinced me to drop out entirely
ok maybe not entirely, where did i put that syllabus for BURGERFLIPPIN'101
ECON 101
By Irma la Douce
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 4:36pm
"Invisible hand" not "dead hand".
High prices are not prima
By eherot
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 6:03pm
High prices are not prima facie evidence of a bubble. This is important because assuming the current state of things is the result of a bubble also leads to the assumption that if we do nothing the problem will eventually go away. The very low (<5%) vacancy rate in Boston is a strong indicator that it is high demand (and not speculation) that is leading to high housing prices.
I see little evidence that developers (other than perhaps Millennium Partners) are aiming for the "jet set." Instead what I see is cheap construction with Ikea-grade appliances selling for $600-700k because that is what the market will pay when housing is in such short supply. The only known fix for this problem is to build more housing as quickly as possible. Eliminating off street parking lowers construction costs and allows for much greater density, both of which help housing get built much more quickly.
Because the overwhelming
By anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 6:18pm
Because the overwhelming trend nowadays is people living alone/single for much longer than they used to. I can't find the link now, but I read an article in a Mass new site about this just recently. Landlords are already having trouble finding families to rent out the multi-bedroom units they have (where renting such units to 4-5 unrelated roommates is against local zoning regs in many places).
Foolish
By anon
Wed, 02/01/2017 - 10:03pm
No parking? Are you kidding? Do not let what happened in Southie happen to Roxbury.
It's a block from the T. What
By Kinopio
Wed, 02/01/2017 - 11:24pm
It's a block from the T. What is foolish is forcing everyone to pay tons of money for a parking spot they don't want.
Please tell us...
By Boston_res
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 1:26am
What else do people not want? I mean, since you speak for all people, you must know.
So don't buy a unit
By BostonDog
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 7:45am
Pretty foolish to buy a condo with no parking if they want parking.
Problem is people with cars
By anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 6:23pm
Problem is people with cars will buy the units - expecting to use street parking - thus exacerbating the problem of there being so little parking available on Boston streets.
99.9 percent of new buildings
By eherot
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 10:07pm
99.9 percent of new buildings coming on the market right now DO include off street parking. Why would someone who already owned a car deliberately seek out the one building that didn't?
They might prefer the
By an anon
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 1:56pm
They might prefer the location or price.
I don't claim to know what
By Kinopio
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 9:38am
I don't know what everyone wants. What I do know is that forcing buildings to have parking means you are forcing people who don't drive to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a parking spot(that is what it costs to build a garage spot and that is added on to condo or rent prices) because some lazy, cheap cry baby drivers who complain and want to be able to park in front of their house for free. So not only do they want taxpayers to pay for their street parking, they want it for free and they want others to have to pay more in rent or mortgage. It is the height of entitlement.
You don't seem to realize how
By an anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 9:54am
You don't seem to realize how many people actually do bring their cars even when they don't use them every day. They will just crowd out what little other parking there is.
By including it with the building, people who move there will be paying for it.
If they are paying for it, then that's their decision.
Except
By blues_lead
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 10:49am
That if the city doesn't allow buildings without parking, then there is no decision - you can't get an apartment without parking if such a thing isn't allowed.
People without cars still
By an anon
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 1:57pm
People without cars still have friends visit, and they might decide to get a car later.
Visiting friends (or home
By eherot
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 7:32pm
Visiting friends (or home nurses, or cleaning people, or contractors) are what the on-street parking is for. Incumbent residents do not have a perpetual and exclusive right to use those spaces. People who want to get a car later could move, but honestly it would just make more sense to charge an appropriate price for the on street parking so that we wouldn't have to make these kinds of stupid choices between your "right" to park for free on the street and building enough housing for everyone.
If every new apartment and
By Kinopio
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 12:37pm
If every new apartment and condo building is forced to have parking then I can't make a decision. In that situation car drivers are forcing non car drivers to pay for a parking space. Again, why should a non car driver have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a parking space?
"Forced"
By ElizaLeila
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 1:22pm
It's only forced until the request for a variance or reprieve from the requirement is granted.
The process is a mechanism for finding balance. Zoning calls for a certain amount of off street parking, request for dispensation is made by developers, for some percentage or wholesale lack of parking, a hearing is held and hopefully the people on that board listen to the proposal and vote intelligently.
I think there should be such a balance, personally. You rail against on street parking, you rail against developers being 'forced' to build parking on site, you simply hate cars. Pure and simple. I think there can be a way for both to work. I think in this instance, based upon the target clientele, I can see it built with no parking. (Keep in mind, this is coming from someone who despises the T and prefers to drive.) That's a chance this developer is choosing to make. And then the City should pay attention to the repercussions for parking in the area and adjust rules and regs accordingly (well, throughout the city, this one location shouldn't be the tail wagging the dog).
You keep on being you, kinopio. You take the extreme no car role, others take the extreme all car all the time role. Any good community needs people on each side of the conversation, to help find balance.
But the "balance" here is
By eherot
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 6:09pm
But the "balance" here is between building housing OR building parking (since off-street parking invariably displaces housing units and drives up the cost of the ones that do get built). There are already market forces at work that will motivate some developers to build a certain amount of off-street parking (because units with parking spaces tend to sell for slightly more money). If the market does not indicate a need for parking, forcing developers to build it is (essentially) putting the needs of a few existing on-street parkers (who are currently paying NOTHING for the privilege) ahead of the housing needs of newcomers to the community. I think that's morally repugnant.
