Why Did the BRA Board Delay Vote Over Charlesview Relocation Proposal?

The Boston Redevelopment Authority announced today that its Board was postponing a vote on the proposed development project to relocate the Charlesview apartments to Brighton Mills.

The BRA's stated reason for the delay dodges the salient fact that local elected officials want the project modified -- a stance reiterated by District 9 City Councilor Mark Ciommo as recently as last week.

A group of North Allston-Brighton residents had recently written to the BRA Board requesting the delay:

[The residents] said the planning process was “tainted by a project manager biased against the residents of Allston and Brighton,” referring to a number of e-mails recently released by a [Public Records Law] request in which senior BRA project manager Jay Rourke expresses frustration with Allston-Brighton residents for their continued resistance to the proposed Charlesview Development project.

The BRA gave a different reason for the delay, namely, that it had something to do with the future plans of the Brookline Machinery site, which is not part of the current development proposal. BRA senior project manager Jay Rourke emailed today:

The BRA feels that the Charlesview redevelopment project has completed the public process and is ready for consideration by the BRA Board of Directors for approval. Nonetheless, it will be removed from tomorrow night’s agenda because there is no finalized agreement between Harvard University and the BRA concerning the future of the adjacent Brookline Machinery site. The public hearing will be rescheduled and re-advertised once a satisfactory agreement with Harvard has been achieved.

The real reason? The A-B elected officials are not in support of the current proposal without significant modification, such as including the Brookline Machinery lot as part of the project. As I wrote several weeks ago, all A-B elected officials wrote in October to the BRA:

They wrote requesting the BRA and developer to: expand the area of land in the development to include the Brookline Machine building; reduce the number of rental units (those that are beyond the low-income units for the current Charlesview tenants); reduce overall the project's density; increase the number of home ownership units; reduce of the height of the eight-story Telford Street building; express a concern about a "lack of open and recreational space" in the project; increase the amount of retail space; and halt further development of Harvard property in North Allston-Brighton until "significant development of the Holton Street Corridor is realized." Pretty broad stuff which will take a while for the BRA and the project's developers to modify and accommodate.

Councilor Ciommo reiterated his position last week at a meeting of neighborhood residents:

Ciommo supports many of the requests of the ABNNF.

“It better be different than the one that was presented at the last meeting at the Honan Library, or I won’t support it,” said Ciommo.

Asked what would happen if the BRA approves the plan, Ciommo said, “Then they’ve stepped over the community.”

With opposition to the current version of the project coming from both residents and elected officials, the BRA had little choice but to put off the project's consideration until changes can be made to it.


Update (11/17/09): The Boston Globe has an article here. BRA Director John Palmieri told the Globe that he had promised to have a commitment from Harvard about developing the Brookline Machinery site -- which has yet to happen. The Globe concludes that "the move is an effort to placate Allston neighbors, who insisted additional housing be built on that site to help create a more vibrant neighborhood with residences, shops, and Harvard’s planned $1 billion science complex."

Image of proposed Charlesview development from the Charlesview.org website.

The Birth of Charlesview

In the last year or so, the Allston-Brighton TAB has been regularly running a history contest -- name that building in this old photograph -- by Allston-Brighton resident historian Bill Marchione.

In two recent issues (here and here), the TAB has switched over to printing an interview by historian Jim Vrabel of Bernard Redgate about the public activism in the 1960s trying to block the Boston Redevelopment Authority's plan to remake part of North Allston at Barry's Corner -- starting with a plan to tear down more than 50 houses.

The BRA ultimately got their way by tearing them down to make way for the Charlesview Apartments:

VRABEL: Didn’t you have some kind of system to warn residents when the city inspectors came out?

REDGATE: We had a truck horn connected to the leads from a car battery that we mounted on a cart, and we would sound it as we rolled it through the neighborhood if a stranger was spotted, letting everyone know that we were being invaded...

VRABEL: In 1965, after those first evictions and demonstrations, Mayor Collins appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to restudy the plan. What were the commission’s recommendations and what happened?

REDGATE: My mother thought we had come to an agreement. She wanted to have housing built on the property that had been cleared and give the houses that were still standing back to their owners and let them remodel them. That was what the commission recommended. But then it didn’t happen, and they turned around and demolished the rest of the houses and put up that awful housing (the Charlesview Apartments).

The TAB piece includes a sad photo of residents apparently watching their houses being demolished.

The TAB's interview is particularly timely, showing how history doubles back upon itself. Harvard University has recently struck an agreement with the owners of Charlesview to swap the land with 6.9 acres a half-mile west along Western Avenue. The owners, Community Builders Inc., have proposed 400 units of housing at the Brighton Mills site to replace 213 units of housing at Charlesview, and the BRA is currently reviewing their Project Notification Form under the Article 80 large project process.

