On Wednesday, Oct. 30at 6:30 p.m . in the Newton North High School Cafeteria the Alderman from Ward 2 in collaboration with the Department of Planning and Development will cohost a community meeting regarding possible future development on the Austin Street Municipal Parking Lot in Newtonville. The doors for viewing the displays of the six developers will open at 5:30p.m. and presentations will begin at 6:30 p.m. Questions can be sent in advance of the meeting to [email protected]. Additional information can be found on the City’s website, www.newtonma.gov/austinstreet .
Austin Street meeting Oct. 30
by Village 14 | Oct 23, 2013 | Newton | 27 comments
Please Please PLEASE come to this meeting. I’d advice looking on the website, looking at the proposals, and coming with some questions.
If Greg is willing to push the post up, I’d be happy to post some of my questions.
Yes, for those living quite close to Austin St in Newtonville Square, this development deserves your attention, as it may affect the livability of the village.
That’s not a knock on the project, but there are 6 different developers with plans for the area, and while there are virtues to all, there are weaknesses too, and citizens have the opportunity to help sort out what’s good and what’s not.
The timing is unfortunate. I hope they will have a second session due to most of Newton focusing on sports vs. Austin St.
Greg, can you repost this to the top?
How the project is situated on the lot could open up new connections and expand the village. I hope there’s a potential to develop the back of the Walnut Street businesses facing (the southern part of) Bram Way. I barely had time to skim the proposals, but most seemed to orient towards Austin Street and Starbucks, with parking in the back. B’nai Brith seemed to get this right…
Thanks Greg. Please folks come to this meeting. Game doesn’t start until 8!
Apparently the Q&A session doesn’t start until 9. This can’t really be how this was organized, right? One meeting, for 3 hours, during a World Series game? The Q&A is the whole reason for having the session!
Anyone know who to call to convince them to have another meeting?
I agree that the timing of this meeting is not ideal, in order to maximize opportunity for public input.
I got to see the display boards before the meeting. I had not previously seen any of these proposals, and I was really quite stunned by the volume of proposed buildings and how very urban they look. One developer described their company’s design as something that will really “fill in” a “gap” in an urban landscape, and indeed I could see any one of these projects in an urban landscape. I just don’t see Newtonville as an urban landscape.
If I didn’t have to work tonight I would have gone to this meeting instead of watching World Series, but I know I’m weird.
Lisap, I agree. None of the projects seem appropriate for the site.
Can anyone imagine the parking lot in Newton Centre? Just think if Setti considered an urban structure for that site. Few people who live in that area would approve of such a development.
The dynamics of parking in Newtonville have shifted quite a bit in the past year or two.
Over the course of a week my family often frequents a dozen businesses there (Rox, Brewers, Aji, CVS, BoA, UPS, Bread and Chocolate, Starbucks, Froyo, Newtonville Pets, Diva). Many of these are 5 min errands. A few years ago you’d often park on Walnut in most trips. Now, due in part to the success of the great new restaurants, more often than not you head to Austin St, which is fine.
If the whole area gets squeezed (lost Shaw’s parking, more limited Austin St parking, more residents, more businesses) to the point that you need to circle and search for parking, convenience trips could head elsewhere, and some of these small businesses may suffer.
Colleen you are so right – it would never fly in Newton Center and it shouldn’t in Newtonville either.
But I am sure that the Mayor will wait till after the 5th and then put in a HUGE development in Newtonville which will ruin it in many of the ways that Jack has described. And lets also consider that NNHS is just a block away – many students park in that Lot – so what is going to happen to that?
fignewtonville, I was unable to stay for the presentations and Q&A because I had promised to attend the candidates’ forum at the Emerson Community Center held by the Newton Highlands, Upper Falls and Waban area councils last night. The Mayor chooses the project, so if you want another meeting you should call his office.
I have felt from the beginning that this process was deeply flawed because, after a very public process for the proposed reuse and rezoning of the property for a mixed-use development, the evaluation and selection process has been entirely nonpublic. The Mayor’s decision presumably will be based on the results of the evaluation performed by the evaluation team, which–according to the city website–will not become public until after the process is complete. By that point, it is too late for the public to influence the shape of the project in any significant way. By contrast, when the city builds a new school, the Designer Selection Committee and Design Review Committee conduct their business in an open meeting and public comment is permitted.
