Mayor Setti Warren’s office has just posted input from the approximately 170 people who attended the “Bingo meeting” about Austin Street held at the Newton North High School Cafeteria last Tuesday.
The input received during the evening can be read here. If you have added comments, you can send them to [email protected] and — naturally — you should comment here on Village 14 too!
Also online is a handout outlining the parking study from GPI (Greenman Pedersen, Inc) conducted in March. (When complete, the full study will be posted as well.)
Go to www.newtonma.gov/austinstreet for even more edge-of-your-seat reading.
Comments suggest that a multi level apartment building is not right for this site.
Colleen:
Comments also suggest the exact opposite. Also comments suggest a senior center, a park, building over the pike, a performance space, a fountain, no underground parking, buying the shaw’s lot, building a green building incubator, no new banks, no new Chinese restaurants, no new fitness centers, no places for HS kids to hang out, no large buildings, no affordable housing, no to just keeping it a parking lot, yes to more commuter spaces, no to more commuter spaces, more public art, more trees, etc.
In other words, if the conclusion you drew from the exercise is your statement, I suggest you may have been looking at the results with blinders on. After reading the comments, I’m more convinced than ever that this process is a failed process, and the mayor is to blame. By reopening the entire process, he wastes hundreds of collective hours from the committee that evaluated the proposals, and hundreds of hours from the applicants. This is just embarrassing.
And worst of all was the discussion with the city on amenities. The money from the sale of the building was SUPPOSED to come back to the village, remember!!!! Now that is not mentioned at all, and when asked at the event, there was very little detail given about how it was supposed to work. I overheard on the city representatives (in charge of the public spaces) mention that the new lighting on Walnut Street and Austin Street will not be antique lighting, and that maybe public fundraising will be needed if folks want that. Are you kidding me? Seriously, this is just embarrassing.
What I see happening is the mayor choosing a compromise approach that makes everything worse. A smaller project with fewer community benefits, no leadership on Walnut Street, and the ability for the mayor to say he got something done. But no long term vision, no attempt to take advantage of the moment to really revitalize Newtonville. But hey, at least the Yoga studio will have parking for its master classes filled with folks from outside the village.
And now that we have “picked” the developer, what is his incentives for making this project great and not merely adequate. What a mess. Can anyone provide a more positive outlook, from either a pro-development or anti-development viewpoint?
fignewtonville — There is a dynamic economic gap between “great” and “adequate”. In terms of the pricing of units, the survey says adequate is fine. Great suggests higher priced units. What aspect of adequate would disappoint you?
@fignewtonville: What would a successful process look like to you? My question is sincere.
Fig-All I can say is that it is a much better process than having an architect walk into an interview with a $200m design for a HS, then refuse to listen when asked to make changes during the so-called design process because it was so obviously over budget. If you want to know frustrating, you should have been around to watch this guy put the city into a $60m hole and have a mayor and BOA say, yeah, sure, looks great to me, go at it. As a result of the NN experience, I’d rather more input than less because of the potential impact on the larger community, and that takes time.
While I completely support this project because I’ve always hated that ugly parking lot, the community has been very clear it wants more input and if there weren’t opportunities for that to happen, other people would be complaining. As one who has worked in the public sector for over 40 years, I probably have more patience for the process and at the same time my husband who worked in the private sector for as many years sees things as you do (get it done, for crying out loud!).
Completing public projects is a really hard, time consuming process. To put it in perspective, in 2006 when the NNHS project was “in process”, several abutters had infants and the joke among us was that these children would probably spend their entire elementary years in the present Cabot School (a truly disgusting and inadequate facility). As it turns out, the joke has become reality. While I agree with you that it’s unacceptable, my response was to get on the phone and do some foot stomping around the community in 2013 so that the next generation of students doesn’t have to learn in an unhealthy building. Please don’t give up. I know it’s frustrating, but we need committed people to stick with the public process.
Hoss:
Actually, I think the choice is in number of units, not pricing. The larger the project, the better the public amenities. This developer will never do 100% affordable housing, he’ll do the minimum 20% required. But with a larger project we SHOULD get larger public benefits. My fear is that the mayor will take the easy way out, and we’ll end up with a non-descript 3 story project with no other benefit to the community.
And Ted, the success process would have started 5 years ago, gotten more community feedback back then, but really I thought the RFP process with a committee focusing on various categories wasn’t a bad way to go. I just thought that the committee should have had final say instead of the mayor. And I would have hoped that the RFP process would have been better organized with shorter timeframes and more community discussion when formulating the RFP.
But let’s be clear about something else, this is NOT how well run cities run their RFP process. You don’t start over once you’ve picked a developer. I have honestly never seen this before on the developer side, and if I was one of the 5 developers, I’d be pretty upset.
@fignewtonville, thanks for your candid response.
I agree that a charrette before the RFP went out would have been the best way to get a project that had broad support based on an open and transparent process and settled expectations for bidding developers and the public alike. Like others, based on my reading of the RFP, I was surprised to learn the city was choosing a developer rather than a project. I think under the procurement laws, the Mayor has to be the decisionmaker and not the evaluation team, which acts in an advisory capacity making a recommendation to the planning director, who in turn makes a recommendation to the Mayor. I believe the evaluators completed their work last summer or fall, so that has not been what slowed the process.
