City planner and urban designer Jeff Speck is the lead designer of the soon to be proposed designed for the Riverside MBTA station (and also the guy behind this vision for Washington Street). He submitted this guest blog post.
As the lead designer of the proposed development at the Riverside T Station, I have been asked to write a post explaining the thinking behind the plan. While I believe that the principles and goals outlined here are shared by the entire development team, the thoughts that follow are my own
As seen below, the site is a special one, adjacent to the Charles River greenway, flanked north and south by open space and golf courses, east and west by mostly low-density development at some distance, adjacent to a major highway interchange and—most significantly—at the end of the Green Line’s Riverside branch.
This location—largely isolated from surrounding properties, yet at a nexus of transportation infrastructure—makes the site ideal for the sort of development that will allow the City of Newton to meet its clearly-stated planning goals of smart growth, transit-oriented development, walkability, housing attainability, and increased commercial tax base. But to meet these goals, it must be designed as a mixed-use, walkable neighborhood of a density appropriate to the terminus of an important streetcar line.
Each of these characteristics, individually, matters. A proper balance of uses allows the neighborhood to capture car trips, so that people working there can choose to get coffee, run errands, eat a meal, and even find a home a short walk from the office. A walkable streetscape, in which an embracing public realm shelters and gives interest to strolls throughout the neighborhood, provides the framework necessary for the bonds of community to form. And a significant density—with most buildings of a height that can be found at the other Green Line termini of Cleveland Circle, BC/Lake Street, Lechmere, and Heath Street—is essential to enable housing affordability and to power the increased transit ridership that will enable greater investment in Green Line service. This density also supports the transportation improvements and site amenities that will make it a welcome neighbor to its surrounding villages
As with any new suburban development, the greatest concern one hears about from neighbors is traffic, in this case the additional car trips that it might contribute to Grove Street, which passes along the project’s southeast boundary. Currently, congestion can occur here at rush hour due to MBTA patrons entering and exiting the large park-and-ride facility currently on site. It is natural to worry that placing additional uses on site would only worsen this traffic.
For this reason, a key feature of this plan, currently under negotiation with MassDOT and the Federal Highway Administration, is a rebuilt interface with I-95 that brings highway traffic directly into the western end of the site, allowing it to bypass Grove Street entirely. As designed, this ramp system would allow the development to limit its Grove Street access dramatically, likely removing from the street its greatest source of congestion.
As illustrated below, the current site plan is organized as a collection of mostly mid-rise (5- to 7-story) buildings that shape a series of amenitized public spaces. These include a transit square to the east, a hillside amphitheater garden just west of center, and a hotel square to the west. This last square frames a new hotel on the site of the current Hotel Indigo. About 660 housing units—many below market rate—and 350,000 square feet of office space fill buildings shown. The existing MBTA park-and-ride lot, which currently occupies the majority of the site, is consolidated into a parking structure that hides the rail yard to the north and is itself hidden behind rowhouses and ground-floor shops along its southern edge.
With a limited amount of locally-serving retail, this development is imagined as a new destination, not for the region, but for Newton, especially for the residents of Auburndale and Newton Lower Falls, who could drive, bike, or even walk there to enjoy its restaurants, public spaces, and street life.
The goals identified in the Newton’s recent planning efforts reflect the fact that this city of mostly single-family houses is not fully equipped to serve the needs of its current residents, nor those that it wants to welcome. Older homeowners who wish to unburden themselves of larger properties have trouble finding apartments near local friends and family, so important to aging in place. Meanwhile, single millennials, a demographic that every city hopes to attract, do not give Newton a second look, and attainable workforce housing is the scarcest of all. A new Riverside neighborhood of mostly apartments, supported by a major office development, all with great access to transit and open space, and largely hidden from surrounding properties, would go a long way towards following the course that Newton’s citizens have mapped for the City’s future
I like it!
