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!

[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.

[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.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

yeah, but vacancy will help the parking problem. :-)

[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.

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

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

{{ narf }}

[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.)

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

I sure hope you're right. I never had enough savings for a good-sized down payment until now, and we all know what prices are like now. From what I can see, most people keep saying that the drop will be modest and we're in for a mini-slowdown rather than a crash because things now are nothing like they were during the last crash. *sigh* Most discouraging.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

When buying a condo costs twice as much in a monthly payment[1] as renting an equivalent apartment, you can guess what's going to happen. At that rate, a landlord owning a rental property isn't even earning enough rent to cover his carrying costs; he's banking on being bailed out by price appreciation.

You can pretty much use rents as a "P/E ratio" of sorts when talking about real estate.

At this point, unless you *know* you're going to be in the property you're buying for the long haul and can afford to ride out any temporary downturns in value, it's cheaper to rent.

[1]Assuming you're coming up with 10% down and using a 30yr fixed mortgage.

[mud-puppy.livejournal.com]

umm... I don't know where you got that I hate density and new housing. I actually do own a house in Somerville over near Ball Sq. I love living here and love the community.

I agree with bikergeek as well regarding public transit and density.

However, when you increase density to an already dense area (Somerville is one of the most densely populated communities in the state) you also increase the use and demand for public services, such as trash, sewer, water, police, etc. Do the increased tax revenue from those new condo units actually support the increased useage in services? I don't know the answer to that off hand. My guess is no, it doesn't, given that the services are already over used.

So, I see increased density as having both benefits and drawbacks. If done in a smart way, new housing bring more benefits than a drawbacks, but I'm not sure Somerville's current zoning is geared toward the smart, imho.

[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.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Where would you prefer to have the new housing be?

[spatch]

Nah, that's going in Powderhouse Park.

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

I'm a homeowner, and I pay property taxes to cover trash and police, and a water bill to cover both sewer and water. If I use more water, my bill goes up. If the city finds itself short of money, it increases property taxes.

I'm wondering if you're able to support your claim that the property taxes and water bills from the new condos won't provide enough revenue to support the services they require.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I find this nonsensical.

[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.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

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

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

That's one of the typical problems with sprawl: the city (whichever city the new sprawl development is near, and will get its infrastructure from) has to lay all that new sewer and gas and electric and etc., and then maintain it, which is more expensive than doing infill development.

I expect that if the city of Somerville thought the new condos would cost more than they provided, they wouldn't approve them. At least, that is my hope, but I don't know details of Somerville's review process, or what the costs/revenue are projected to be.

[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.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Density is much more efficient than sprawl.

Bringing more people into an area to make public transit more cost effective is probably not much of an issue here in Somerville, but in other areas of the country that are just discovering the joys of rail transit, it certainly is. Building dense communities near transit hubs is becoming more popular, and it is successful, both in making those communities viable, and in making the transit worth building.