The Newton Tab reports that a developer has bought the old Engine 6 firehouse in Waban and will be building three luxury condos there.
The Engine 6 property was at the center of a contentious fight this past year. MetroWest and Pine Street Inn had teamed up on a plan to build housing for the chronically homeless in the Engine 6 site. After very vocal objections from many of the Waban neighbors at two public meetings, the mayor pulled the plug on the city’s $1.4 million share of the project’s budget last June.
Of course
Just what Newton needs, more luxury condos, what a disgusting and spoiled and rotten city. A great housing program was halted for luxury condos. Have a conscience Newton.
Actually Frank – you can thank Mayor Warren for all of this. I am sure his campaign Contributors in Waban are much happier with Luxury Condos than with housing for the chronically homeless.
Actually, I do thank Mayor Warren for this. I want Newton to be a pleasant place to live and for children to grow up in. The original project was ill-conceived and potentially harmful to the neighborhood. It was promoted by an Alderman, Hess-Mahan, who cares more about his bleeding-heart liberal causes, like bringing a detainee at Guantanamo to Newton, than the citizens of Newton whom he represents. Newton should not be an experiment in social engineering.
Regardless of the merits/demerits of the previous plan, which seemed to me grossly mishandled on the city’s part, from my few years in Newton I know to expect that the future reactions to the luxury condos will include:
“Three new housing units? But that might mean more children in our overcrowded schools! Because somehow we can’t figure out how to accommodate modest growth! Or long-term planning! And more traffic – at least the homeless were less likely to have cars! And get those kids off of my lawn!”
“Old Engine 6? It’s old?! Then it must be historic and preserved exactly as is – or better yet as was! Even though we don’t know what we would use it for!”
Yes – hyperbole, and a bit of tweaking. Newton is nice, but very whiny and somewhat dysfunctional.
The original proposal was actually very well conceived, and would have been run by professionals with a great deal of experience in their field. But that is over now, no need to re-hash it. I am just happy that the Hospice of the Good Shepherd finally sold the property before it put them in financial jeopardy. And I secretly harbor the hope that each of the 3 condos will house many loud and ill behaved children for the neighbors to contend with, and too many cars than can possibly fit onto that property!! Ahhhh, I didn’t really say that out loud, did I?!!
I’m pretty sure the term “luxury condo” refers to every condo ever built. If this had not been a site involved in a mayoral race controversy, no one at all would object to three people/couples living in Waban for less than the going rate (ie., millions!) Good for them!
Any word on whether potential buyers of these luxury condos will be screened for mental illness, drug or alcohol abuse or sex crimes? That seemed to be really important last time around.
I agree completely with Max. This turn of events for Engine 6 is unfortunate.
@Max – 😉
I work for Paul Sullivan Housing, Pine Street’s housing division, and I thought this was a non-starter from the moment I first caught wind of it. Of all of the locations to try to locate one of our homes, Waban would dead-last on my list; too much resident pushback, poor location for access to services, shopping, transportation. I did say as much, but unfortunately, no one listened to me.
Place this in close proximity to Newton Corner, and I doubt anyone would even notice. But Waban? Oh, boy.
Christopher, I would be interested in your assessment of the Engine 6 parcel of land being a suitable location without the “too much resident pushback” factor.
Patrick – (mind you, these are merely my own opinions, not anything official from my employers) when dealing with the population we do, location is key. Ideally, these properties should be in a more urban or semi-urban setting (they tend to do quite well there), close to shopping, services, transportation, hospitals, and with a city-wise set of neighbors who, as long as no serious incident occurs, will not mind nor care if one of our houses are located there.
Waban is rather the precise obverse of this. My opinion was, that the Waban site would isolate the residents to a great degree, everything would be at a much greater distance away, and about the only thing going for the site was the close proximity to Newton-Wellesley.
Christopher, thank you for your comments. I understand they are yours and not that of your employer. I am not hoping to reopen the conversation about the site to a general discussion since we know there are people on both sides of the topic, and I do not expect that to change.
I ask for my own education. I wanted to understand from your more experienced position how the professionals assess the issues of infrastructure and community acceptance. I would say both are needed to make for a successful location. In my opinion, Engine 6 had not enough of either.
Christopher – thank you for saying this. Those of us who made the same points not having to do with resident push-back were attacked on the blog for being anti-homeless, anti-disabled snobs who really just didn’t want Waban polluted (which I’m not, and I don’t live in Waban). It’s nice to be validated by someone who works in this area.
Patrick – being intimately familiar with the area, when I heard of the plan, I said, “oh, no, that will never work,” for the reasons I’d mentioned. There’s an ideal place for everything, and I just could not see this working in that location.