Its interesting that ‘schools’ were not mentioned. How to deal with school over crowding, we cannot pretend that most folks who move to Newton is not for the schools…
The balance is between increased commercial tax and the cost of extra services.. schools being the major budget item
Nice free PR piece for Speck. Curious if this project will end up something like this?
https://www.apartments.com/lantera-at-boston-landing-boston-ma/k7pdq3b/?dclid=CLb4r4nTmtsCFcJFNwodhgMJKw
Although Lantera looks nothing like these pics. And studios start at $2300 and 1 bedrooms run between $3000 and $5000
@Claire: Housing prices across the region aren’t going down until the supply goes up.
You miss my point Greg. Why is Village 14 a platform for “”guest blogger” who have a particular agenda? And I am not opposed to development at Riverside. I welcome it. I am opposed to Village 14 seemingly to continue to promote a specific POV. Just shedding some like that lest we forget we are not dealing with “journalism” here
Claire,
The developer does not set the prices… the market does.
If you want affordable housing then we have to lobby the city of Newton to buy the land, pay for development and then take a 1000 dollar loss per month per unit to make it affordable. … and then watch your property taxes skyrocket due to the losses incurred…
Appreciate the “mansplainers”. Again my point isn’t about the economics of housing prices.
Village 14 has always been open to guest blog posts and over the years we’ve had many. The only basic rules are 1.) Real names only. 2) It needs to be Newton related and 3) You need to find a Village 14 contributor willing to publish it. (special rules apply to political candidates which we share with all campaigns.)
So the prices at lantera are crazy high, but rents rise and money is worth less every year.
In 2003, we rented a 1-BR with NO amenities (there was coin-op laundry in the basement) that allowed NO pets about a 10 min walk from Coolidge Corner in Brookline for $1,400/mo. Factoring in inflation (34-35%) the same apartment should be going for $1,900/mo. … and across the street a 1-BR is renting for $2,200
Lantera has in-unit laundry, allows pets, and boasts a gym, pool, and concierge service, among others. When we were house-hunting we looked at condos. The monthly fee ranged from “covers heat and hot water” to about $600/mo above that at a full service building (say, $800 after inflation)
So if 2003 rent was reasonable, and rent ONLY kept pace with inflation, we’d be looking at about $2,700 for a 1-BR there. But with current rents, plus the services they offer, it’s not out of line with the market.
(And for anyone out there about to shout collusion; I’m pretty sure if units were going bare at this rate there would be any number of smaller landlords -like the one listing off Coolidge Corner -willing to undercut them)
Also, I have never seen a home sold in Newton where the buyers didn’t either a) have kids or b) plan on having kids. So even if we didn’t build another unit in the city we could expect the number of kids to keep going up.
(I wonder if someone keeps statistics of the demographics of buyers and sellers in Newton correlated with the characteristics of the RE sale. That would be facinating.)
Y though on new development is that we should be – as a town – looking to have a lower proportion of families-with-kids move into new development than into existing stock. And that can mean making new development less desirable to those with kids. This could mean:
– no dedicated parking, or only 1-spot per unit. Unless daycare is within walking distance, this makes it impossible to have a drop-off and pick-up parent. (that’s another difference between my no-frills place and lantera, we had no parking) this is impossible right now (see turtle lane)
– smaller units, focusing on studio and 1-BR. You can let your kids sleep in your bed, share your bedroom, or cordon off a piece of your living room but only the most dedicated are going to go for that. (This is also being shot down, see again turtle lane)
– street level commercial in-mixed use that’s not family friendly. This could be anything from useless (high-end restaurants, fashion and/or jewellery) to potentially objectionable (lingerie. packies and/or recreational marijuana), to no-sane-parent would live there (the ice-cream shop on the ground level of a Fenway tower with it’s crazy-expensive scoops comes to mind. No parent wants to have to say ‘No’ to that everyday)
-Retail that does suit the intended demographic. A pub that’s open until after the last train and does a nice brunch for Young professionals. Maybe a nice gym that’s affiliated with a PT clinic for everyone. Or a for-profit senor center/adult day-care.