Charlesview Redevelopment at Brighton Mills

The Community Builders Inc. has submitted a Project Notification Form to the Boston Redevelopment Authority describing their proposed new development of 400 housing units on part of the Brighton Mills shopping center (plus a smaller parcel across Western Avenue) that would provide housing for the current residents of the 213 housing units at the Charlesview Apartments at Barry's Corner. The new site encompasses 6.92 acres.


Significant neighborhood opposition appears to be forming around a number of specific elements of the proposed replacement housing project: the development is too dense, the buildings too high, the buildings are segregated between affordable (mostly south of Western Avenue) and market-rate (north of Western Avenue), and the mix of units are too family unfriendly.

The proposed development will be the subject of two public meetings convened by the BRA as part of the public comment period on the project: March 10th and 24th at 6:00 - 7:30 pm at the New Balance Headquarters, 20 Guest Street, Brighton, in the 2nd floor cafeteria.

The new development would be part of a land swap between Harvard University, owner of the Brighton Mills and adjacent parcel, and the owners of the Charlesview Apartments. Harvard would subsequently own the current site of the Charlesview Apartments, which is contiguous with many other parcels Harvard owns in North Allston; the Charlesview site would become incorporated into their institutional master plan district, as was indicated in their 50-year institutional master plan filed with the BRA in January 2007.

The proposed new development would provide housing not only for the Charlesview residents currently occupying 213 units, but also an additional 187 units of housing for a total of 400 units, including 118 condominium units (all north of Western Avenue).

The Brighton Mills buildings in question are currently vacant after Harvard terminate leases with the previous occupants (Kmart [here and here], OfficeMax, and Frugal Fannies) over the last few years. The Shaw's supermarket is not part of the proposed development and would be unaffected. Three buildings exist on the parcel across Western Avenue, which would be demolished to make way for the new buildings.

The height of the new buildings would vary from four stories adjacent to North Brighton housing on Litchfield Street, six stories along Western Avenue, to a ten-story tower closest to the Charles River along Soldiers Field Road.

That ten-story tower is the subject of some sleight-of-hand in the PNF filed with the BRA. Figures 2-2 to 2-7 show the layout of the proposed buildings' first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth floors -- but stop there, thereby helping to bury the fact that the proposed tower nearest the Charles River continues on with seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth stories. I predict that the developers will find their greatest opposition from the neighborhood over the height of that ten-story building -- a prediction I made several months ago when they first released a summary of the plans:

If I were placing a wager in the Deval Patrick Casino at Suffolk Downs, I would bet that the 10-story building will become the target of outrage by the neighborhood. There just ain't nothing remotely close to that tall in the North Brighton neighborhood now, although there are some such erections on Watertown's side of the river.

Public Concerns About Charlesview Relocation Proposal

After reading the proposal and watching the discussions on the discussion boards, I think there are a series of concerns -- if not objections -- that many residents in the neighborhood are expressing about the proposed housing project:

1. Density. The proposed 400 units of housing is much too dense for the location, exceeding current zoning density by approximately a factor of two. It is more dense than the neighboring area by a factor of three or five, depending on who you ask.
   
2. Too Many Rentals, Not Enough Owner-Occupied. Allston-Brighton has only a 19.3% rate of owner-occupied housing, well below the city-wide average of 31%(?). In order to bring A-B closer to the city-wide average, the fraction of owner-occupied housing in new housing projects needs to exceed 34%. Basically: put all the housing beyond 213 units (to accommodate current Charlesview tenants) up for sale, rather than have some of it be rental.
3. Ten Stories Is Much Too Tall. Why such a tall tower closest to the Charles River? To make money to pay for the whole project by selling those as the market-rate units. But that doesn't make up for the problem that ten stories is much, much, much too tall for that neighborhood; it's also twice what zoning allows. North Brighton doesn't have buildings approaching that height, so the relocated Charlesview should stick to heights more consistent with the neighborhood.
4. Unit Mix is Not Family Friendly. Too many of the units will be 1-bedroom (116) and 2-BR (166), while very few will be 3-BR (77) or 4-BR (41). In fact, the new units (i.e., those not replacing the 213 units at the current Charlesview) are mostly 1-BR (44) and 2-BR (126), with very few new 3-BR (17) and no new 4-BR. Units with fewer bedrooms are appropriate for 20-30-year-olds (or so), but not for families that will need additional bedrooms -- and extra closets, etc. Only 33% of A-B households are family households, while the city-wide average is 48%, indicating that new housing in A-B should emphasize family-friendly features in order to attract families. For the Charlesview relocation proposal, it would be better to change the mix of units to encourage families to move in, rather than to force residents to move out once they have kids. Vancouver, British Columbia has been successfully pushing for family-friendly housing in their downtown; Vancouver has a 25-page set of guidelines as to what makes housing family-friendly.
   
