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Stalling works: Roxbury Prep gives up on Roslindale high-school proposal

Roxbury Prep told supporters today it's given up on plans to build a new high school on Belgrade Avenue at the Roslindale/West Roxbury line, four years after it first proposed the idea, only to be confronted by both angry residents and a BPDA bureaucracy that kept the plans bottled up far longer than it took to get a 55-story skyscraper downtown approved.

In e-mail to supporters, the school said now's a good time to look for another site because Covid-19 means "there have been significant changes in the Boston real estate market, where new, affordable sites are now becoming available."

The school's proposal called for razing the old Clay Chevrolet building near West Roxbury Parkway and replacing it with a 562-student high school.

The decision is not a complete surprise; news surfaced in December that Uncommon Schools, which runs Roxbury Prep, had started to look for a new site in the face of month after month of delay by the BPDA, which never formally said why it was refusing to bring the proposed school up for a vote.

In its e-mail, a copy of which was posted in the Keep Roslindale Quirky Facebook group, the school added:

Stepping away from 361 Belgrade Ave was not an easy decision and we are so thankful to the over 800 Roslindale and West Roxbury residents, and over 2,000 Boston residents, who took action in support of our project, in support of equity, and against what were at times racists claims about our students and our school. Though we are leaving Belgrade, we will never stop fighting for equal opportunities for our scholars.

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Comments

I'm sure residents would welcome 30% AMI Units at the site with open arms.

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It'd be a good site for a residential addiction treatment center. Not so much traffic for the neighbors to worry about.

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If you can get a developer that is willing to build only 30% AMI units on the site.

Chances are, you won't be able to find such a developer. Even the community-based/nonprofit NDCs will insist on 50%, 80%, and 100% AMI units alongside 30% units, so your point is moot.

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Lighten up

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Charter schools bad.

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"anything that might slightly interfere with my ability to drive my car bad, regardless of what it is and how it might benefit other people or society at large"

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It really helps "drive home" the wholly performative lifestyles of these hard-liners who choose their Internal Combustion Luxury over the well being of the city and society as a whole.

Disgusting is what it is.

Shame on ALL of them.

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You really thought the main concern was traffic?

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We all know that car dealerships don't generate any traffic.

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Not familiar with this dealership, it’s been there for decades and has never created much traffic.

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Car dealerships don’t attract hundreds of people arriving in a narrow window every day.

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traffic in this case meaning the transit of non-white kids through the area

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Or an addicition treatment center.

Their clientele doesn't drive so the "traffic" arguement goes out the window.

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The charter school building boom is crazy when you consider all of the empty and half empty school buildings all over the city. Nobody factors that into the equation when they claim that charters don't siphon off our taxes.

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Why should we be happy that there's a brand new, free to taxpayers high school in Mattapan instead of forcing kids to go to school in the condemned WREC?

#SMRT!

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Charter schools are not free to taxpayers. The condemned WRox HS does not have enough children assigned to get the funding needed to rebuild. We should have a new HS built in Mattapan. We should not build new schools without doing something with the land and buildings that stand empty why people are homeless.

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How about an annex for Boston Latin School, they'll need the extra room.

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A commenter from West Roxbury.

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If a vote was held in WR to succeed from COB and be annexed into Dedham, what the numbers would look like....

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Boston taxes are a lot better and Dedham is staunchly any kind of reasonable transit. Reason 1 and 2 we moved to WR and not Dedham.

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The BPDA sits on a project only if the Mayor says so. It's all politics. That's where the buck stops. The 5th, not the 9th floor. Pretending otherwise lets the city's top politician off the hook.

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There is sacred space back there, on the rocks, dirt roads, cabins. No signs. You had to live near.

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They should have just said it was all about union jobs and Marty would have supported it. The BRA/BPDA is and always has been under the control of whoever is mayor.

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Remember that when Michelle Wu criticizes the BPDA for being opaque and operating behind closed doors that she quietly opposed this project and wanted them to deep-six it. What is good for the goose...

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Nice neighborhood! Gains a pot shop and loses a school!

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