But if we buy into the reason that the only reason someone would come to Newton is for the schools (and I’m guilty of that) the we need to stop and think about what our taxes would be if instead of 34% of households having kids and 41% being over 60 years of age the split became became 36/39, or even 38/37…
… we’d be seeing a 5-10 percent increase into our schools with no addition to our tax-base. We need a reason for younger people to want to rent, and seniors to want to stay.if we think the schools are the only reason, the I think that that it’ll become a self-fuffiling prophesy.
I moved to Newton and don’t have kids, nor do we plan to have kids (would take a biblical miracle at this point anyway). We moved here to be within striking distance of the major Boston-area employment centers, and because it’s a lovely place to live.
There, a counter-example. And no, the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.
A few points.
1) I recently met a developer at a local tech company who “found” Newtonville. He’s single and what he liked was the walkable downtown area, the bars and coffee bars, and the fast access to his office near South Station. His company recently moved to Newton, but it didn’t change his commute all that much. He believes that if there were more housing options there would be more people like him.
2) I’d love to see this area districted to Angier and then the parents encouraged to use the Green Line as their primary school transportation. The usual response I get to this idea is that Newton parents would NEVER put their kids on the T. But, if you’ve ever ridden the Green Line at 6:30 or 7am you’d know this isn’t true. A bunch of kids, 12 and older, are on the T alone headed to private schools in Brookline. If you go to Concord Academy for high school your primary transportation is the Commuter Rail out of Waltham. These are Newton parents paying extra money to put their kids on the T. Parents commuting to work on the D line out of Riverside can just take a moment, get off the T, walk their students in, and then continue on. It just makes sense. We can also create shuttles from Newton Centre to Newton South and to the Middle Schools there, allowing more students who live in the area to use the Green Line as their school transportation.
3) A big target here are the empty nesters. We don’t have a way for them to age in our community. This offers that option, so not everyone will just be looking for schools.
My now husband and I moved to West Newton when I was 23 with two priorities: easy commute for us and being walking distance to stuff, particularly bars. Being a stone’s throw from Paddy’s, Crowley’s, and Cherry Tree was great. We had a big group of similarly aged friends and we would frequent Cherry Tree. We got older and the rest of our group moved prior to having kids because they couldn’t afford a place here without roommates and they wanted to start a family. We decided to stay in our tiny home because we love West Newton. In summary, young professionals DO move to Newton without kids because of its amenities. Whether they are able to stay is another question.
Clearly, people choose Newton for any number of different reasons, but if schools/great place to raise kids was not a primary driver, I don’t think the percentage of households with kids under 18 would be 34%. It would probably be closer to Waltham at 20% and Watertown at 18% (and this data is from 2008, well before the explosion of new apartments in Watertown, so that’s not skewing the percentage.) Wellesley and Weston are 40% and 42%, respectively. If you live in an area where there is already lots of multifamily housing (whether in 2-3 family houses or in larger complexes) you know that a significant percentage are occupied by families with young children. Yes, if we increase the availability of 1 and 2-bedroom apartments in Newton, we will attract more no-kid renters (both young and older) but a large percentage WILL continue to be families, and we ignore that at our peril.
Oh, I definitely agree that many people do move to Newton specifically for the schools and I’m sure we are not the only family squeezed into a too-small home so we can stay here!
I actually think the Riverside development sounds pretty appealing overall but the school issue is of concern. I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that kids that live there would go to Angier as Chuck suggests. It’s very conveniently located to Williams and I would be disappointed if I moved a half a mile from Williams but had to bring my kids almost 2 miles away to Angier. Taking my kids on the T every day would only be convenient if I worked somewhere on the green line going inbound. I would want them to go to my neighborhood school, Williams, but I don’t know how Williams could support an influx of students. If it’s 660 units, let’s say that brings in 150 families with children under 18 and let’s also say that each family has 2 kids. Are the schools ready for that?
Discussions about every development has to include the impact on the neighboring schools. I’m happy to see it placed front row center in this thread. Units can be geared to a particular demographic, but the fact remains that any family can move into them and we need to acknowledge and deal with that.
I should think that any hyperventilating about 1-2BR apartments causing school overcrowding should be accompanied by actual school enrollment numbers from existing large developments (such as the Avalon complexes). Any actual (versus imagined) increases and their accompanying costs we should also weigh in relation to estimated tax revenue increases from these buildings.