5. Open Space. The overall amount of open space appears positive, but it is broken up into several pieces that are walled-off from the rest of the neighborhood. Better would be to put the playground across the street from existing houses to foster interaction between existing and new residents.
   
6. Segregation of Affordable vs. Market-Rate Housing. The proposal will put the market-rate housing into the Telford site tower nearest to the Charles River, while putting the affordable housing south of Western Avenue. This isolates the "affordable" housing renters, who will be primarily low-income, from the "market-rate" housing purchasers, who will be higher-end. The neighborhood wants integrated housing, not housing segregated by income.
7. Setbacks on Western Avenue. OK, I haven't heard this from anyone. Yet. But look at that six-story building (plus mechanicals making a seventh story) butting right up against Western Avenue. No one will want to walk on a Western Avenue darkened by shadows from that tall building without setbacks.
   
8. Harvard Should Be Involved. Yes, you heard that right. Harvard is claiming that they are hands-off towards the development, letting Community Builders Inc. define and defend the project. But since Harvard owns so much of everything around the proposed housing, and since Harvard currently owns the land that would be swapped with CBI, Harvard could easily help guide the project. After all, manyof the market-rate units might end being sold to Harvard employees.
   

Other Coverage of the Charlesview Relocation

The ABNNF met earlier this week to discuss the Charlesview relocation proposal. Over at the Allston Brighton Community Blog, Harry Mattison has links to articles already up about the meeting. Neighborhood opposition appears to be forming around key aspects of the proposal. Mattison questions whether the builders could seek outside funding that could make the project work presumably with fewer units. Harvard has declined to take a role in the project, while Mattison thinks Harvard could play a positive role in the project. He also sees the pattern of the city allowing over-dense housing developments in exchange for additional affordable housing in those developments. The Boston Globe's City Weekly also ran a story last week.


For More Information

The BRA has a webpage with more information on the PNF, including a complete PDF of the PNF (warning: 21.9 MB!) available online.

Public comments on the PNF are due to the BRA by Monday, March 31, 2008:

Jay Rourke, Project Manager
Boston Redevelopment Authority
One City Hall Square, 9th Floor
Boston, MA 02201
jay.rourke.bra@cityofboston.gov
phone: (617)918-4317
FAX: (617)742-7783

Public Meetings:

March 10, 2008, 6:00 - 7:30 pm
March 24, 2008, 6:00 - 7:30 pm
Both at the New Balance Headquarters, 20 Guest Street, Brighton, in the 2nd floor cafeteria.

Ten Story Building by the Charles River: P&S Reached on Charlesview Relocation

Harvard University and Charlesview Inc. now have a purchase and sale agreement for the transfer of the Charlesview apartments in North Allston to Harvard in exchange for a newly-constructed housing development at the former K-mart, and additional land north of Western Avenue, in North Brighton.

This arrangement has been discussed throughout the past year, where the trustees of Charlesview Inc. supported the move -- based on their assessment that the apartments needed substantial renovation -- while many of the tenants, many of whom are low-income, have been increasingly opposed to the idea.

Features of the new housing development:

• 6.9 total acres replacing 4.5 acres at current site
• Former K-mart building, plus land to the north of Western Avenue
  
• Mostly four-to-six story buildings, rising to ten stories closest to the Charles River
• Ten total buildings
• 400 units of housing:
• 213 units to replace the mostly low-income housing currently at Charlesview
• 118 condominiums (I'm guessing higher-end units sold at market rates -- or could these end up as Harvard-affiliate housing, say, for junior faculty?)
  
• 69 affordable housing units
  
• 450 parking spaces, mostly below ground
• Community center for use by residents and neighbors.

If I were placing a wager in the Deval Patrick Casino at Suffolk Downs, I would bet that the 10-story building will become the target of outrage by the neighborhood. There just ain't nothing remotely close to that tall in the North Brighton neighborhood now, although there are some such erections on Watertown's side of the river.

Harry Mattison notes that they plan to submit initial plans to the BRA within a month!!! Yet the neighborhood has yet to be included on the planning or details of the development.

Mayor Thomas Menino, however, is already a convert and a vocal proponent of the plan:

"It's really great," said Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. "Residents of the 1971 urban renewal project are going to be moved to well-landscaped units. It's going to be a wonderful new life for them."

Note to future Mayoral contenders: here's your chance to pick off votes in North Brighton / North Allston, but only if you act quickly!