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Ten-year, $1-billion transformation of Bunker Hill project now before city, state

Architect's rendering of Bunker Hill project redo

Architect's rendering.

Developers recently submitted detailed plans to city and state officials for their proposed One Charlestown development that would gradually replace the 75-year-old Bunker Hill project with a 3,200-unit mixed-income development featuring buildings ranging from 6 to 21 stories, new park space, new stores and 13 new streets.

The city last year designated Corcoran Jennison Associates of Dorchester and Sun Cal of New York for the project, which will be built in several phases and which will include 1,100 subsidized units to replace the Bunker Hill ones that would be torn down. Current residents will have a right to one of the new apartments.

Some 600 of the new units the developers plan to pay for the project will be sold as condominiums, with 78 of those designated as "workforce" units sold to people making no more than the area median income.

In their filing, the developers explain why they'll be using several different architects to design the buildings:

Built in 1941, the apartments today are geographically isolated and physically degraded. The redevelopment will provide new buildings designed to respect history, incorporate contemporary style, and reflect Charlestown's character. New neighborhood-serving retail along Bunker Hill Street and two new parks will provide amenities for all of Charlestown. A new street grid will connect existing and new north-south streets across Bunker Hill Street to create walkable connections between the center of the new development and the rest of the neighborhood. Instead of acting as a barrier that divides, Bunker Hill Street will become a seam that unites the community.

Charlestown has a rich history that will be layered into the landscape design and cultural programming of One Charlestown. The design will connect landmarks like the Bunker Hill Monument and the Charlestown Navy Yard, and the landscape will interpret many aspects of Charlestown's history. A new plaza will be introduced that reflects the history of the Site and a new common area will be created for gathering with neighbors from all over Charlestown.

The Project will complement Charlestown's fine-grained urban fabric with architecture that blends style with sensitivity to history. Multiple architects will collaborate on each new block of buildings in order to create a range of styles that reflects Charlestown's unique character.

One Charlestown will create friendly neighborhood streets lined by buildings with front doors, stoops, and porches that open directly to the street, connecting neighbors and bringing life to the sidewalk outside of homes. New streets will follow the best practices found in Boston's Complete Streets guide and strengthen connections to the Navy Yard and Bunker Hill Street. Taller buildings will be appropriately located toward taller features like the Tobin Bridge, or set back from main streets.

All units in the redevelopment will meet the same high standard of design, regardless of their designation as market-rate or affordable. As envisioned by current residents of the Charlestown Public Housing development during visioning sessions, amenities such as common lobbies, lounges, mail rooms, outdoor terraces, and fitness rooms, will be available to all residents. Underground parking garages, capped with landscaped roofs that function as courtyards, will replace surface parking lots. There will be street parking along the new streets as well.

The proposed open space network and pedestrian public realm will strengthen the connections to the existing street network of Charlestown, and create a series of publicly accessible amenities and destinations.

The project needs state approval because a small portion - 0.15 acre - sits on former shoreline land subject to state coastal regulations. The land was filled in sometime between 1852 and 1868.

One Charlestown project notification form (19.7M PDF).

More renderings from the One Charlestown filing:

Proposed One Charlestown project
Proposed One Charlestown project
Proposed One Charlestown project
Proposed One Charlestown project
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Comments

"Some 600 of the new units the developers plan to pay for the project will be sold as condominiums, with 78 of those designated as "workforce" units sold to people making no more than the area median income."....The "area median income" in Charlestown is incredibly high. These developments in Boston are destroying the lower class & will soon take it's toll on the middle class. Why is this city only looking out for the upper middle / upper class....

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It's the Boston metro area. That might be ruling out many people as well, but it's not like they're basing it just on people who live in those harbor condos.

Also possibly worth noting is that the project means a complete replacement of the current 1,100-unit housing project with 1,100 new apartments at no cost to the city.

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It'll be mixing them into much more income stratified buildings.

The big problem with projects as they were envisioned in the 40s and 50s are that they segregated groups of low income people from the rest of the city. Creating ghettos in everything but name was terrible for everyone who couldn't live in an ivory tower.

Reintegrating low income into actual neighborhoods does wonders for the economy, lowers crime, and provides opportunity.

This sounds like a really good partnership where everyone can potentially win.

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How so? Subsidizing housing stock increase the price of the non-subsidized stock actually pushing a large group out the the market entirely.

Please site a source....

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Your word salad, if I understand it, is making a very strong statement. Provide some evidence for that strong statement. It is yours to prove.

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You can start with Wikipedia given that all this is so shockingly new to you (we are talking decades-long successes here): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-income_housing

You should also CITE your sources for your suppositions about increasing prices - particularly since there are an EQUAL NUMBER of subsidized units as there have been in the past in this development.

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of an existing public housing development. The costs increasing due to subsidized housing is a non-starter because this development is only being built pursuant to the requirement that there be a 1:1 replacement of those public housing units. As is standard for these types of projects, replacement of the existing units is covered by including subsidized units for existing families to move back into and then making up the difference in vouchers.

See: Washington Beech, Old Colony Phases I & II

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Another good example (and what HOPE VI is based off of) is Columbia Point. One could only wish that they did something similar for the Bromley-Heath projects.

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The income restricted housing is only the long term reachable housing for residents, and those are only a smaller number.