I tend to agree with Tricia et al that the renters with school-age children would be lower than others fear, but would rather have a more quantitative assessment of predictions than FUD speculation.
We probably have discussions of some of these numbers somewhere (I’ll have a look), but if anyone has any shortcuts or links to remind us…
This probably helps – it does show rising enrollment from apartments since 2002, but also, to keep that rise in perspective, shows the total from apartments to be between 2 and 5% of all enrollment, and a current student/unit rate of a bout 33% (I would assume the households with students percentage would actually be lower due to some families having multiples).
I do not know the variance of that last stat over the years or if that is what we can really expect. Make of these numbers what you will.
https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/cms/lib/MA01907692/Centricity/Domain/78/November%202017%20Enrollment%20Analysis%20Report_online%20version.pdf
Thank you Doug! There’s a lot of interesting data there.
Yeah, I guess it depends on how you parse it.
Percentages don’t tell the story appropriately. As I recall, the latest enrollment report had 27 children going to C’side. Those aren’t statistics – they are young children in a building with the same capacity as before the apartments were built or in classes that are larger.
As I’ve mentioned multiple times, I support a number of the developments but expect that NPS will be an integral part of the conversation.
I don’t read any of these comments as “hyperventilating” about school overcrowding. The theme I’m seeing is that we can’t leave NPS out of the development conversation. Ignoring the impact of a development on local schools in the planning stages is how we end up scrambling to add modulars AFTER the students start moving in and enrolling.
According to the report you linked, while the number of single family homes, and the number of students living in single family homes, has remained fairly steady since 2002, as new types of housing have become available in Newton, families with students are moving in. From the Executive Summary:
emphasis mine
That does not mean we shouldn’t be trying to add new types of housing in Newton. In my opinion, we do need add housing that appeals to young people and empty nesters, and we need more (capital A and small a) affordable housing. But we need to recognize that pretty much any type of housing in Newton is going to draw families with kids, and we need to plan for it.
Speck wrote that he was asked to write this post. Who asked him to do that?
Disclosure matters.
Robert Korf emailed it to me.
Robert Korff emailed it to you? I agree with Paul, that was worth mentioning. And Korff presumably paid Speck to write it.
Not that anyone is suggesting this in this thread- but just a gentle reminder- housing that discourages families and children is not only bad practice but a violation of fair housing laws.
I’m confused by Brenda’s seemingly out-of-left-field comment in the context of this thread. Since you say “not that anybody is suggesting this in this thread” I’m not sure why a gentle reminder is relevant to the conversation. Is it to try to quiet concerns about how NPS could handle a potential influx of kids?
How would a development of the size that Mr. Speck descri bes impact the ability of T users at Woodland, Waban, Eliot, Newton Highlands, Newton Centre, and Chestnut Hill to ever get a seat or even a comfortable amount of space in which to stand?
As to the impact on schools, I hear scuttlebutt that the newly re-constructed Angier is already overburdened and not even enough lockers are available for the current number of students.
Is this true? Would the situation be relieved if classroom were added at the former Hamilton School?
The plans for the Northland project contain space for a village green. It might make more sense for that space to be allocated for a village school to accomodate the kids from the former Emerson district now schlepped hither and yon to different distant schools rather than able to walk to one school as I and my contemporaries did. It would certainly lower the perpetual public busing expense or burden on parents to get their kids to school. Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. but the only thing we learn from history is that no one learns anything from history.
@Councilor Yates: Your concerns about Green Line capacity are appropriate and good reason to want those new longer Green Line cars to be adopted by the MBTA.
Angier has lockers? :-o Brian, is the old Emerson School the building by the Emerson playground in Upper Falls?
Green line capacity is a big concern, and it’s already a painfully long and slow ride to town from Riverside. Missing from this proposal is a pitch to add a Commuter Rail stop at Riverside. That, in combination with other Rail improvements, would be a game changer for this site. But it’s hard to see the state doing any of these things on its own.
Brenda,
Just curious, if a developer decided it would be more cost effective to build only studios or 1br, is this considered discriminatory against children?
