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Zoning board crushes plans for new Allston apartment building

The Zoning Board on Tuesday rejected plans for a 130-unit apartment building at the corner of Brighton Avenue and Linden Street that would have been aimed at keeping young professionals in the neighborhood.

The proposed six-story building would have replaced an old bicycle shop, a car and truck rental place and a house on Gardner Street. In addition to the apartments, developer Eden Properties was proposing a large "neighborhood cafe," a yoga studio and additional retail space on the first floor. The project had the approval of the BRA and the "strong support" of Mayor Walsh.

Board Chairwoman Christine Araujo expressed concern the apartments would become just another student slum. Other board members who voted against the proposal did not say why.

The developer, Eden Properties, said it would guard against this by limiting the apartments to no more than two bedrooms, by pricing them higher than what students would want to pay and by marketing only to professionals.

Eden's Noah Maslan said the market for the apartments would be young professionals making between $50,000 and $125,000 a year, whom he said now have few options if they want to stay in the neighborhood.

The project was backed by an executive from Allston Internet provider NetBlazr, who said he would love to have a place where the sort of people who might want to work at his company could live.

The Brighton Allston Improvement Association opposed the project because it called for just 69 parking spaces.

Maslan argued that already, 50% of Allston residents don't own cars and noted the property is on a T bus route and a short walk to the Green Line. Reducing the number of parking spaces also eliminates the need for digging an expensive garage, he said.

The proposal was backed by the Allston Brighton Community Development Corp., the Allston Board of , the Livable Streets Alliance and by City Councilors Mark Ciommo and Annissa Essaibi-George, as well as by Doug Bacon, owner of several nearby restaurants, including the White Horse tavern, who said the property has been "an eyesore for 25 years" and that Eden would provide much needed "professionally managed, high-quality housing."

Board member Anthony Pisani voted for the project. "It's a very nice project," one that the BRA had approved, he said.

A Linden Street resident noted the large number of variances the project needed and questioned why the developer should be allowed to get them just so it could make more money.

Eden's attorney, Peter Tamm, said part of the problem is that the proposed building would straddle two zoning districts, one of which would not require as many variances.

Watch the hearing (begins around 2:45:00).

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Comments

IMAGE(http://s32.postimg.org/ksbrzwix1/Screen_Shot_2016_05_13_at_1_46_51_PM.png)

Edit: Thank you Kaz for solving my image-posting issue!

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Do the following:

[img] http://your.img.url.goes.here [/img]

Then under the Comment box, choose Text format = "Filtered HTML".

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I was doing the first part, but it wasn't appearing properly. I was leaving text format as "Default"

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They're totally crushing it!

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My best guess why such a common sense project wth substantial community and city backing didn't get approved?
Wasn't in Hamilton Company's best interest. This would have been located only a couple doors down from scumlord HQ.

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I'm completely naive about this stuff, so it kind of blow my mind that a few people on some board can just stop a project like this and not even give a reason why.(?) They really think a shitty rental car parking lot is better than a new building?

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It's called a zoning board. They make decisions about zoning. Most cities and towns have them. They are there to prevent people can't put up whatever they want. You can disagree with the decision, but zoning boards are still needed.

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.

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How can a project with so much support from so many different groups get rejected due to a few overpowered bureaucrats? They don't even give a reason for the denial? They can just block this project for their own jollies?

This is a troubling sign for the city.

Also, who the hell cares if students live there? I know college students aren't the most fun neighbors to have but they aren't lepers. Their potential presence shouldn't invalidate an entire project. It's Allston, you aren't going to get very far away from college students no matter what restrictions you put on the building.

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The zoning board decides when to give variances for zoning laws, and this project was asking for a lot of variances. That is how the system has always worked, and just because you disagree does not mean every project asking for variances needs developed or approved.

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I think what is troubling is that the ZBA is such a rubber stamp. It would be interesting to see what they approve and what they don't, but they seem to routinely approve things that are very detrimental to neighborhoods. While this project seems pretty much like exactly what the city needs. And to deny it outright was really odd--a denial without prejudice would have allowed the developers to modify the plan, for example add more parking. Flat denial seems really excessive.

Generally the ZBA seems to be a really loosely run thing. They don't publish minutes, they didn't even seem to understand how to take a vote, which was kind of scary.

And, I'd like to know why the carpenter's union opposed the project. That seems really odd.

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Board members should be compelled to say why they voted a certain way so the citizenry can judge if that was the right decision. My understanding is that the board is not elected but appointed by the Mayor. Who the Mayor appoints to important positions is one of the criteria citizens weigh in deciding who to vote for at election time.

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but that somehow wasn't enough. I'm puzzled too.

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They should have to explain why as well. The ZBA seems so capricious. They approval almost everything, no matter what, so then then the few things they don't approve really make no sense. Explain why for all decisions.

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Do young professionals live in Allston? I've never seen any!

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They are too busy working hard for you to notice them!

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The demographics for residents of Allston 20-30 years old are basically 1/3 undergrad, 1/6 grad students, 1/2 young professionals.

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if there were reasonably priced buildings that weren't full of rats and students. Like this one (though the reasonably priced part seems a bit questionable).

I lived in Lower Allston when I first moved here, and despite its proximity to Harvard, there actually were a lot of young professionals over there. Harvard has since taken over the neighborhood, so not too sure what it looks like today.

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I mean, they did like 10 articles in a row on how this happens.

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...and we don't ride horses and buggies either

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Also, just watched the video and saw that Allston Main Streets didn't support the project, despite the fact that the developers donated the building to them for their Pop Allston program over the last year.

How's that for gratitude?

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I do not understand why the board is not rubber stamping 95% of the proposals for new apartments in the city, aka anything but dumps. There is a major supply issue in Boston. Every apartment built, yes even luxury ones helps reduce the increases in overall rents.

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They are rubber stamping 95% (I bet, I'd like to see the numbers). This is really unusual.

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It won't do much without addressing outside speculation and the causes of of regional population growth. Also, the city doesn't owe everyone and anyone affordable rent. That does not mean that the market should always decide. However, Boston is one of nicest cities because it carefully maintained a lot of what has made is desirable. Not everyone who want's to live here can, but we can try to provide a better city for those already here.

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They cannot build non-luxury apartments with union labor. Its simply not possible these days. I would guess that this is an open-shop job.

Lets look at who is on the board...

Mark Ehrlich - Executive Secretary of New England Council of Carpenters
Mark Fortune - Business Agent for Sprinkler Fitters Local Union 550
Eugene Kelly - Builders and Remodelers Association of Greater Boston

Three people on the board seem to have an interest in labor and not what is built...

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You'd think people wouldn't be allowed to serve on boards when they have a major conflict on interest like that and that the AG would have a problem with insiders exerting undue influence.

But CORRUPTION its the MA way baby!

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I cannot tell from the video who voted against the project, but mathematically at least one of those 3 voted for approval as the votes against were the chair(Christine Araujo)+2 other people

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