Hey, there! Log in / Register
Board rejects four-story office building on edge of Nubian Square
By adamg on Tue, 12/08/2020 - 1:54pm
The Zoning Board of Appeal today rejected a developer's proposal to replace a building at Warren and Winthrop Street that burned down in a 2014 fire with a four-story office building with eight parking spaces.
The board actually voted 4-2 to approve the proposed building, but state law requires Boston zoning changes to get at least 5 votes.
Although Roxbury Main Streets supported the proposal, saying it would help bring needed office space and more foot traffic into the area. Nearby residents, however, opposed the proposal because of its size in a historic neighborhood of smaller buildings.
Board Chairwoman Christine Araujo voted against the plans, saying Nubian Square not only has available commercial space but will soon be gaining more in projects in which developers are putting up new mixed-use buildings on city-owned parking lots and similar spaces.
This is the second proposal for the site since the building there burned down.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Magoo sez: Data leak data leak
Alert alert. Magoo’s iPhone tells Magoo that UHub has been hacked and one’s password should be changed. Magoo would post picture of the iPhone message but Magoo doesn’t know how to do that here. Magoo.
Your comments are never funny
I hope you get locked out of your phone so it's harder for you to post your nonsense here.
Ridiculous
What would she prefer they add to Nubian Square? Nothing? Let's keep it a vacant lot! No, maybe we should add just a parking lot!
It's a commercial district. Add commercial space. The idea that there is "already enough" of anything in Boston is what limits us.
Something that's affordable
To a part-timer working 15 hours a week making $12.50 an hour of course, never mind the fact that it costs the developer $700,000 per unit to build.
I'm more aggravated about the first proposal
Just because rents came down $100, it doesn't mean we don't have a housing crisis.
The rent is too damn high!
The rent is too damn high!
Not nearly enough parking
for a busy commercial area. And so what if there’s an MBTA station here? I don’t take the T.
Would you have been working
Would you have been working in the office building? Not sure why you think your particular needs are important to this building.
When there is commercial space that is going unused.
What is the drive to build more commercial space?
As for housing stock...people are clamoring for cancelling the rent, nationwide!
Who are the developers to build for?
In NYC, mixed income buildings are expected to have one entrance for all residents.
Next we'll hear the subsidized unitholders ask why doesn't my unit have a private elevator that opens as my front entrance. Lobby to unit direct access. Parity, parity, parity!! They'll shout!
Umm
I agree that there is a lot of unused commercial space. But you think low income people should have a poor person's entrance?
I think that public entities need to build more housing, or rehabilitate empty foreclosed spaces. Cambridge took over foreclosed properties and sold them as restricted income condos. The owner has to sell them back to the city with 5% value increase per year plus value of any upgrades. This create integrated income housing.
Baby Bush brought us the Ownership Society
"Ownership society is a slogan for a model of society promoted by former United States president George W. Bush. It takes as lead values personal responsibility, economic liberty, and the owning of property."
"Foreclosed spaces" in Cambridge become opportunities to build more housing in your view. A person takes on a mortgage, gets upside down, and loses the mortgaged property. People get a foot on the first rung of a ladder and fall off. While others want to get their foot in the door and then act like they own the place.
The housing crisis persists. At least I don't hear about the off season dwellers on the Cape who accept the space and a move out date. When the move out date comes they don't vacate/quit without the assistance of a constable. I am not getting a RE tax holiday or rescheduling from the City of Boston. Many were pleasantly surprised when Massachusetts auto insurers rebated some of the premium due to less driving. [A similar drop in accidents has not been seen.]
As you press for housing justice, I point out two things. Those that wished to find Forever homes for pets allowed the homeless to live with the animals to 'aclimatise' them to living with people again in San Francisco. Some banks have allowed the housing insecure to live in foreclosed properties to house-sit them as it were. I can see some digging in when the space is no longer made available to them.
In the cambridge the people
In the cambridge the people own a deed restricted property. I don't really understand this word salad.
Word salad indeed. Even Magoo
Word salad indeed. Even Magoo makes more sense than whatever that long rant was.
deed restricted property
"In Massachusetts, deed restrictions are often used in new subdivisions and developments and help to maintain steady pricing for buyers. These affordable housing restrictive covenants – also referred to as Deed Riders – are quite common in the state."
https://www.phillips-angley.com/articles/understanding-deed-restrictions...
I'm 62. A TV commercial in the 1970s featured a real estate agent telling the couple, "you don't have to worry about any of them". One of the couple asks is this a restricted neighborhood. Response: "Absolutely!" The couple lost interest with the agent and sought an agent and neighborhood more to their value set.
There are covenants, deed restrictions on real property deeds some times. The legal paper trail exists. Court judgments have nullified/voided some of them. Perusing county land records a person can find legal instruments to forbid sale to certain groups, peoples. No sale to Jews, Negroes etc.
In the matter at hand, Cambridge has put conditions on the sale and purchase of certain properties that they got involved with. Nothing new here. Some townspeople of Wayland are fighting a housing development.
The state learned the hard way when buying boats from fisherman so the fisherman could get out of the industry. One fisherman took the money and bought a bigger boat. That program needs to get their legal department involved to prevent an unintended/unforeseen consequence such as that.