This project will require a special permit. Based on my ten years’ experience on the Board of Aldermen, eight years on the Land Use Committee, and four years as Chairman of Land Use, during which the Board reviewed and unanimously approved two of the largest projects ever to be built in Newton, I firmly believe that more public participation would make this a better process and promote a better outcome.
Who is on the evaluation team? I hope it does not have any of the people responsible for the poor design of Newton Centre and subsequent traffic problems.
By the way, what is the big push for dense housing in a village center? We who live in Newtonville want convenient services and parking. We don’t crave crowded living conditions which lower the quality of life in the village.
Is Setti wants more development why doesn’t he consider the large lot behind city hall?
To maximize public input, we would have postponed last night’s meeting to a night when it was not competing with Game 6 of the World Series. Ideally we would also have videotaped the meeting for those who couldn’t be there in person.
From 6 months of door knocking from end to end of Ward 2, I can speak with some authority that there is more interest in the outcome of this process than was demonstrated by the attendance at the meeting last night.
They didn’t video the meeting? That’s just dumb – unless they really, really don’t want the public to know what they are planning to do. Or, maybe they don’t want the public to know what they are really planning until AFTER the election. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
Every last one of these developments looked like it would fit very nicely in a downtown, urban setting, i.e. Boylston or Washington Street in Boston. I understand the rational for placing residential units close to public transportation. What I have a hard time imagining though, is how much foot traffic this project will generate for the first floor commercial businesses, especially with so little public parking, and how many businesses will be willing to invest in this location without assurances of good customer parking. Newtonville has already seen so many vacant store fronts. How does adding so much commercial space while eliminating parking create an attractive commercial area?
@ lisap, actually two of the 6 plans are quite modest by comparison, with 25 and 36 residential units respectively.
If the project is chosen and developed wisely, it has the potential to galvanize Newtonville. And this from someone who lives literally a stone’s throw from Brewer’s Coalition and Rox Diner.
Remarkably the 25 unit project is 100% made up of affordable housing units. [Please note that affordable housing does not mean Section 8 housing]. This may not be the project selected, of course, since there’s quite a number of variables to be considered..
@Dan, No doubt there were differences in the proposals, but I was really responding to what I perceived as the gestalt of what the city is planning to do there. The developers consistently used the Masonic Temple building as a benchmark for height, but not for scale or volume. I found myself looking at the drawings and unable to corelate those depictions with the space as I experience it on the ground. It was somewhat like looking at an advertisement for a swimming pool where the manufacturer uses tiny people to make the pool look very big, except that these drawings seemed to depict Austin Street and the surrounding businesses in scale larger than I perceive them in reality. Again, I wish I had more time to spend there and to some degree I am sharing a visceral reaction. Again, I had no expectations of what I was going to see so this is my first impression.
@lisap, I get that; it was my first impression too, and some did seem outsized. But closer examination, buttressed by the presentations, and one on one discussions afterwards, we’re very helpful in recognizing substantive differences from one to another. I’d say all could be improved, and are likely to be, if feedback keeps coming in.
Obviously there will be a balancing act here, where citizen preferences, developer goals and city needs must be melded.
Let’s not pretend though that the Newtonville of today can’t use some spicing up, and this is an opportunity to do that.
So what is there definition of affordable housing ? Not Section 8 so what is it?
The entire parking area could be spiced up in an environmentally friendly way. Gardens, trees, benches could provide a wonderful setting and draw more people to the area.
If the mayor’s goal is to create new housing which provides an additional tax base then he is sacrificing the greater good of the community to achieve this end.
As Lisap points out, this site is not suitable for dense housing. Parking would be restricted. Residents would be forced to use street parking for extra cars and for visitor parking.
This would make access to the village for everyone else most difficult, especially during winter storm/snow buildup.
I should add Great Harvest and Lapels into the list above.
Moving to Newton years ago, I thought we were moving to a large city and a great school district, but I was surprised to find how much of daily life the Walnut Street shops have evolved to attend to (within walking distance), and the community connections that come out of that. It has four too many banks and a few other business than I personally don’t need, and it could be beautified quite a bit, but its good.