The developers will still probably make a bunch of money because this isn't a true affdble housing development where there are limits on revenues or profits.

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Why didn't East Boston do the same with the Maverick Projects!, upscale shops with luxury project units..
We all know Charlestown is for the elite, but there should be some equal balance in Boston neighborhoods, It's not fair for neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Brighton and the rest of Bostons low income project housing. It really isn't fair...

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The BHA has been slowly revamping all its projects. As a Roslindale resident, I could just as easily ask why they re-did Washington-Beech but not Archdale.

In the meantime, take a deep breath and think about the fact that the people who live in Bunker Hill now are living in some of the oldest BHA units in the city.

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Should do the same with Cathedral and Villa Victoria in South End.

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So love to work on this design. :-)!

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Want to move into this design. By the time they build this out, the nest will be pretty empty.

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It's all taller than the surrounding buildings, according to their own documents.

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So it's taller than the surroundings. If we never built anything taller than what was existing, we'd still live in huts.

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Strawman. The scale of the new buildings relative to the neighborhood is still important.

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The buildings can't be any taller than the tallest structure in the neighborhood.

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Still a strawman argument.

We know, you think this is going to lower your rents so you don't have to leave. It's not.

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a) I don't live in Charlestown

b) we need a concerted effort to build a lot of housing to keep housing prices somewhat in check. This is a decent start.

The region is growing and not everyone wants to drive 'til you qualify. How do you propose increasing the supply of urban housing, hmm?

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There are many regions where expanding the housing supply has not reduced home prices. This area is one of them, because there isn't enough space. Then you have to consider the added burden that all that growth creates on everything else. Some affordable housing can help, but just adding to the supply is not a viable strategy. Housing prices will continue to climb with demand, and that doesn't change just because there's more construction.

Also, people already living in some of these places deserve consideration when large developments are being proposed near them.

Your solution more or less doesn't change the high prices. It does make it much more crowded.

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michaelcohensayswho.gif

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Not everything needs to be taller than the those before it to prevent housing that's too small.

Your post is irrelevant.

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Is your house taller than this?

IMAGE(http://www.stexboat.com/vac_2012/v2012_09_a_Wampanoag_village_3.jpg)

If so, you are hypocritically illogical.

Besides, as Ari points out and the site plan shows (for those who have spent time in this area of the city) that the roadways leading to the Tobin Bridge are the tallest thing in the area. If you are not familiar with the area and looked at a 2-d map, you wouldn't get this simple fact. That approach structure forms a big wall of backdrop behind the tall end of the development.

So either you haven't spent much time in this area, or you have selectively ignored the roadway and bridge approach structures that abut this development and dominate the boundary of the entire neighborhood in your quest to whine about building heights.

Having worked in that area for several years, buildings blocking out the rusty steel skeleton would be a welcome improvement.

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You apparently think that the answer to bulk is even more bulk. The residents have different concerns about that than someone who claims to have worked there for a few years.

You are either completely unaware of the size of the housing their now, and it's much smaller, or believe that somehow blocking off the area even more is the solution to something that you consider undesirable.

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1. I think you have no idea of what that area is like, and may never have been there

2. I think you haven't bothered to look at the proposal and how the massing changes to match the surroundings at the periphery

3. I think you like your suburban existence and cannot fathom not imposing that concept of land use on everything everywhere.

I say this as:

1. someone who worked in that area for several years

2. someone who commutes through the area on a bike almost daily

3. someone who is actually quite interested in living in this new development when my children fledge

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1. It's currently largely multifamily.

2. If you actually looked, the proposals are almost largely taller than what's there now and the surroundings. Blocking off even more views for the rest of the neighborhood to try to block off views or something you find ugly is a rather hamfisted way to make an area look better.

3. It's not even really a suburban neighborhood now, so that doesn't even make sense, never mind that you are unnecessarily rude in all your assertions

Riding a bike through, and working in a neighborhood for a few years, is not the same as living there.

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Not everything needs to be taller than the those before it

Who in this entire thread has suggested that? No one, which is ironic coming from someone who loves accusing others of straw men.

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Multiple people have suggested if we haven't kept building larger, then people would be living huts. That pretty well fits the definition, and that's the sentiment that the post was replying to.

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As if there's never a situation where making things larger isn't always the best solution.

Just making things larger without and kind of restrictions doesn't make more for desirable places.

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Spending billions to continue the cycle of welfare. Put a time limit on people to live in the projects. People down on their luck? By all means, get in an apartment and use the low rent as a means to save money and transition to a home that isn't publicly subsidized and make room for the next guy down on his/her luck. Yes, my family once lived in public housing.

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Sounds like your have been insulated for many decades. Count your blessings that you won't have to discover the assumption errors in your advice empirically.

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After your done coming up with a time frame for kicking out retired people, start working on the disabled vets. I'm sure your plan will be warmly embraced by all.

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Looks like 13 new blocks, not 13 new streets, right? You could say extensions to five streets, I think?

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The street names change every block or two, like the rest of the city, so they use that number.

Source: my asshole.

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strawman

You've made your point: Everything you disagree with is a strawman argument. You don't have to keep making that point. You can if you like, but I have a delete checkbox and I'm not afraid to use it.

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