No matter if you want Washington Street to stay exactly as it is today, support a canyon of 30 story skyscrapers, or something in-between, you really owe it to yourself to stop by the Hello Washington Street workspace at 1239 Washington Street (across the street from Dunkin’) sometime between now and Tuesday.
The popup space has offers great interactive ways to explore your feelings about the corridor and see what other folks think too. It’s open from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. for drop ins.
There’s a number of events planned too that you can find here.
And, of course, share your views about the whole thing here!
Hello Washington Street,
I was just looking at the demolition of the Orr block and wondering if the dust from the demolition has asbestos in it. Was there an environmental review of the demolition? Were all state environmental laws followed? Usually an old building would require remediation of asbestos I would presume. What abou5 future tear downs along the corridor? Whose responsibility is it to make sure the laws are followed.
Hi Rick:
I’m not involved with the demo on the Orr Block, but I can assure you that MA has some of the strictest environmental and demo laws in the country. Any developer of significant size takes great care not to run afoul of the rules, the project financing will require proof that the rules are followed, demo permits require proof that the rules are followed, etc., etc.
Asbestos and lead paint are given special consideration and care.
Always possible that someone decides to take the insane risk of violating the rules and ruining the project/career/risk the large penalties. But I’d view that as extremely unlikely.
That doesn’t mean there is zero risk from construction dust. But developers and the Commonwealth do have rules to follow that minimize that risk, and any developer of size/sophistication wanting to continue developing in Newton or MA doesn’t cut corners on this stuff. I am 100% confident that asbestos rules were followed, and that absestos was tested for and remediated prior to demo.
Hope that gives some comfort. Good question though, lots of folks ask this.
Rick – the asbestos has to be abated before demolition. First, they looked for asbestos and lead and then they did abatement. Then they started demolition. What has slowed up demolition is the following. The first set of buildings were demolished. They started preparing the old Boston Ballet Building for demo and they found 4 roofs. As I understand it – they were surprised to find that the lowest level had asbestos. Thus – they stopped their demolition of that building and started on abatement processes. They then moved to other buildings on the Walnut St. side that had already been abated. If you have additional questions about this let me know.
Susan:
4 roofs? Ouch. That is a heck of a cost overrun for abatement. Well, that’s why budgets have contingency reserves…
What about PCBs in old window caulking?
Julia, PCBs are covered under the RCRA in MA. If they had an abatement contractor, I’m betting that was covered as well. Pretty standard stuff.
Are you and Rick just looking for a reason to hate on Washington Place/Orr Block? I’m not the biggest fan of the project but I’m also not seeing anything in the teardowns that isn’t typical.
I do hate the so-called process and I consider the cheery BS surrounding the “ Hello Washington Steeet “ to insult my intelligence . Maybe I’m just in the get off my lawn stage of life, but for those of us that live within a block of Washington Street, this is a serious matter, and impacts our quality of life. We already live with the noise and soot from the Pike. To dress it up with a BBQ block party and the rest just seems insulting to me. Have a party at my expense.
My house is covered with Asbestos shingles and I’ve been given 5 figure quotes for their removal ( 10 + years ago). Just want to make sure that commercial developers aren’t allowed to cut corners when I’m so restricted as a home owner. ( the shingles will outlast me at this point). We guard the few remaking spares we have so when the inevitable happens ( one cracks from a tree branch, etc.) we have a matching spare.
This comment was posted on the Newtonville listserv. I am not able to attend Hello Washington Street at the moment, as much as I would like to. I’m asking if anyone, perhaps Susan Albright, can elaborate on the below comment.
“After seeing Hello Washington, my questions are – who hired the consultants and how do we get our money back.
9 options (as I recall) –
a Soviet-style solid blocks of 7-8 stories in a U shape;
Dicken’s London of narrow back streets (thieves warren);
3 options with a 20+ story tower (how does this fit MU4 zoning?);
2 options that look just like what is there now; a one-story building surrounded by parking (a la Whole Foods, 4 corners) and lastly,
1 reasonable size option with 2-4 story buildings surrounding a parking lot (like Newton Center). Couldn’t they think to put the parking lot under a park or in a parking garage and make the center a park?”
Rick, I do find the Hello Washington Street campaign to come across as a little patronizing.