Mgwa – yes, I’d read some of the commentary on this idea in the Newton Tab and some of the Newton Blogs, and heard all of the predictable responses. Seriously, had we actually gotten this up and running, I cannot see my employers putting anything but the best of the best there, probably well-vetted retired/elderly, which may well have worked, save for the more than average incidence of EMS, etc., for medical situations.
Also, every property we run has a resident manager and staff most of the rest of the time (Case Management, Counselors, etc.), so the residents would not have been just left to their own devices.
I found the entire thing a bit ironic, having grown up in Newton. I was honestly hoping my bosses wouldn’t have pitched me to be the property manager due to familiarity. I really wasn’t keen on the idea, all things considered. Imagine if an incident actually occurred, and there I would be, making excuses and apologies to people I probably grew up with.
As I said, above, confirmed by Christopher, the project was ill-conceived, and the bleeding heart liberals in Newton can think of only using the resources of the imagined 1% who may reside in Waban to advance the causes that they personally believe in, and then insult them when it doesn’t work out. What a sad lot of people, like Shawn Fitzgibbons who wrote that stupid column in the TAB, that received so much pushback.
@Baryy Cohen – “using the resources of the 1%” ?????
Jerry,
You know what I mean. It’s fashionable under the Obama/Elizabeth Warren perspective to resent seemingly wealthier people who appear not to want to help those less fortunate. It’s a political weapon that has been infused into the sheep we call the voting public who will believe anything if you say it often enough and find an object for them to hate.
Remember what Frank said that I kind of first commented on much earlier.
“Just what Newton needs, more luxury condos, what a disgusting and spoiled and rotten city. A great housing program was halted for luxury condos. Have a conscience Newton.”
Well, ill-conceived due to poor choice of location, not the intent behind it. As I’d mentioned, a different, more urban-like location would have worked far, far better.
And, the emphasis has changed in the last several years in this field, that the real push is now to house people, not warehouse them. So, for what it’s worth, you will likely hear of future projects just like this.
Christopher, I don’t disagree. But, the location was really stupid.
Second, I’m kind of appalled at the amount of money it takes to house a few people. I don’t exactly remember the cost of this project, but it was some millions, as I recall. Most of us live on a lot less. How is the cost justified? I mean, we taxpayers pay for it, in one or another of the various taxes we pay.
Barry – I suspect the location was less about “hey, it’s Waban!” but more about it had become available and was owned/run by another non-profit we have links to. So when it became available, they jumped at the chance, location notwithstanding. Hard to say, I am not in the loop on these higher-level decisions, but I think I’ve seen this happen enough times, I believe I’m correct.
Property values being what they are, well, it automatically costs a great deal of money right up front. And just like a property management company – which we essentially are – we have staff, a maintenance department, upkeep – and the rehab costs (as we never merely acquire a property “as is” and leave it like that) can be pretty pricey themself. I can say that when we rehab a property, it is literally gutted right down to a hollow shell, and then they go to to town re-doing it.
So basically, for any given property, we’re already looking at several million in up-front costs, before a single tenant moves in.
Interestingly, a lot of the “Rehouse, not Warehouse” emphasis is the realization that it actually costs more to warehouse than house. Particularly when you look at the longer-range stuff with respect to the formerly homeless. Warehousing, and it is very difficult to get back on your feet, obtain work, and begin to pay taxes again. Housed, it becomes far easier to put your affairs back into order.
The thing that really get’s me about the entire narrative is, most people really have no clue about thye homeless. Thety are not, to contradict various pundits, people who want to be homeless and ended up same due to alcohol or drug abuse. Far from it, in my experience. I’d say the proportion is about 40% substance abuse, 40% previously incarcerated (with overlap between these two categories, of course), and 20% average people who lost everything due to no fault of their own. I knew a guy who ended up at the Veteran’s Shelter in downtown, and he was a Network Engineer with an income in the low six figures. Messy divorce, lost his job…but he put himself right back onto his feet though, not a bad outcome I’d say. Wish there were more like that. Or another who worked high-level corporate admin contracts, and from the instant he walked out of the shelter, you could not distinguish him from a Broker at Fidelity.
A surprising field to work in, my “retirement” carer. Still miss the tech world though. Tech. is so much easier to deal with in most ways.
And I clearly cannot type well this morning. Apologies.
Christopher, thanks for sharing your perspective. It’s not one that is often heard from on this blog. And you’re probably right about Newton Corner, where I live. We’ve had a couple of group homes and transitional homes within two blocks for years without disruption and little notice. Plus the Y houses some of the same clientele.
There are also corners of other villages where you have some group homes hidden away. They are easy walking distance to the T and shops, which makes a huge difference. If you have people with disabilities (as was planned for Engine 6), you want the location to be within a very short distance (couple of blocks) of T services (and, of course, ones that don’t require climbing stairs).
I’m a little late to the dance here but this is clearly comment of the week, if not longer.
Yup, Greg, stupid comment of the week, if you mean the one by Max. Totally irrelevant.