Who gets to decide what % of 2br,3br is not considered discriminatory? How about the micro apartment trend?
When Angier was rebuilt it didn’t increase capacity significantly so now with them being at @460 they must be full. When that project was already underway it was decided that future schools would contain 24 classrooms to accommodate 4 classes per grade. Thus I don’t think the thought of moving kids to Angier is feasible from a capacity standpoint. To do so you would then have to shift other kids out of Angier, etc. In my opinion there is also a huge benefit in connecting families to a community by allowing kids to attend a neighborhood school.
It is important to consider the impact of new developmeent on the schools. The beginning of the overcrowding in the Newton Centre/Highlands area began with Avalon. Countryside was the first school to reach over 500 kids then kids were shifted to Bowen which then reached over the 500 mark and finally kids were shifted to Mason-Rice which now has 512 pupils! This whole scenario led to Zervas being bumped ahead of Cabot as there was dire need for more capacity to relieve overcrowding in the Newton Centre area. This is also not a quick fix as only new families/k families are districted to Zervas. My understanding is that when Avalon was built there was poor communication among city departments and there was no real consideration of the impact on the schools of allowing these units. My understanding is that planning and communication is way better now.
School and traffic impact must be considered when new development occurs. Both Riverside and Northland concern me from these perspectives. I know the intention of Riverside is to take advantage of the site for public transportation access however I don’t think the T currently handles existing capacity well and having been on RT 128 a lot lately in that stretch it is a parking lot @3:30-5pm. We don’t want our schools or our roadways overloaded as both impact the quality of life in Newton. Also increased demands on our schools leads to increased costs making Newton even less affordable to live in long term.
Speck’s post is a pitch. I am skeptical that the transportation improvements will occur based on what is occurring with the T on other potential projects. I am also skeptical that there will be enough below market rate apartments to achieve the economic diversity and opportunity for current older homeowners to stay put.
Simple fix to school overcrowding:
Residents who purchase in a building with more than 4 units in a luxury development pay an extra 1% high density property tax. Problem solved
Surely no one is going to shed tears if someone can choose to purchase 1m for a condo?
Which politican has the guts to stand behind this?
@Bugek: so you want to charge residents in apartments/codos in environmentally preferable, transit oriented, walkable, dense developments an extra tax but not folks who live in multi-million dollar homes that take up far more space per person?
Bugek,
I am not an expert so I will link to fair housing law in MA. I think one of the key questions to ask is why is the developer building studios and one bedrooms?
https://www.mass.gov/fair-housing
Huh? Are you indicating that it is discriminatory to build studios and one bedroom units? Seems like a serious stretch to me. Would you prefer that they focus on building large condos that only a certain (higher) income bracket can afford?
Greg,
Luxury units, yes. Units priced under the median condo (aka not targeted towards high end) then yes. And why not?
If the market doesn’t like the tax then the developer will target the middle class for sales
If its a density tax, makes no sense to apply to million dollar home on 20000 sqft lot since they are not increasing major services such as schools, police. A 4 unit condo conplex on same lot uses 4x as much services as it did historically so it makes sense to apply the extra tax…
This thread shows once again that the overwhelming transit preoccupation is inbound to Boston with park and ride. This implicitly considers Riverside an exurban-car-oriented development.
The most underappreciated transit feature no one seems to be talking about is the reverse Green line commute, which would be a job creator for Newton (and Brookline, Boston, East Cambridge and Somerville) – and utilize empty trains. It would flip how we think about Riverside as westward facing to eastward-facing, and Newton as integrating with Boston instead of the car-dependent exurbs.
I don’t think Newton qualifies as an exurb. We are way too close to Boston. Exurbs are further out than the suburbs, so in Boston’s case an exurb would probably be outside of 495. But I very much agree with your points! It would be an appealing commute for people who live further inbound on the green line.
Mary, my wording wasn’t clear. I meant to say that Riverside is mostly envisioned to be exurb-oriented, or pointing, rather than that Newton itself is exurban.
