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One developer sues another over collapse of Back Bay tower deal

The Boston Business Journal reports Suffolk Construction is suing Weiner Ventures over the end of their proposal for a luxury tower over the turnpike, next to the Hynes.

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Comments

Affordable housing requirements make a project unaffordable.

In other news, man bites (hot) dog at ball park down the street.

(Well, that would be the other similar news except our team isn't playing any more, but I digress... Go Nats!)

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No additional disgusting poors walking around on your neighborhood streets, just wasting your precious tax dollars with every grubby step.

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Poor peopke don't live in affordable housing.

Plus I would bet between 80%-100% of the people living in my building would qualify for these units on an income basis ( are there asset restrictions on occupying these units?)

But you keep on keeping on..

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we often disagree, but I agree with this one.

Remember there's a difference between "low income housing" and "affordable housing"

Affordable just means the price was lowered and there's a lottery. The financial requirements are far more than "low income" housing.

Example, affordable housing, income requirements to apply are 60-80k. Low income housing is based upon poverty line numbers.

Big difference.

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"Affordable" housing is the worst way to address the problem of people not able to afford to live in the city. By definition there will never be enough. Even if you limit it to people who have already been in Boston for ~5 years, every new unit of housing built for the next few years would need to go to this group.

There are two solutions to making housing affordable:

1. Reduce demand. This can be done by increasing crime, decreasing services, and eliminating jobs. Arson in large parts of the city with the elimination of the fire department can really speed things along. (Lots of downsides to this method.)

2. Improve transportation so it doesn't take 90 minutes to go to work from the suburbs and/or require expensive T passes or Cars.

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Reduce demand. This can be done by increasing crime, decreasing services, and eliminating jobs.

I suddenly understand everything Marty Walsh has done over the last few years.

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Or you could change snob zoning in the more suburban parts of Boston to allow enough units to be built to meet or exceed demand to the point prices stabilize.

Taking 2 years to approve a plan for a single triple decker with two parking spaces per unit on a lot where there should be 6 story 40 unit apartment building with .75 parking spaces per unit is a big part of the problem.

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But think of the children! Traffic will be bad!!!! (eye roll)

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Weird, you're being disingenuous about the reasons this project is not going forward! I for one am shocked.

It was shorter and smaller than what they initially planned, in part because of neighborhood pushback, but also because a partnership with Prudential Financial — which owns a neighboring property — had fallen through. With just 108 units and development costs expected to top $800 million, it would have been the priciest major condo project ever in Boston. There also were the challenges of building above the busy highway and commuter rail line without disrupting traffic.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2019/10/24/boston-development-mogul...

Seems like there a number of reasons that this project became difficult, and not one them addressed in either article even mentions affordable housing as the main issue.

Huh. Could it be you have a private, Ayn-Randian axe to grind about teh poors? That's some "Major-League" dishonesty on your part.

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Maybe this part:

"In turn, that means the project probably could not succeed by setting aside the required 13% of units - a total of 14 - as "affordable" in part, because there's not possible way to make 2,667-square-foot units in a luxury building affordable by people only making 80% of the area median income. But that's not a bad thing, Weiner continues. The city affordable-housing regulation lets a developer do this if it contributes enough money to buy or build affordable units elsewhere that is equivalent to 18% of the building's total units, and Weiner says it is looking to contribute towards affordable housing in "a central Boston neighborhood to be approved by the BPDA."

There were lots of reasons - but this is plain and simple - bad policy. But politicians think "affordable housing" sounds good even when it accomplishes the exact opposite by limiting supply and increasing prices (which gets them donations from developers - win/win - for the politicians). Very similar to when I explained to a councilor how the residential exemption also tends to drive up prices, especially a the low end of the price spectrum and how this was bad for the city. The councilor looks at me and says - "That's probably correct, but people like it." #politicianthink

Keep swinging - some day you'll make it to the bigs - but you'll have to get your average above 0.000

And as for "teh poors" - read the above comments. Poor people don't live in these units. In fact these are reportedly filled largely with government workers with decent salaries and benefit packages that aren't counted toward qualifying that add 20-50% to their income compared with many other workers (another reason pols like them).

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And ignore the primary reasons given. You hate affordable housing and poor people, so every project is a reason to bash them whether the shoe fits, or doesn't (as in this case)

Typical logic from you, Mr. "People who can't afford a $5000 deductible shouldn't have children." And "If you can't afford healthcare it's your own fault"

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for example, "affordable" housing and the "residential exemption" - when neither are what they call themselves - but make for good marketing by slick politicians.

And yes, people shouldn't have children if they can't afford to properly care for them. It's called child abuse. And, I'm sure you'll agree, pregnancy is a choice. So if you can't afford proper medical care, you are choosing to abuse your kids. so, yes - I have a problem with that (that said, I also have a problem with the fact that we don't have an affordable version of universal health care - but I don't get to make the new rules - so under the existing rules my opinion is not an opinion. It's a fact of deductive reasoning. But you are probably one of the people that the politicians talk about when they approve stupid legislation simply because "people like it". Hook, line, sinker.

Your batting average is still 0.000. Back to little league for you.

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For confirming you dislike poor people* and don't want them to reproduce. The rest of your laughably sociopathic "logic" follows from this.

*Here poor people to you means anyone who can't afford a $5,000 deductible, which is about, I don't know, half the population? Rich old man privilege is a hell of a drug.

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Lots more than half can't afford $5k.

In your "logical" world you make children suffer for the poor choices of their parents?

Got it.

No laughing. Just cruel and inhuman thing to inflict on children.

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I see an original Batman episode in this slug. Wealthy and powerful slugging out with wealthy and powerful.

Poor John Fish. The fellow who promised his company would not take up any Olympics building (just everything else), unless he just forgot his promise. Poor thing. His reputation damaged.

There is a gross problem with legal puffery. Rich and powerful clients who pretend to be "hurt" has an inverse affect on their image. It makes them seem like the lowest levels of sewer scum.

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Let them fight.

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The lawsuit alleges that Weiner Ventures “astonishingly” pulled out…

I bet they didn't fix the cable, either.

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Probably also used no protection.

(hey, Business Journal started it)

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I understand there is a parcel in Roxbury that's been waiting for development for some 12 years now?

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Another clear sign that this economic (up) cycle is coming to an end. The expense of building over the Pike is too much to overcome unless it's Boom Times, and it looks like this place would come on line just in time for the bust. There's been a lot of lux built here in the last decade, with more still to come. China is stopping the outflow of cash that has kept these projects afloat. (Need to get money out of your totalitarian regime homeland? Buy a $5M condo in Boston.) Let's see if that tower over South Station gets built before the same thing happens there.

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I don't understand why this project went from having two towers to only having one. Was it the city that forced them to do that?

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In the end will any of them actually go through. I see that the Parcel 12 project got approval, but it still has time to be withdrawn.

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Stalled: Parcel 3 (tremont), Parcel 25 (roxbury crossing) is half built, Parcel 13

built: Parcels 9 and 10

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Cancelled: Parcels 16-19, Columbus Center project. Its crazy that developers need to pay to cover the highway AND pay the state for the land it stole from Boston. As a Boston resident, they should pay to cover the land and then pay taxes to the city, but the state shouldnt get rent for stolen property air rights they have done nothing with for decades.

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