the ex-garage at Willow and Morrison

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

So. There was an auto repair garage at the corner of Willow and Morrison on Thursday morning. It was not there on Friday morning. That was the first I'd heard of that building going anywhere. :-}

I doubt it's a great spot for a retail establishment, so that means either two multi-family dwellings or a block of flats/condos. If I had to guess, I'd say that we'll end up with a block of flats/condos there.

If high-density housing is built in that location, this could present quite the sticky wicket for parking and related issues. There's already not enough parking in this area (I live several houses up Willow from that intersection). I also wonder whether what ends up there will end up being a Willow address or a Morrison address, since that has possible visitor parking permit implications, if they don't build parking into the plans.

Of course, this is all complete conjecture, as I haven't heard a damned thing about it. Has anyone heard about plans for that site, or any zoning hearings, anything at all?

Comments

[artemii.livejournal.com]

condos are going up there.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Once the condo market crashes, they'll likely sit vacant for a good long time. Real estate values are already off quite a bit from their peak last summer. The bubble has popped. In fact, I doubt they'll even get finished.

[artemii.livejournal.com]

indeed. and yet, it doesn't stop the developers.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

quick tip: call yer ward's alderman. that's what they're for.

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

I walked past it Thursday morning. I wish I'd had time to stop and take photos...But I posted this about it in my journal:

I love walking in winter. Cold? Well, yes, but it still feels better than walking in 96º and humid. The cold is brisk and makes me feel more alive, somehow. Last night I walked home from Central instead of Harvard. This morning I walked to Davis...that walk is one I enjoy, because I walk up the bike path and it's got interesting things to see. Like, this morning, they were demolishing Willow Ave. Automotive (http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2005/02/connolly_i_will.html). There's something just fascinating about a building being torn down, especially a landmark. This was an old brick garage, and the guts of the infrastructure were all over the place. A man and his kid were watching it, mesmerised. I said, "Wow..." and the guy said, "Yeah, I know." I said I wished I had time to take photos of it. Buildings are supposed to just be there forever, like trees and oceans...so when one goes away, it's so compelling; that's what got me the most about September 11, that the towers were just gone.

[mud-puppy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what lyonesse said :) Rebekah Gewirtz is your new AlderWoman *grin* Yay!

And blah... more condos. Just what Somerville needs, more density!

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

And yet, "smart growth" proponents promote density as an alternative to sprawl, and so that public transit ridership will hit the tipping point to make transit seem like a better deal than owning a car. Seems like everyone wants the density in someone else's neighborhood.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Hey, when housing here isn't literally 2-3 times what it is in cities I'd consider affordable, then I'll start to complain about new housing starts. Until then, I'm with bikergeek: density is the prerequisite for public transit viability and sprawl avoidance, so no point saying density is great but not where you are if you happen to like those things. (It is, of course, entirely possible you hate public transit and love sprawl, and/or are uninterested in buying a house in the area, in which case hate on new housing all you like.)

[denonymous.livejournal.com]

The link talonvaki posted mentions that construction includes 19 covered parking spaces. The way it's phrased makes it sound like it'll alleviate parking congestion, though I'm not sure how the math works there.

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

I went to one of the public hearings about this development. At the time, the plans were for 11 condos, two of which would be priced as "affordable" units and subject to some sort of lottery. My notes below are from that hearing nearly a year ago...

Because the building's been used as an auto body shop for so long, the soil under it is contaminated with ghod-knows-what. The developer needed to do mitigation of the hazardous waste, and they're turning lemons into lemonade by digging out the area and using it as an underground parking lot for the condos.

The building is planned to be slightly higher than the three-story building next to it, but with a substantially smaller footprint than the old auto body shop. While the previous building went all the way to the edge of the property line, the new condo building will be set back at least six feet in all directions. The sketch of the building looked reasonably attractive, certainly much more so than a dead auto body shop.

[twe.livejournal.com]

Really, that sounds quite reasonable, especially if they're building off street parking for it. Condos with more parking spaces than units should generate a lot less road congestion that an auto repair shop, I'd think, and we do seem to be chronically short of housing in the Boston Area.

