The project at 1521 Beacon, listed in the Mayor’s housing plan as a target for medium/high density housing, has gone from the original 40B proposal with dozens of affordable units down to two homes and eight townhomes, only two of them affordable. This site was originally considered a candidate for transit-oriented housing. Designs now assume two indoor parking spaces per unit, except the affordable units which have one.
Kathy Winters posted this note at the Waban Area Council site:
The developer has submitted these revised plans for a development of eight townhomes along Short St. (two would be affordable to households at 80% AMI) and two single family homes along Karen Rd. The Newton Planning Dept. has written this response to the plans. The developer is working to reach agreement with abutting neighbors regarding the plans and will discuss the revised plans at the next ZBA meeting on Thursday September 29th at 7pm at City Hall. Interested residents are encouraged to attend the meeting, at which there will be opportunity for public comment. It is possible that this will be the final ZBA meeting on this project.
Affordable housing needs aside, my first observation was, gee, those look a lot like snout houses. Reading further, it seems the developer has applied for an exception to the brand new garage door ordinance, as well as a waiver to the tree ordinance (among other things). In its memo, the planning department only recommended against the latter.
The Applicant seeks waivers from the provisions of Sec. 3.4.4.C (requirement of living
space over garages) and Sec. 3.4.4.E.1 (length of garage walls relative to length of
building overall).
Snout houses are a common design to maximize living space and sheltered parking behind the required setback, also maximizing pavement and curb cuts at the front of the property. I don’t see any mention of the waiver in the draft ZBA response. The setback for these designs, however, seems to exceed that required by zoning.
The issue is more than that the houses will be ugly. It is also extremely unsafe for pedestrians. Imagine trying to take a motorized wheelchair there–for every foot of level sidewalk there are three feet of curb cut. Now imagine trying to park on Short Street. Nowhere, right? Where do the visitors park? On the sidewalk. Now think about kids walking to Angier…nope, I wouldn’t either. I hope the developer reconsiders this.
The original plan seemed way better. Hard to see how this is a good outcome for Waban.
What Andreae and Bill said.
“Snout house” is a term that refers to houses with garages that protrude from the front of the house facing the street and totally dominate the front facade. The recently adopted garage ordinance would prohibit such garages, but also garages that occupy more than 40 percent of the front of the house as well as garages of any size that protrude from the front of the house.
I have proposed some amendments to the current ordinance that would allow modestly sized garages that protrude from the front of the house and garages up to 50% of the front facade so long as they are no closer to the street than the rest of the house. These amendments are intended to permit more flexibility without defeating the original intent of the garage ordinance, which is to discourage wide garages that dominate the streetscape and result in double wide driveways which, particularly on narrow lots, would result in one or two very wide curb cuts that are pedestrian unfriendly and potentially unsafe.
Imagine if every two family had two 24 curb cuts in front of their houses. On a street with narrow lots, more than half the sidewalks would be curb cuts! The other issue is that the front setbacks of such houses end up being almost entirely covered by pavement or hardscape surfaces. These designs are often driven by the desire to build the maximum size house on a small lot, which is as wide as possible and goes from one setback line to the other in order to build the largest size house possible. That is not, in my humble opinion, good design or good urban planning.
Love the Newton NIMBYs.