Riverside can either prioritize its connection with the highway system, or prioritize its connection via the Green Line toward the inner suburbs and urban core. Currently the overwhelming focus is on making it a highway-serving development, and the Green Line is considered to be little more than a park & ride facility as it currently functions. The evidence for this is no one discussing the reverse Green Line commute opportunity.
I disagree that no one is talking about reverse commute potential. I made the following comment May 12 on Jake Auchincloss’s Facebook posting of the Globe Riverside article.:
“We need 100% commercial here, to make up for deficit elsewhere. We don’t have much land to work with to achieve some of what Waltham has along 128 – highly net revenue positive areas, to balance the Brett [net – autocorrect!] revenue negative residential areas.
Riverside is ideal for corporate offices because it would allow those millennials that everyone talks about to reverse commute on empty trolleys out from Boston, Brookline, or anywhere on the T. Use Riverside for more than just packing more people into crowded trains to Boston.”
Riverside has an advantage over Waltham’s R128 corporate areas in that it is accessible by high-frequency T.
It would also be good if there was a better way to connect Riverside (and all of Newton, really) with Cambridge using public transit. Right now that is a pretty long commute.
Julia, I stand corrected, and am glad to see there is at least us two in Newton who recognize the large reverse commute potential.
Julia’s right — Riverside is a perfect place for office/industrial development, as it is practically the only spot along 128 that actually has much public transit. And Newton could use the high-rate tax ratables more than it needs more school kids.
And I agree with Brian, and have posted this on other V14 threads, that the Northland development should cede some land to the school system for a new elementary school. Time to replace Emerson now that there is some open land! With 900+ units there, we need the classroom space.
Remember, the MBTA is a state agency, and does nothing because a city wants them to. The Groan Line is pretty crowded and slow already, but people who live outside of 128 (suburbs and exurbs) do need a place to park near a T station if they are to ride to Boston. Taking away parking near T stops just makes life worse for commuters.
While it would be great if we could build just more commercial, in today’s market it’s not practical. Commercial-only development, like what we have in Wells Ave., creates a space that lacks energy, amenities and a 24 hour vibrancy.
Developers don’t build these because they don’t sell well. The District in Burlington is a great example of a place that could have been all commercial, but isn’t because it’s not a good idea. Alewife is another example. Like Riverside, that area is on a high way (Route 2) and at the end of a transit line. Until a few years ago it had a number of commercial office buildings and some large parking lots. Today it’s mixed-use with residents and retail going in where the parking lots used to be. That’s what companies want.
It used to be that you built an office, put it 15 minutes from the CEO’s home and then made people work there. It doesn’t work that way any longer. Today, if you’re a CEO, you put your office close to your employees and then you deal with the commute. CoachUp just moved to Newton and the CEO told me that he pulled himself out of the location decision. It was driven entirely by his employees. Employees want life and vibrancy, mixed-use gives them that.
So we can’t make this 100% commercial. We need to make sure it has a balance. Otherwise, we’re going to be building empty buildings.
It doesn’t have to be 100% commercial, but this looks to be predominantly residential, with a little office space and local shopping. Wells Ave. is a failure, a relic of 1950s thinking, as is its evil twin next door, Oak Hill Park. Funny how a small road between the two could improve them both, but is Not Gonna Happen.
MMQC, there is a sort of plan — as in, “we aren’t going to do this but could if we gave a dam” — to link Riverside to Cambridge. There’s a track connection to the existing commuter rail to Newton, and that has a bridge to Cambridgeport. The idea is that an Indigo Line (DMU) train can ply Kendall to Riverside via West Station, with stops along the way. The track is mostly there, the RoW is mostly there, and the T’s will to do it is somewhere between Pluto and Sedna.
That’s interesting, Fred. It’s a shame that it’s unlikely to happen because I bet it would be heavily used.
To answer the question posed above, the former Emerson School is the large brick building at the corner of High Street and Pettee Street. The newer building closest to the playground is the Emerson Community Center used for athletics in the gym and for day care and after school care in the former classrooms. The Cathy Becker room on the first floor is also used as a meeting space for neighborhood based organizations like the Upper Falls Neighborhood Area Council and the Friends of Hemlock Gorge. The Center is also a polling place for city, state, and national elections.