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

What, no plans for a multi-story Walmart and a McDonald's....?

{{ narf }}

[spatch]

Nah, that's going in Powderhouse Park.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

There's already a McD's in Davis. You can double-park the Escalade right outside on Elm.

[ron_newman]

This is a short walk from a T station, so I don't see a need for much parking here. In fact, I hope they don't go overboard on parking spaces, because we really should encourage development that attracts people who don't desire to drive everywhere all the time.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I find this nonsensical.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I can "desire" all I want to not drive but the fact remains that I have places I *do* need to be able to drive to that aren't accessible by public transport. I think it's a bit of a privelege to be able to structure your life so as to not ever be reliant on a car or someone with a car.

[twe.livejournal.com]

I think if you live in walking distance of the T, even if you have a car, you don't feel the need to drive everywhere. Even with adequate parking, there are a lot of places in Somerville that are no fun to drive in because of foot traffic, narrow roads, etc, that it's often more convenient to walk T. Moreover, why pay a premium to live close to the T if you don't intend to take it?

[simonbillenness.livejournal.com]

I'm quite happy about new housing that increases the housing density. But then I don't own a car and therefore don't worry about parking.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I have access to a driveway, so it's not a major issue for me personally, either. But it still affects the rest of the neighborhood.

Anyway, I am glad to have more housing. I just would hope that the parking implications are being properly addressed, is all. Well, that, and I'm tired of seeing so many "luxury condos" go up at prices that normal people can't afford.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that new construction _has to_ include X number of off-street parking spaces, but I don't know what formula they use for determining the X, and whether the number takes expected visitors into account, or is just calculated based on expected number of residents.

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

It's a simple formula ... 1.3X, where X=number of dwelling units. I think they fudge the numbers slightly so two-family houses require two parking spaces and three-family houses require four. Then it's linear afterwards, so the 11-unit apartment requires fourteen spaces.

From other postings in this thread, this is a 10-unit building with 19 spaces. I bet the increased parking ratio is a response to neighborhood concern about traffic.

a much larger project nearby - MaxPak

[ron_newman]

If you're interested in this project, you should also keep an eye on the MaxPak property, which is sandwiched between the Lowell Street Bridge, the railroad tracks, and the future Community Path extension. The developer, KSS Realty Partners, wants to build 229 condominium units on this land, which now contains several derelict industrial buildings.

There were several meetings between the neighborhood and the developer in December, and I think at least one more will occur in January. The Somerville News wrote this article about it last month. Many comments follow the article, including my notes from the December 8 meeting.

Maybe I should make a separate post about this.

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

I say thank goodness most of Somerville was built before the zoning code mandated a certain number of parking spaces per dwelling unit. And before modern requirements for set-backs and minimum lot sizes. Otherwise, Somerville would look exactly like the post-War sections of Framingham. Easy parking does two things: it takes the pressure off the city to invest in public transportation and it encourages people to drive. When people drive to and from their underground parking spaces like those that are planned for this development, they're not walking in their neighborhood and they don't meet their neighbors. When people don't know their neighbors, they don't care about them and they're not connected to their community. They buy their groceries at Costco in Malden and don't shovel the walk for the elderly person next door. You may think I'm extrapolating ad absurdum, but for the life of me, I can't name one really vibrant urban neighborhood that has good parking.

I'm obviously with Ron on this one: build more housing (more supply = lower price) but get rid of the parking. This lot is right on the bike path, two blocks from the Davis T. Parking is totally unnecessary.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I use public transportation all the time. I take the T to work. So does my husband. So does my housemate. I walk to Porter for groceries. We walk around the neighborhood.

So this means that our one car is parked most of the time. So I'm glad that there's somewhere to park it.

I don't want to convert to a car-free lifestyle - I like being able to occasionally visit the friends who live in Tewksbury, or help someone move a futon, or transport a bunch of people to King Richard's Faire. That doesn't make me un-neighborly .