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New apartments win approval on Liverpool Street in East Boston

New apartments on Liverpool Street

The Board of Appeals this week approved a developer's plans to replace an auto-body and repair facility with 23 apartments at 152 Liverpool St. near Central Square.

Developer MG2 Group would include nine parking spaces - and first-floor space for a cafe or small restaurant.

The BPDA approved the proposal in May.

Nobody opposed the proposal at the zoning-board hearing.

152 Liverpool St. small-project review application (39M PDF).

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Comments

Boston should allow this kind of development "by Right"

Why does such a minimal project require approval by both the BPDA and the Board of Appeals

Anyone should be able to build a "5 Decker with ground floor retail / neighborhood food service" like this on any street within the city subject only to the availability of the land

There should be hundreds of these built every year clustered within a mile or so of the T throughout Boston and indeed all of the inner suburbs with good T services

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If 10 or more units and zoning relief required, then developer must provide 13% of units as affordable. No zoning relief = no affordable.

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MrZip wrote

If 10 or more units and zoning relief required, then developer must provide 13% of units as affordable. No zoning relief = no affordable.

Is it a sacred mantra hidden in a Himalayan monastery that "thou shalt create 13% affordability"

What about 12.78% or how about 13.03%

How about something such as build some affordable units and the tax rate on them is 50% of the standard tax rate

Of course the entire process of designating something as affordable if occupant has some arbitrary % of the average income for the area is wakko as well

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What about 12.78% or how about 13.03%.

Complain about the BRA, um, BPDA and City Hall all you want, but the people who run them aren't complete idiots. They have a regulation for that - round up to the next nearest integer. So if the calculations show that 13% would be, oh, 9.3 apartments, the developer either has to provide 10 affordable units or 9 affordable units plus a payment to the fund the BPDA uses to buy/build affordable units (and there is some formula for figuring that amount out).

As for giving them a tax break, that kind of defeats the whole purpose of the program, by shifting the cost of creating affordable units from the developer to other taxpayers.

You are beginning to see the city look at ways to increase the amount of units beyond an arbitrary number: Proposed zoning for parts of South Boston (along Dot Ave) would let developers put in buildings denser than otherwise allowed in exchange for more affordable units.

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maybe 4 young eastie lads will form a band ....

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But that really is the dullest, least inspired design to be approved in a while. It's as if they just submitted the demo template from their design software.

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It's somehow slightly less bland than the existing building...

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