I attended all the presentations. The crowd was quite large given the competition but, subtracting out the politicians and the developers, it dwindled quite a bit in terms of residents at the night wore on. It was not an opportunity for resident input or comment.
There are diverse and competing objectives in play in the project and numerous stakeholders. All are at risk of being worst than the status quo. Each presentation had a bias towards a subset of the objectives. In some cases the developers stated priorities eloquently that their actual proposals did not appear to prioritize.
I think the typical Newtonville resident was blindsided by this and the Mayor’s and other government official’s legacies will be defined by how well they handle the situation and balance objectives for the long term benefit of the community.
Jack, I am surprised that you want a village feel yet choose to bank at BofA instead of Newton’s only community bank. The village has far too many banks for you? Yet only one is a property owner, a taxpayer, and is one that takes in deposits here and lends it back out here, and donates to many local nonprofits! Only one has been a community partner for over a century. Shop Local, Eat Local, Bank Local, as our Chamber of Commerce says.
So why is the Mayor being secretive about this?? I wonder if we were looking at doing this project in Waban in the Parking Lot near the T station if we would have had last nights meeting canceled and the Project put on indefinite hold? Or if we were doing this in the Parking Lot in Newton Center if he would have allowed for more community Participation?
Colleen, it is very unlikely that plantings or benches would make a difference unless you are willing to sacrifice part of the parking. I have a few points to make about short term vs long term concerns:
1) Short term, I think the main issue in my mind is parking and loss of that parking during construction. I think that can be fixed with some imagination, although I acknowledge that the merchants in the village are bound to take a short term hit unless this is handled correctly.
2) Short term: The process to pick the developer seems flawed and disorganized. I’m not a fan of Ted’s approach either, since I think the length of the process he advocates is too long. But there had to be a better way than what we’ve seen. I think for future projects we need stronger leadership from earlier in the process.
3) That said, we are where we are. We have multiple proposals, and at this point I still believe developing our village centers is a GOOD thing. I was disappointed with the overall quality of the designs however. A few of them looked to be trying to meld with the Shaw’s building vs. the architecture of the rest of the village. Some of them looked like concrete blocks with large windows and were completely lacking in charm. Some of them overwhelmed the site. I’d rather have an additional floor and larger setbacks. And I’d like the developers to focus on MORE than just parking, but also how the project looks. It should blend in with the village.
4) One minor point, are the various projects going to bury the utilities lines in the front of the site? Having wired poles in front crowds the entire site and the rest of the village center doesn’t have them. That should be a given and DOES NOT COUNT AS A COMMUNITY BENEFIT, NOR DOES THE REDO OF SIDEWALKS OR BRAM WAY.
5) Speaking of community benefit, I was disappointed that some of the developers had misled or downsized their financial commitment to the village for the site. We should set $1,000,000 as a minimum payment to the City for the site, NOT including other benefits such as affordable housing, gardens, site improvements, new parking lots, parking lot rental income, etc. Some of the games played on this issue are kind of ridiculous. $1,000,000 or more, all of which goes to improve the village. This site has real value, and even affordable housing sites pay for the land on which they are built.
6) Long term: Parking. I’m less concerned with this than others. 85 spaces combined with additional parking opportunities on side streets should be sufficient. Folks WILL adjust, and Newtonville has more parking by far than any other village (except Newton Centre, which is FAR larger)
7) Long term: apartments vs. rentals: I’d like to focus on the school impact here. Can someone more knowledgable than I give data on comparable projects and the number of school kids currently enrolled. Surely there are comparable projects in Brookline and in Newton, for instance. Ted, Greg, Aldercritters? Anyone? I’ve love a breakdown for rentals, condos, and bedroom size. For instance, two of the large projects differ in that one is all rentals one is all apartments. Does the one to two bedroom apartments attract school kids despite the size? This is a key factor for me on the larger projects.
8) Long term: Walnut street redo. These two projects are connected. Are we getting funds to redo the sidewalks and streetlamps from the Walnut redo? Are they going to narrow the road and take away the middle lane? Dan Fahey is right, Newtonville could use a revitalization. This is our once in a generation chance to do it with these two projects. But we need to work together and have the two project teams work together to make it happen. Folks should come to the meeting on Walnut that is coming up (I’m sure Greg and company will advertise it.)
Ok, those are my thoughts. Back to football.