@Julia
According to the developer’s lead on the liaison committee, i can report his answer to your question as follows: “a full asbestos and hazardous materials survey was performed. As part of that survey asbestos containing caulk was identified in a few places and those windows were removed and disposed of. Additionally, there were some potentially PCB containing light ballasts that the contractor removed and disposed of according to standard procedures”
@Marti – The Planning Department hired the Consultant. The pictorial scenarios provided by the consultant were not designs rather they represent massing choices so they could understand what kind of massing and types of buildings was preferred by Newton residents. The one that looked like the buildings in Washington DC had tons of red dots – no one likee that. Most of the other massing scenarios had both red and green dots with explanations attached to them. Some of the pictures look like things we all know on Washington St. The one with the tall building surrounded by smaller ones looked like Newton Corner. The one with a one-story building surrounded by a sea of parking looks like Marty’s and Whole Foods. Others – like the DC-style massive building we don’t have – and there were many choices in between. The consultant is looking for our feelings regarding types of buildings and massing. Seemed like a clever way to elicit that information to me. Does this explanation help?
Susan
I attended the meeting and thought it was ok. I can understand how someone would think The Kremlin plan was just a throwaway- most everyone would agree that’s ugly.
One thing I walked away from the meeting -there is still a lot of disagreement about a lot of the issues. You can’t please everyone. But you could end up pleasing no one.
One thing I notice is the The planning department people that worked with our group we’re extremely inexperienced. They were by their own admission very new hires, knew very little about the current zoning, and not that much about the city. This is not their fault- they are new and just out of school.
I will be very discouraged if Washington street turns into a long “corridor” of 5 story buildings，and I will probably sell and move to Brookline because if I’m going to be that urban I might as well be in the green line and closer to Boston.
Rick – I’ll go out on a limb and say it is highly unlikely that the consultant would propose that Washington St should turn into a corridor of 5 story buildings. I don’t know if you were at the session at 3pm yesterday or not on form-based codes. The staffer showed sections of the street where there are single and two-family homes with a few 3 and 4 unit homes of the same size – we discussed how those sections might be limited to homes of a certain size – currently represented by the existing homes. The question we then discussed was would we be willing to allow up to say 4 units in the size house currently represented there or would we limit the area to just single and two families. I know that you are expressing a common fear – but I would be extremely surprised if this were proposed.
@Marti – That summary is technically correct but a bit over simplified. The options presented roughly fit into the pattern concept that the overall zoning redesign project is focusing on. They ranged from “transitional” (denser residential) -> small village -> medium village -> large village along with one strictly for commercial and one with the 20 story tower. For the villages they had a few different configurations all around the 4-6 story range, some looked horrible and others not as bad. The request for feedback was around the general themes and where people thought they made sense along Washington St. Very conceptually focused, not a specific proposal for the corridor itself and they purposefully included a wide range in terms of density. The tower option was literally a sea of red for comments along with the soviet style U-block.
@susan
It’s my understanding that Washington street is zoned commercial up to 3 lots in from the street. So in theory a developer could buy 3 residential properties, one on my corner if Washington and Brookside, and then two more down towards my house. That would leave me one house away from potentially a 5 story office building. ( given a variance from the existing 3 story limit ) Now, one can say that a consultant wouldn’t recommended this, or that, but unless it’s codified into law and that law is , I’m not a believer. And currently I believe that this, even under current zoning, is possible. So, if I’m correct( and I believe I am) I’m already faced with that possibility. That’s why those of us who actually live close to the “corridor” are most concerned. NIMBY? You betcha. And people who don’t live over here call us anti development, which causes such friction in the community.
Rick – the outcome of the Hello Washington St project is a proposal for new form-based zoning for the Washington St. Corridor. Have you been into 1239 Washington st? If not – go there and talk about your worries.
I’m confused. What is driving this? Is it the City wanting to achieve some strategic goals (affordable housing, the right balance between residential and commercial to drive a healthy economy and viable budget)? Or is it in reaction to one very aggressive developer who is buying up property and undertaking projects that may or may not align with the City’s goals?
I stopped by 1239 Washington Street and that only added to my confusion.
Why are the purely residential options even on the table? Does that align with City goals?
Why is a suburban sprawl/strip shopping center option on the table? Does anyone seriously believe that is a viable option to attract support?
Why is a plan with a 16 foot tower that you might see in Boston on the table? Not surprrisng to see all the “red” reaction to that.
I feel the effort would be better spent engaging and educating citizens as to 1) why the City is undertaking this effort and what are the trade-offs if we embrace or reject increased density and it;s implications
Am I the only village (14) idiot that doesn’t know what form based zoning is in the first place? Did I miss the first day of class? Why is this not explained in some sort of flyer that we can all download and read.?
Anyways for the other village idiots here’s a link
https://formbasedcodes.org/definition/
I’ll read this before I go over to 1239 Washington St. perhaps they might want to put a primer on this over there since not all of us work in city government
Ok, I just watched a 1 hour video on form based development. Granted, it’s nearly 10 years old. Not sure I know a heck of a lot more than I did before I started. Seems like it’s a micro-managed zoning based on individual parcels of land, for instance, if there- already some sort of building x, then some sort of restriction is applied to encourage / mandate sine sort of building y. Anyone else want to further clarify this?