What would you like to see at the Austin Street Municipal Parking lot?
As promised, the city is organizing the first of many meetings to share ideas about the Austin Street Lot, now that a developer has been chosen and as work begins on coming up with the right design.
The “Envisioning the Austin Street Municipal Parking Lot Input Session” will be held on Tuesday, June 24, 2014, 7:30 8 p.m. at the War Memorial at Newton City Hall Newton North.
Austin Street Partners, the recently selected development team, Mayor Warren and other city officials will also be present. Participants will have an opportunity to provide input.
Of course, you don’t have to wait to share your views. Just click comments and we can have a conversation here.
The strategy of having a little non-affordable housing, a little parking, a little affordable housing, and a little retail is a mistake. This space is perfect for no housing. We can put housing elsewhere.
Here is my vision. I think there should be underground parking, retail on the first floor, and office space on the upper floors. Commercial space has the benefit of high property taxes, while not adding extra students to our stretched schools. Office space uses more parking during the day, and little at night. Office employees can shop at lunchtime or after work, which would help local businesses. The parking space would available after 5PM for shoppers and restaurant diners.
I agree with what Jeffrey Pontiff had to say.
His post crystallized everything I want to say about Austin Street at this moment in time.
Looks like a great place for a drive-in. (Featuring Groundhog Day)
Housing in a village center is a perfect choice. Newton’s senior citizens are looking to downsize from the homes where they have raised their families, yet they want to stay in the city. But they need smaller, one-floor living, and an ease of living that cannot be found in a single family home. They will not burden the schools. The last thing that this city needs is more office space. And the idea of attracting more cars during the day and less at night makes no sense whatsoever.
Mixed use does make sense here. With appropriate balance among the various pieces.
In addition to appealing to the senior set, these units would also likely appeal to young graduates without families yet. Both components are less apt to adversely affect the schools as long as most units are limited as to bedrooms.
An interesting approach as to selecting the developer first, and then bringing the community, the city and the developer together to fashion a win/win/win development.
Here are two indisputable facts. The first fact is that the number of students that a commercial building will send to Newton Public Schools is zero. A development with housing will never send fewer students to NPS than an all commercial development. We can hope that one bedroom or two bedroom units won’t increase pressure on the schools, but I can give you plenty of real life counter examples of one and two bedroom developments that increase NPS attendance. Second, the incremental tax income from commercial space is greater than residential space. The take away from these two facts is that an all commercial development will never send more kids to NPS and always generates more tax revenue.
The policy question is whether or not the purported benefit of having the city rearrange the housing supply outweighs the cost of having more pressure on our schools and the cost of having less tax revenue.
Jeffrey — While it’s a given the commercial tax rates are higher per assessed valuation, are there examples where the tax bill is higher for commercial than the comparably sized residential space?
Hoss,
Great question. I did not think about that, and I should have. If I get time, I will try to pull up the Newton Assessor’s database and look at some comparisons.
In the meantime, I spoke with a commercial real estate broker who told me downtown commercial and residential property has very similar per square foot valuations.
In Newton, commercial space is assessed at $23.18 per thousand of assessed value, whereas residential is assessed at $12.12. An all residential Austin Street would have to be valued at twice that of an all commercial Austin Street for the all residential building to bring in more revenue. This seems like a stretch.
Jeffrey — I don’t know this answer either. It just seemed that condo space, for example, is very pricy in Newton and it doesn’t seem to matter what floor you’re on. I generally don’t like the idea of an entity making charitable donations unless it’s a net plus economically. Newton made a charitable donation w respect to energy credits — we pay more for the “green” label. If we’re making economic decisions on something other than economics, I’d like a chance to vote on the individual proposals.
I believe the city is committed to mixed use where possible, and by definition that means we won’t always be maximizing revenue from a project.
And having more housing stock is a laudable goal.
It’s all about balance.
I think Jeff is making better points than Hoss or Dan Fahey here.
Unfortunately, Fahey doesn’t seem to realize that calling this project “mixed use” is giving it more credit than it is due. The project has maybe 10% commercial by sq footage. This project is really a large housing complex with a perfunctory amount of commercial.
“This project is really a large housing complex with a perfunctory amount of commercial.”
Is this necessarily bad, Joshua?
Mr. Fahey makes excellent points. Unlike an area zoned as an office park, this proposal is for a vibrant village center, and at least some people feel there is a need for certain types of housing. It’s not all about maximizing revenue. It’s about city planning. Though revenue is a big factor and I would hope we see various options presented along with their trade-offs. One of the goals I recall hearing was bringing more people into the village center at night. Offices generally don’t do that.
And even if the commercial piece is 10% on a square footage basis, that means 20% on a revenue basis.
And to the extent that there are 80 units or thereabouts, all rental, that’s 80 that count as affordable housing on the state’s formula basis.
I’m not reaching a great comfort point where Messrs Pontiff and Fahey agree that commercial gets us exactly twice the annuity revenue as residential. While I still distrust that assumption and would like for Newton to foster it’s own — ie. provide nice housing at the right price for anyone that’s lived here and would like to retain a Newton relation, particularly older folks and others now living alone. Newton City Hall must have done the basic analysis — that attracting the likes of Amazon, Yahoo! and various biotechs gets us a net present value of “x” and housing those that might otherwise be housed in Waltham, West Rox or Watertown nets us “y”. If that number is $10 million over 50 years, then I;m fine with that small cost. But what is that number? I;m frankly not at a place that has determined that this costs us anything — but others are. Financials pls. Do residential ideals cost us greatly?
NativeNewtonian, regarding your response, the Austin Street Partners project proposal is bad for Newton because it privatizes profits for developers like Geoff Engler and socializes costs to Newton’s taxpayers in the form of higher school enrollment. We don’t need another Avalon Bay.
Adam,
I am talking about retail on the bottom, just like the current proposal. It will bring just as many people in at night. In fact, since parking at night will me easier, it might bring more in.
Hoss,
“Newton City Hall must have done the basic analysis.” You have a lot of faith. There is a meeting on June 24. I’ll be out of the country. Please ask, “what is the budgeted tax revenue, and how does it compare to the tax revenue from an all commercial building on the same lot.” Then ask, “how many extra students does the city’s model predict will attend NPS.” Please ask these questions, and come back and tell us. I am sure they will also run through the assumptions that they made to get the numbers. Maybe they will give you the spreadsheets, so we can fiddle around with different configurations.
By the way, I agree with people that say it is not all about revenue and cost. That being said, revenue and cost are important considerations.
@Jeffrey: for the record, there is no “current proposal.”
Hoss, beginning with Chestnut Hill Square, the BOA has required a net fiscal impact analysis for major developments. Indeed, the zoning for Riverside specifically required such an analysis as part of the application for a special permit. While the zoning for Austin Street does not appear to require a net fiscal impact analysis, I assume the Land Use chairman and committee will ask for one.
You might also want to review the Stantec study of the Austin Street proposals.
This event has been moved to the Newton North High School Cafeteria.
Let the conspiracy theories begin!
No conspiracy, Greg. The Co-Chairs of the Commission on Disability advised the Planning Department that the War Memorial is not ADA accessible. So the venue was changed to a site that is ADA accessible.
In other news, at a meeting on June 10, the Mayor promised the CoD that the ADA coordinator position (i.e., the staffperson who is supposed to ensure ADA accessibility at public meetings) would be increased from part-time full-time after the previous person left for a full-time position elsewhere. This is something the CoD has been advocating for a long time, and was the subject of a budget resolution I co-sponsored with a number of my colleagues on the BoA.