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Climate resilience trumped affordable housing in the South End today
By adamg on Tue, 11/19/2024 - 7:17pm
Parts of the South End and nearby areas subject to climate-resilience review. Source.
The Zoning Board of Appeal today rejected a non-profit group's plans to convert a Shawmut Avenue office building into affordable apartments because it would have one apartment on the first floor despite being in Boston's coastal flood resilience overlay district, where residences are supposed to be higher than that in anticipation of flooding as sea levels continue to rise and storms become more fierce.
The board's vote, however, will likely only delay, not stop, Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción's proposal to convert space inside 403-405 Shawmut Ave. into six apartments, all to be rented at affordable rates.
The board denied the proposal "without prejudice," which means the non-profit can come back in less than a year with a new proposal, for example, one in which the building only has five residential units, on the upper floors, or it somehow rejiggers its plans to fit six units above the ground level and its anticipated possible flood level in the coming decades.
"This is coming as a bit of a surprise," IBA attorney Jacob Taylor said.
The overlay district, adopted in 2019, covers parts of the city from East Boston to Dorchester that could experience significant ocean, or in some cases, river, flooding in the future.
The IBA proposal was part of a larger package reviewed by the zoning board, in which IBA also sought approval to do extensive renovations on several buildings in the South End in which it already rents affordable units, from roof replacements to kitchen and electrical upgrades.
Those projects, along with the Shawmut Avenue proposal, needed separate zoning-board approval because they sit in another "overlay district" in which new buildings or large renovation projects have to be certified as not affecting the amount of rainwater that percolates into the ground. That water is necessary to keep the wooden pilings that support so many buildings in the South End, the Back Bay and Bay Village from drying out, which could lead to rotting.
The board approved all of the projects, including the Shawmut Avenue one, as compliant with the city's groundwater-conservation regulations.
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Comments
so sad
Housing > climate resilience
I'm don't understand...
how you can feel that way. Isn't one of the basic tenets of survival to build your shelter in a safe place? Too many people think their water comes from a faucet, their food comes from a grocery store, and they can put a house where ever without regard to storms, or flooding, or fire. It's approaching insanity.
and people in affordable housing
shouldn't be forced to live in flood-prone units, so..
Why that doesn't work
Building housing where climate change will destroy it does not improve any housing crisis situation.
You don't get to stick a bunch of housing in a future flood plain just because "we need housing", because then what do you do when that housing is predictably destroyed?
Serious question
When was the last time this area flooded? Are we planning for something that “might” happen?
Future Proofing
As climate change leads to higher sea levels and more frequent, stronger storms, it seems prudent to make sure the areas most likely to be affected are able to handle such an event.
Yes, that's exactly how
Yes, that's exactly how disaster planning works.
Serious question
When is the last time that hurricanes were continuing to generate in mid november?
You clearly have the meteorology behind you to ask such questions, how are your answers doing?
The city should hand out
The city should hand out protective thigh high rubber boots for free when streets are flooded. Sidewalks of main streets and some others are hazmat level for litter, puke, poop and piss. I wish I was joking. Just look at Causeway in front 7-Eleven down to the CVS, Harrison, entire Mass Cass to Symphony to start. You don't want to walking in regular footwear on a rainy day in that water. Sheeeaat...NASTY
You're listening to On Point
With Anon Asshat
I wonder who they ticked off at City Hall
Or the ZBA has lost its mind again. Can’t see why this building gets denied when so many others have been approved.
RTFA
You know what the acronym means.
Go camp on Morrissey Blvd.
You can't build housing in doomed places. That's why. We need to stop building in areas vulnerable to destruction, especially housing. So we get some units now, but what about when those are wiped out? What then?
Please learn some history and some climate change science.
Get your head out of the sand
Oh doomed housing like the entire Seaport district that was built after these projections were known?
This is nothing more than pretext to uphold a racist system that keeps the poors out and housing prices up. This project is in the middle of the South End, does denying this project mean that Boston is going to let the rest of the South End drown? In that case why permit a project at all? Is there not an alternative solution that allows a first floor unit to be protected in an area with 1% annual chance of flooding in 2040?
If anything, this decision is an indication that Boston does not seriously intend to address rising sea levels or the housing crisis.
Yes, And
It should be possible to build more housing AND keep climate resiliency in mind. The simple answer is "only build housing units on the 2nd floor and above". If this project isn't willing to get rid of the first-floor apartment, then yes, they're not serious about actually building housing. But we shouldn't think that all housing is necessary housing regardless of long-term consequences. Forcing lower-income people to live in constantly flooding apartments (a la the movie Parasite) is as much institutional racism as not building the housing at all.
Missing the point
It IS possible to build more housing and keep climate resiliency in mind. But this decision does neither.
On the housing front, at the least the ZBA just eliminated one unit and delayed five more. Every apartment helps, and it’s especially important that affordable housing be located in areas with access to amenities, such as here.
On the climate front, this decision betrays that Boston has no plans to address these issues. We can go on and on about land infill and why these places flood in the first place, but at the minimum this decision suggests that Boston has no plans in place to address flooding in one of the densest areas of the city (and not a particularly poor area either).
Never mind that this decision applies to an area that has a 1% chance of an annual flood in 2070. While not insignificant, this means there is a relatively small chance of a single event ~45 years in the future flooding the first floor. The way everyone is reading this decision would make you think the entire apartment will be underwater and people will have to paddle in canoes to get around.
Point taken about high standard affordable housing, but I think a lot of people would take an affordable apartment with a remote risk of flooding far in the future (I would).
Maybe the benefit accrues
Maybe the benefit accrues elsewhere, like developers not wasting their time poorly designing buildings that *will* flood in that location. (it was recently ocean)
One can be pro-housing and pro-affordable-housing without approving stupid stuff.
Oh this is easy, eliminate
Oh this is easy, eliminate the first-floor apartment.
Computer Modeling,
which I assume is involved, is notoriously inaccurate. This is true for all studies of possible future outcomes.
Nice try
If anything, the climate projection models have been underpredicting the speed and severity of climate impacts, including coastal inundation.
Talking points are nice, though. Facts are better.
computer modeling...is
[citation needed]
Anonymous commenters are unreliable
Drive by comment: contains vague talking points that have nothing to do with the extensive testing of the models in question.
But its TRUTHY!
It gets worse…
They used words, and people have been known to lie.
They used numbers, and sometimes such figures are wrong.
They used pictures, and we all know pictures can be misleading.
These darned notorious charlatans and their deceptive attempts to scare us with their “facts” and “analysis”! You can’t fool us forever!
This is stupid.
How many existing housing units are in the first floor in this district?
By pushing housing out of the city with regulations like this, they're making climate change worse by shifting development to highwayside sprawl.
It's proposed new construction
It's proposed new construction. Do you see the difference between a building that already exists and a building that might be some day?
I don't remember if this was
I don't remember if this was already said here but we have the most resilient new climate bureaucracy at the city hall.
What the literal F
I see. We can't have apartments on the first floor of this building. Yet we have condos not only going into the first floor of other building but into the basements of these buildings.
So if there is any kind of standard out there, it's not being evenly applied.