Without a project, I cannot see how the Mayor and the developer arrive at a price for the purchase or lease of the Austin Street lot. So it may be many months before a deal gets made. And I can see how that might be frustrating for the developer. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have known Scott Oran, who is one of the Austin Street Partners, for years and we have discussed the Austin Street proposal since the developer was chosen.)
fignewtonville — Thanks as well. I don’t see a need to subject us to a question of mass and need. You are for both I take it.
Hoss:
There should be a medium that gets the village center some money and yet reduces the height a bit. 4 floors should do it, with at least 1 million in purchase price, IF that money goes back to the village. And floor floors is reasonable for the space. Look around the village. Star market is a 3 story building in overall height. There are multiple 3 story buildings throughout the village, and a 4 story building in the brick building on the corner.
Ted, the city lost credibility with the mayor’s actions. Ask around the developer community. I just don’t understand his lack of leadership on this. I was also struck by the lack of coordination with the Newtonville Alderfolk.
@fignewtonville, I don’t know if you are a developer but I appreciate your insight. I am still hopeful that we can do something special with this project.
The irony, of course, is that the Mayor’s Mixed-Use Task Force had recommended an expedited, streamlined permitting process for the Austin Street lot parcel in order to provide developers with an incentive to bid on the project. The MMUTF proposed a vision of smart growth in village centers that would create “mixed use centers” that promote “excellence in place-making, being great places in which to work, live, shop, recreate, or just visit and be within.” In order to achieve that vision, the MMUTF recommended:
It is always hard to reach complete consensus on any major development in the city. That is not unique to Newton. My question to you, and anyone else who wants to comment, is whether this approach could work if done right? And if so, what could have been or be done differently?
This is a very interesting discussion. Fig’s replies were not what I expected, frankly. He used the term “great” and I thought he was aiming in the direction of architecture, not mass. If we wanted great in terms of a true cornerstone to inspire future improvements. we would have done much better by giving the space to a Google, as example. (yes, giving), allowing them a cut on taxes if needed and saying we only want two things: (1) City Hall to work with you on the building and (2) parking. But now we got a building intended to serve both true 40b Affordable Housing, and Newton’s new creation of affordable rental situations. How do you build something “great” where Newton is so supposedly interested in keeping the price of rents low? A conflict in objectives. On the other hand, compared with the Shaw’s building, anything else will be great in my book.
In terms of process, Fig suggested more community input prior to this point in time. Whatever the input objective is — don’t we risk this developer walking away is we get too silly about process? If they do we’ve exposed that our money goal is very minimal on the consideration scale, so any new bids will undercut the mere $1 million now on the table. But ultimately in terms of process, there needs to be a decision maker and that person should be the Mayor.
I would like to know how the funds in this sale are earmarked, if that are. That kind of thing sets the appropriate precedence.
Ted/Hoss:
I’m not a developer, but I’m very familiar with that community. My view of the parking lot is that it makes sense to develop it, that we can balance the parking concerns with a new building on site. With that as a baseline consideration, my comments on process are based on what I’ve observed from other communities. Even Boston isn’t as bad as Newton. And Boston is very difficult. Newton’s process just feels like a morass; slow, unclear, disorganized and ultimately arbitrary. Good projects don’t tend to come out of such a process. The mixed use task force had it right.
I actually thought the RFP process wasn’t so bad in itself. It laid out standards that could be followed. It got 5 or 6 responses. I thought it should have a higher focus on design. But it hit the big points. And I thought the committee picked to evaluate it was excellent. There was some real in-depth knowledge on that committee, and I know they spent a lot of time on each project.
But if it was just to pick a developer why was it needed? To give the mayor cover to pick someone? To winnow out some of the less experienced developers? B’nai B’rith was effectively eliminated because of an extra floor that wasn’t in the RFP. They do great work IMHO. But if we are picking the developer and not the proposal WHY DOES THAT MATTER?
This feels to me like after Engine 6 debacle, the Mayor is just afraid to take a stand. He needs more cover and the vocal opponents of Austin Street convinced him he needed to push out the process and get more “input”. Does anyone think this “input” in the form of dots and sticky notes is going to change anything?
Look, development is hard in built-out environments. Folks care about their neighborhoods. They are resistant to change. They are uneducated about costs. Misinformation tends to rule the day. Commercial interests often times have an interest in protecting the status quo (Yoga studio hogging 20% of the parking lot being a prime example. OF COURSE they want to maintain an oversupply of parking.) It is up to our community leaders to chart a course. Developers will push communities to maximize profit. NIMBYs will push communities to stagnate. A good mayor charts a course. To me, in this situation that means moving forward on the development, quickly putting forth a building proposal, and having a community meeting ON THAT PROPOSAL. State that the development of Austin Street is going to happen, one way or the other, and that the community should now focus on making the proposal better. Bring back the committee to help that to happen.
And Hoss, great to me means a well designed building, that fits into the community in terms of style, doesn’t overwhelm the site (in terms of setback, not in terms of height, I’m fine with 4 floors and would be ok with 5), that provides enough money to redo the village streetscape. We can also push the developer NOT to rent to banks (it is possible to designate space for a restaurant, other communities have done that). Parking needs to be available and have easy access. Streetscape is important, outdoor seating is important. We want our village to be a place for more than errands, but a place for community.
This is all possible. Not everyone will get what they want. But surely we can do better than what has transpired so far.
Mayor Curtatone of Somerville (“Somerville? Why not Everett or Chelsea?”) had this article on WBUR’s website. And he’s right: Chapter 40A needs a complete overhaul.