Six-story apartment building proposed for Roslindale would have easy walk to supermarket and Chinese buffet

I guess. Pretty far walk through.

It is near what is, I think, Roslindale's only parking garage- that random two floor structure between Cummins and the end of American Legion. I assume that's for the apt. building across ALH?

with the ghosts in front of the building and on the balconies. Not sure about the ghost riding the bicycle through the shrubbery, though, narrowly avoiding a collision with the two other ghosts walking their bicycles along the sidewalk...

Because I've been having difficulty keeping up with development in this general area, but isn't this the housing proposal that has been hashed out ad infinitum between the neighborhood and the developer. I'm assuming that this is the final product, and I wish them the best with it.

That said, saying that this is near Roslindale Square is a bit of a stretch. Kind of like when realtors note that houses in Hyde Park are "minutes away from the highway." I mean, an hour is 60 minutes.

The reason their test drills found sand and boulders is because this is the entrance and edge of the former Barry's Quarry, also known as Barry's Ledge. The boulders they encountered may not be natural.

Up through the mid-1960s, the section of American Legion Highway (ALH) from the fire station to Hyde Park Ave did not exist, nor did the Stop & Shop Plaza. When the former quarry land was obtained in the mid-1960s, much of the quarry pit was filled with stone and gravel to create the flat surface on which the plaza now sits. None of those stores have a basement. The incline up ALH from the fire station to the plaza level is lined with some very neatly placed retaining wall boulders. These were installed during the construction of the roadway to shore-up the land above. It is this land on which the apartment complex is proposed to be built. I hiked all of this as a child and watched all of this being built. The proposal needs to look at the construction history of the roadway.

As with any structure built on ledge rock, I'd be concerned that there was mitigation for radon gas which is known to exude from some ledge rock areas. Radon is a known carcinogen and requires testing and ventilation.

The garage is for the apartments at the fire station. They charge extra for parking there per my understanding.

Wilmot Street is known to flood and while there was some drainage mitigation they may need to look at how changes in the land might precipitate changes in drainage.

The statement that there are buses is questionable. The #30 does have a stop right there, no question on that but the schedule is limited. Also worth noting that the #30 is also a "snow route" bus meaning when the weather is bad and snow makes Cummins slippery, the bus route is annulled until the roads are cleared.

However the stop for the #14 is back at the shopping plaza and close to the Walgreen's end of things. The next-nearest stop is on ALH by the Home for Little Wanderers. The #14 is also not a frequent service and is also annulled during snow concerns on Cummins. While the MBTA has a planned route around the hill, it is almost never used. They wait for the road to be plowed and salted and deemed safe.

While the walk to Hyde Park Ave is not that bad, the #32 bus is already packed in the mornings by the time it gets to Cummins often bypassing people. Suggestions that this is convenient to public transit is just a plain stretch of the description. Ask anyone that boards a bus there. Sure we can advocate for more bus service there but this problem has existed for at least a decade or more. No fix all of that time. What is the expectation that a new nearby apartment complex will see change? No faith there.

Summary. Good luck. And no, I'd not want to live there. I know to much about the geology. There's been plenty of opportunity to build there since the late 1960s. Why now? Did earlier developers know something?

Forty-nine units and only six are affordable? This is why Roslindale is no longer accessible to working families. This kind of development is driving up prices for both sales and rentals and shutting out middle-income people. I am not thrilled that the "value" of my house is double what it was when I bought it eleven years ago because both the taxes and the insurance have gone way up. People who want to live here long-term don't need high-priced development and inflated property values. We need stability in our neighborhood. High prices are only good for investors, such as absentee landlords, developers, and house flippers, most of whom have no interest or concern for the community.

I agree that we need more housing in Roslindale, but it needs to be affordable for middle- and low-income people. Many years ago, before I had the means to become a homeowner, I lived for five years in High Point Village (now called something pretentious like "Stony Brook Commons"), back when it was federally subsidized. My family was able to afford to live there, even thought we were struggling financially. If we don't want our neighborhood to turn into an elite enclave, we need to have a variety of housing options, so that people of all income levels can live here. We like to brag that Roslindale is diverse, but at this rate it won't be that way for long.