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No Freudian slip: Board approves new apartment building called the Sigmund off Soldiers Field Road in Brighton
By adamg on Wed, 08/10/2022 - 9:49am
Rendering by J Garland Enterprises.
The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday approved developer Jeffrey Feuerman's plans for a 61-unit apartment building on Soldiers Field Place, a dead end off Soldiers Field Road that is transforming from a warren of small nondescript office buildings into a residential area.
Feuerman's six-story Sigmund will fit between two other apartment buildings approved in recent years by the board. The developer of one of them sued after the board granted the developer of the other the same variances it had gotten, but it agreed to drop the suit this past spring.
However, the court-going developer filed an objection with the board over Feuerman's proposal, citing parking issues on the tiny street, where Feuerman's tenants would enter a garage with 49 spaces.
At a hearing yesterday, Feuerman's attorney, Joe Hanley, said ten of the apartments would be rented as affordable, rather than the eight required by the city. The building, which will have only one- and two-bedroom apartments - some of the latter "extremely large," Hanley said - will also have a room set aside as a child's play area.
Hanley added that the building would be "all electric" - no natural gas will be used for heating or cooking.
At the request of the Boston Transportation Department, the board's approval includes a requirement that 25% of the building's parking spaces be equipped for electric-vehicle charging - and that the remaining spaces be equipped with wiring that would let them have chargers added should the need arise.
The BPDA board approved the proposal in June.
City Councilor Liz Breadon (Allston/Brighton) supported the proposal. A man from Hyde Park Avenue in Jamaica Plain tried to speak on the project, but board Chairwoman Christine Araujo muted him in the Zoomed meeting, saying the board only wants to hear from people living near proposed projects. This came after the board had already held more than 20 hearings that started around 9:30, in a meeting that ended around 1 p.m.
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Comments
New Developement
Pick a neighborhood. Any neighborhood. These places all look very similar.
I know right? Wait till you hear about Triple Deckers
Pick a neighborhood. Any neighborhood. They all look very similar.
Pretty boring design, but then again...
...sometimes an apartment building is just an apartment building.
Yeah, no obelisks here.
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Odd for a public hearing
Isn't it a bit odd, that in a public hearing, the Board decides who it wants to hear from and who it doesn't? It seems like all other public processes have a public comment period. Also seems arbitrary: what if he had been living in Allston - is that too far?
I looked at the ZBA's website and, if you want to speak, it looks like you put in your address and check off whether you 'support' or 'oppose' and the Board will invite you to speak. I would venture to say this tilts heavily in favor of people who live there already, over people who would want to shop at a proposed business or who would benefit from more housing generally.
Nah
You can just join the meeting with only your name and email. You raise your hand to speak and you are called on. For the record you do have to list your address once you are speaking but not before.
Hanley added that the
Good first step but are there any requirements for solar power?? Like that is the whole reasoning behind the push for all electric - you electrify everything and then clean the grid. But if you don't incorporate clean energy in, then you're just moving the natural gas usage down the pipeline.
Not efficient
Solar on every house has some benefits but it'd be far more efficient to have regional solar hubs powering the grid with their own maintenance and cleaning. It's also a lot easier to replace all the power plants eventually than to have to rewire the house to handle electric appliances and possibly uproot all the gas lines later.
Not efficient for retrofits
Not efficient for retrofits but this is a brand new building. Just like making an old building airtight and energy efficient is really hard but if the city wanted they could hold these developers to standards for efficiency.