Not really
By ElizaLeila
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 10:39am
Parking can go underground if the developer wants to build it and not displace housing.
Again, they can also file for relief from building parking.
But why should the developer have to provide it at all?
By Ron Newman
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 11:01am
Adding underground parking makes a building more expensive. If the developer sees a market for apartments or condos without parking, why not let them build that? Either the market exists and they'll make money, or it doesn't exist and they'll have to drop the price and lose money.
They still need to account
By an anon
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 1:59pm
They still need to account for visitors and other needs. You can't prevent people without cars from moving there.
Well you can actually, by
By eherot
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 7:33pm
Well you can actually, by making parking permit-only and refusing to grant permits to people living at that address. I kind of hate this approach because it inherently favors existing residents over new ones but it is a possibility.
Because
By ElizaLeila
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 2:12pm
Those are the current rules. If you don't like them, work to change them.
I'm merely describing how to work within the current state of the system. I don't have a dog in this fight. I've pointed out I am car friendly but in this instance I can see that it makes sense to not build parking. So request dispensation, like they are doing.
Cost to build underground parking
By blues_lead
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 11:50am
It also shows the above-ground cost at $25,000.
It is >20% more expensive to build underground parking.
-Donald Shoup, "The High Cost of Minimum Parking Requirements" (2014), in Transport and Sustainability, Volume 5, p.90. http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/HighCost.pdf p.4.
I am fully aware
By ElizaLeila
Fri, 02/03/2017 - 2:13pm
of those costs.
Take some responsibility
By anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 6:12am
on your own transportation instead of relying on subsidies from the taxpayers so you can travel the City on less than $6 a day.
Take some responsibility
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 8:25am
For your driving - pay for the rest of it
You are the one being substantially subsidized. You must be new here. If you want to claim that you are due some special perks because you drive, don't go there. Ever.
[img]https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/RoadFu...
That graph isn't really an
By anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 8:52am
That graph isn't really an argument. What's the fraction from federal taxes? Isn't about half the price of gasoline various taxes?
Don't all the same arguments about the benefits to non-users that apply to public transit also apply to roads? Your groceries have to get to you somehow, and I suspect they come by truck, on the roads, at least for the last 20-30 miles. So even if you ride a horse everywhere or whatever, you still benefit from the roads.
The numbers in that graph ARE
By DTP
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 9:05am
The numbers in that graph ARE those various taxes that make up half the price of gasoline.
And no one in this thread has claimed that people who don't drive don't benefit from roads. Yes, we all do. But there's a balance to be struck.
No, Swirls's map shows the
By anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 9:13pm
No, Swirls's map shows the various state and local taxes. Not the Federal ones.
Hypocrisy is a wonderful thing
By anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 6:37pm
So according to the map 55.7% of MA roads are paid for through the gas tax, leaving 44.3% to be paid for through some kind of general taxation.
The MBTA has a lower fare recovery rate than that, somewhere around 45%. That leaves 55% of the MBTA to be paid for through general taxation (the sales tax for the most part, plus a bunch of block grants from the general fund that the Legislature keeps reauthorizing year after year).
So MA drivers are paying for a larger fair share of their roads than transit users are paying for their use of transit.
Transit users - pay for the rest of it.
I don't know how much cyclists pay for all the bike paths and bike lanes being built out (and which will inevitably need to be maintained). Probably 0%, considering bikes have no fuel to tax and their owners pay no registration/excise/parking fees. So whatever portion of those costs aren't being covered by voluntary contributions are being paid for through general taxation.
Cyclists - pay for, well any of it.
So who were you intending to make look bad with your map, again?
We should listen to anon here
By erik g
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 8:39am
Because he clearly flies to and from work each day on his Galt-copter, which he built from plans he designed, out of parts he machined himself, using an air-traffic-control system he pays for out of pocket. Surely he's not talking about DRIVING into Boston, using the socialist nightmare of a transportation network we call "roads." No, this is a man who pulled his own transportation system up by its bootstraps. Otherwise his comment would be tainted with the stench of hypocrisy.
Drivers get billions more in
By Kinopio
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 9:44am
Drivers get billions more in handouts than public transportation gets. Then of course there are the billions in medical bills and property damage caused by reckless drivers. And of course highways and other roads take up exponentially more public space than subway tracks do. You are making up lies about responsible users of public transit while taking money out of their pockets. Pretty pathetic.
You sound like Swrrly
By Scauma
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 10:33am
Again, WE ALL benefit from having paved, working roads. So what if drivers argued their taxes help subsidize your mail deliveries? And so on and so forth.
Well, yes
By erik g
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 10:49am
We also benefit from having a functioning subway system, sidewalks, and any other of a host of transportation network components. Which is probably why some of us are balking at the original poster's complaint about "subsidized" subways.
That's because of FACTS
By anon
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 12:16pm
Unlike you, Swirrly at least posted facts to support what she had to say.
Driving related taxes like
By Kinopio
Thu, 02/02/2017 - 12:43pm
Driving related taxes like the gas tax only cover about half of the cost of roads. I pay for roads I don't use via property tax and other means. So, no, drivers aren't subsidizing my mail deliveries.
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