It’s not going to happen for a variety of reasons, but the city should not allow Riverside to be developed with a park-and-ride parking garage. The Green Line capacity we have should be used to support car-free or nearly car-free living, not exurban, car-centric living with a train ride thrown in.
Also, we need an update to the guest posting policy to reject anything that uses the word “amenitized.”
@Sean Roche – amen to that
@Jerry Reilly — Did you just amenitize Sean’s comment?
@Bruce Henderson – yes, it’s part of my amenification program.
Although the vision for the development at Riverside and on Washington Street is one that meets the needs of seniors who want to age in place, the reality is that the apartment design for both Riverside and Washington Street have about seven steps up to the front door, is a six to seven story walk up, has no elevators and is not accessible housing. Most seniors will need accessible housing to be able to age in place.
@Debbie: Where are you getting that information? The Riverside project hasn’t even filled before the council yet. There’s been no design review, public hearings, etc. And Washington Place, which is the only project that’s been approved on Washington Street, most certainly has elevators and ADA approved units. And it received strong support from senior advocates during the approval.
Let’s not just invent our own facts folks.
I am happy that Washington Place has housing with elevators for 140 to 160 units.
This was discussed at “Hello Washington Street” on June 7, 1988 and the design of Riverside was discussed at the recent Riverside presentation on September 27th by the developer. The presenter at Hello Washington street described these issues at the session on Housing, Diversity and Affordability as it relates to seniors and affordable housing. They said that “construction costs are lower (in walk ups) so they can rent for rents that are needed in the market” and that “elevator construction generally costs more for construction” so having walk ups is the way the developer can create affordable housing. Many residents in the audience voiced concerns about this design for seniors.
Based on the Riverside presentation, the Riverside design will feature over 600 residential units and one of the main features of the design is a main street of five story brownstones type walk ups with steps and stoops to get to the main floor. There will be other design options for the condos, but the condos would most likely not be the affordable housing that the seniors might use.
The brownstone-style housing is my favorite part of the Riverside design. Much more appealing to the eye than apartment or condo buildings. Some residents complain about the design of other developments, including me, and this one is adding welcome depth to their design. I think younger folks will like these too.
There is plenty of housing that will suit the needs of any seniors who choose to move there. They won’t necessarily move to the lower priced units but there will be choices in the buildings.
I agree that the brownstone look is very appealing, but I have heard many seniors at Hello Washington talk about the need for affordable housing. I think many seniors will not be able to afford the condos.
@Marti – you don’t seem to be aware that many of us will not be able to afford market-rate senior housing. There is a serious need for affordable senior housing in Newton, and any development of this scope should include it.
Yes, the brownstone type steps look nicer. They also are dangerous even for the able-bodied in icy weather, very difficult to navigate for parents with kids in strollers or people carrying groceries inside. Aesthetics may be important, but so are utility and safety.
Of course Affordable housing should – and will – be included. Developers cannot build in Newton without a percentage of the project being Affordable housing.
Different types of housing need to be built in a project of this size or it will just be a mass of buildings. Being aesthetically pleasing is a great aspect of this design. With a variety of housing types, this project will appeal to those of different ages, family sizes and income groups.
There could be seniors in Newton who will be able to afford higher prices after selling their homes, particularly if they’ve owned them for many years. Also, there could be seniors who will need to either apply for the Affordable housing being included and seniors who will either have to or choose to live elsewhere. Some will want or need to live in other types of senior housing.
Most seniors have similarities because of their age prompting them to prefer things such as one floor housing but like everyone else, they are individuals with individual preferences. Some will stay in their homes, sharing it with boarders and enjoying the company. Some will live in the senior complexes that provide most of their needs – even those have large and small apartments, independent living, assisted living and nursing home care. Some will live in village centers and urban settings where they can walk to most things. Some will choose be an area where there are families of all sizes. Some will move to warmer areas. Some will rent and some will own.
Many after selling their homes, will want to rent not own. Many will want to own.