Conversion of run-down East Boston triple decker into quadruple decker approved

So are many homes in densely populated Boston. My own home is that far apart from its neighbors. Some homes are one story, some are four. I don't see how one more floor on a building ruins the neighborhood and sets a dangerous precedent.

Wait until you see how close the two homes next to mine are, not too far from there. Take the gap between those buildings and completely remove it.

There's also something not right about advocating that he build a basement unit in a building that clearly would have zero basement light or windows because it would not pass Boston housing code.

"The room must get natural light from a window that's equal to at least 8 percent of the floor space. A unit also needs a window that can be opened to at least 4 percent of the floor space."

https://www.boston.gov/departments/inspectional-services/meeting-housing...

_{but i'm angry}

Thanks for the long, thoughtful response (that's not sarcasm). In fact I was being partially sarcastic in the post. I do think the BRA needs to redraft the zoning code (in this case Article 53) as there are very few projects that aren't going before the ZBA - and they're getting most all of their variances granted - regardless of residents' expressed concerns - including abutters and the n'hood civic associations. What is happening is that residents are getting very cynical with the entire process and disengaged. It's a pain in the ass to attend a community meeting every other night and then have your opinion and concerns ignored anyways. Not a good dynamic to allow to metastasize.

If the community is presented with an argument for why a block of triple deckers with backyards needs to be converted into 4-5 floor boxes with very small units whose footprints basically match the lot, then we've at least got something to talk about.

Precedent was no parking - but also one household of 7-8 people maybe didn't even have 1 car let alone one per person in the apt. Happily most of the people moving in are singles, couples or maybe have 1 or 2 little ones (as the little ones get bigger we'll see how much they want to stay in those tiny units). I'd be happy to see any data you have on current car ownership in East Boston. I know that some of the new residents don't have cars -- they use Uber and Lyft a whole lot - which might help with parking - not traffic. Also from firsthand observation I can anecdotally tell you the houses around me - new and old - all have at least one car per unit and in some cases a car per person in the building. If people have the money to buy in this rapidly ballooning bubble market, they have the money to own a car. Some choose not to - while many choose to leave it parked in the street while they take the T downtown to work and drive to a better supermarket than Shaw's.

I'm all for getting people out of their cars and changing car culture - but we do not have policies in place that promote this shift. And it can start with the rewriting of our zoning. We can get into arguments there - currently the situation is unworkable by anyone's estimation (excepting the locally connected real estate attorneys who have been reverse carpet bagging their on neighborhoods).

As far as applying simple supply and demand to real estate to solve our housing crisis, I will never agree with that, as it's an oversimplification that has never been proven to work because housing only superficially behaves like a commodity and I would say should not be allowed to behave like a commodity. But if I go any further here I'll end up questioning property rights and at that point I may as well be advocating for pedophilia.

But I would like to know what the "build baby build" crowd views as the end point of all this? Just block after block of Assembly Row-like boxes?

I've been catching it sporadically during afternoon rush hour and have repeatedly sat on the platform waiting for a train to show up with room for more passengers (usually at Aquarium going outbound). That's fairly common on the other lines but it's been happening on the Blue as well. I've seen the stats that show just oodles of capacity on the Blue Line during rush hour (Suffolk Downs developer has been flogging them about) and I have to question it. Unless capacity means you'll only have to wait for the third train to pull up with space in it for you to get in. (That's not sarcasm, I genuinely have no idea how they define "capacity." Could be that waiting as full cars pass by is within their definition.)

(Keeping in mind they also want us to believe that over 60% of the riders on the 111 bus do NOT identify as Latino...did they even ride the bus?)