Apartment building approved for old car place on Belgrade Avenue in Roslindale

The Zoning Board of Appeal this week unanimously approved plans for a 124-unit apartment at the old Clay Chevrolet site at 361 Belgrade Ave. at West Roxbury Parkway in Roslindale.

The BPDA approved the plans, which call for 83 parking spaces and some $8 million in improvements to nearby roads and sidewalks, as well as upgraded parkland along West Roxbury Parkway, in March.

Dedham developer Jake Upton was originally selected by Roxbury Prep to build its new high school on the site. He filed plans for the apartment building after nearby residents got the BPDA to stall the project until the school went away. The BPDA sat on the high-school plans for more than two years without taking any action. In contrast, it took the BPDA just six months to review and approve Upton's plans for the apartments.

Upton's plans call for 21 affordable apartments.

Upton told the board that rents in the market-rate units will be similar to those charged in the newer buildings up by Forest Hills, or roughly $1,700 to $3,200 in current conditions, depending on the number of bedrooms and the exact location of the apartments.

The proposal also calls for a dedicated bike lane along the length of the property. That lane could tie into the bike lane the state is proposing for the parkway when it replaces the bridge over the train tracks, possibly next year, and then with the bike lanes the city is planning from Holy Name Rotary to Lagrange Street in a Centre Street reconfiguration scheduled to begin this fall.

The Bellevue Hill Improvement Association and Paula Olender, a neighbor of the site who served on a BPDA oversight committee for the project, opposed the numerous variances Upton needed for the height, number of floors and overall size of the building as well as for being too close to its property lines.

Association President Ginny Gass noted that the zoning for the street calls for buildings no more than 35 feet tall, yet Upton's proposal would reach 63 to 70 feet. "Zoning is not recommendations, they're an actual rule," she said.

"The massive size and the vast overreaching variances that are being requested are completely out of character in the neighborhood," Olender said.

Upton's attorney, Joseph Hanley, argued the variances are allowable in part because of the lot's slope and because it has no immediate neighbors since it is completely bordered by roads and train tracks.

City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo (Roslindale, Hyde Park, Mattapan), supported the proposal, saying it would bring much needed affordable housing to an area that has little, at a train station and on several bus lines and would replace what has been "a distressed industrial site" for his entire life. "This project is entirely appropriate to the size of the space," he said of the roughly one-acre parcel.

Through an aide, City Councilor Michael Flaherty (at large) supported the project because it was so transit oriented, although he acknowledged concerns from some nearby residents about the size of the proposal. An aide to City Councilor Erin Murphy (at large) supported the proposal without any conditions.

"This is the right project in this location," Matt Lawlor, who lives nearby and who served on the same oversight committee as Olender, said. "It's past time this site should be redeveloped."

361 Belgrade Ave. filings.

Watch the hearing: