Someone asked about Court Street on the Philip Neri thread. It hasn’t gotten much publicity lately, but tonight at 7pm in the Aldermanic Chambers, the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) continues the public hearing, and may in fact vote on whether to grant the Comprehensive Permit for a 36-unit condominium 40B at 75-83 Court Street, which you may recall V14 covered here. The lovely mauve house and the white house next door, both multi-family, would be torn town.
Despite the appeals of nearby residents to reduce the number of units, it’s still 36 (of which only 9 would be officially “affordable” and count toward the Subsized Housing Inventory 10% goal). The Planning Department and ZBA seem to have been little more than speed bumps to the project.
Why should this concern the rest of the city? In this case, the developer, SEB, acquired two deep, adjacent lots for a total of 52,616 sq.ft. They claim they need to build 36 units for the project to be profitable enough, but have not been required to prove this by an independent audit. By that logic — “I need to build x number of units for this project to be viable” — it’s open season on any residential street, particularly where large lots exist, or where adjacent lots can be combined.
Consider that the Court Street development would amount to 1 unit of housing (and at least one parking space) per 1,462 sq.ft. of land area. The Philip Neri in Waban is 69,050 sq ft of land, so it’s not surprising the developer is asking to do 48 units, with 1,439 sq.ft. of land per unit, about the same as Court Street). The Philip Neri property sold for $3.95 million in January. This is probably more than SEB paid for the Court Street properties (no recent selling prices available, but total FY14 assessed value is $1.84 million), so maybe the Philip Neri developer will insist on bigger units.
The recently demolished house at 35 Temple Street at the corner of Putnam on West Newton Hill was on a 30,258 sq.ft. lot. If the developer hadn’t gotten 
Historical Commssion approval to demolish what was a beautiful house, and then permission to divide the lot into two buildable lots, he could very well have “gone 40B” and done quite well. At 1,462 sq.ft. of land area per unit, that could support a 20-unit apartment or condo building! Unless of course, the developer “had to” do a greater number in order to make it viable.
The unfortunate trend for the future is the size and design of these replacement projects. If this old style house were being torn down for something more modern but a reflection of existing homes, then people wouldn’t object as much.
When a 38 unit building is proposed to take the place of a wonderful old Victorian home then the entire community is changed for the worse.
This trend more than anything else will have me looking to leave Newton for greener pastures.
Denis – You’ll have to travel quite a distance to arrive at your greener pastures since the Comprehensive Permit Law (40B) is a state law that applies to every city and town in Massachusetts. It was enacted in 1969 (actually remember when it was passed) and has provided affordable housing to thousands of people throughout the state. While it clearly isn’t without its detractors, affordable housing in the cities and towns west of Boston is a growing concern, given the rise in the cost of housing. If you disagree with the law you should contact your State Rep and State Senator.
Actually, if you travel north, you’ll see a growing number of developments dotting the landscape along Rte 95 in that area of the metro-Boston area as well.
jane: i’m feeling more of rural pull these days and traffic is my kryptonite. i doubt if i left Newton that i would end up anywhere in Mass. that being said, within mass, I’d be more interested in moving closer in and embrace a more urban, car-free life. I’m having a very hard time envisioning every north/south road in Newton jammed unless i’m out at 6am on the weekend getting coffee/bagels.
@Coleen. My sentiments exactly. I don’t oppose tearing down some of these older houses We’ve lived at this house on Dickerman Road for 78 years and there was a very unattractive 1,800 square food house on the lot next to ours that we hoped would one day be replaced. The good news was that it finally came down 7 years ago. The bad news is that a very tall 6,600 square foot behemoth has replaced it that is totally out of character with all the other houses in the neighborhood.
The Court St 40B was approved by the ZBA last night. What I found most troubling was that Harvey Creem, effectively the swing vote, stated that he thought that 15-20 units would be appropriate for the property in order to fit in with the neighborhood, and then went ahead and voted to approve the project with 36 units! He quibbled that there wasn’t enough open space so fought for the possibility of a few extra parking spaces potentially being converted to green space IF they went unsold. So, while he was so concerned about a lack of open space, he voted to approve it anyway given the off chance that it might have some open space for a picnic table. Why he didn’t vote to reduce the project to 26 units with a reduction of 20 parking spaces and a guaranteed increase in open space of that amount only he knows. It made absolutely no sense.
A bad night for the Court St neighborhood, and a bad night for Newton given the precedent that this has now set.
Oh, and in the process of justifying why this project would so great as a neighborhood improvement project, Geoff Engler handed out photographs of all the homes which he considered blight in the immediate vicinity. To which one of the voting members rightly responded that this project would have no effect on improving those homes, and a Court St resident added that if the neighborhood was such a dump why has it had such little turnover and why have so many residents lived there for 30-40-50 yrs.
If this was so much about neighborhood improvement replacing blight, why is the Newton Historic Society adamant that they be allowed to photograph the beautiful Victorian home before it gets torn down?
Perhaps the Mayor favors this sort of development because one old home does not generate the same level of taxation. After all doesn’t he appoint all the members of the ZBAs.
For Newton in general and this neighborhood in particular this is a very sad arrangement.
This nonsense is going to continue as long as people are willing to put up with it… and as long as Mayor Warren remains in office. It bothers me that he claims there’s nothing he can do about 40B projects, when I know for a fact that’s not accurate. While it’s true that the Mayor can’t just stop these projects, he has the ability to slow them down to a point where they lose financial viability. Alternatively, Mayor Warren also has the opportunity to extract what used to be called “linkage” from developers, something of significant benefit to the community in exchange for construction rights.