Height at 2072 Mass. Ave. project again rejected by zoning board; project to return in September
Chairman of the Board of Zoning Appeal Constantine “Gus” Alexander, left, mulls an affordable housing proposal for 2072 Massachusetts Ave. on Thursday with vice chair Brendan Sullivan.
It was as if nothing had changed in the past six months.
At a four-hour hearing Thursday, the Board of Zoning Appeal declined to approve a comprehensive permit for the 2072 Massachusetts Ave. affordable development five blocks north of Porter Square, but instead allowed the project to be scheduled for another hearing Sept. 9.
When the board last heard the case in December, the proposed project was nine stories high on Massachusetts Avenue and six stories high at the rear, facing down Walden Street. Although most public and neighborhood opposition had focused on the Walden Street side or general concerns about the project (parking, and its impact on the neighboring Leonard J. Russell Apartments, run by the Cambridge Housing Authority), the concern from the board was different – board member Jim Monteverde opposed the Massachusetts Avenue height, and three of the five members echoed him.
Height adjustments
In the intervening months, project developers Jason Korb and Sean Hope first reduced the Massachusetts Avenue height to eight stories, but discovered a rendering error: They had shown the adjacent Russell Apartments at 70 feet tall rather than 59 feet, its actual height. While this set them back a few months, they negotiated with Walden Street neighbors to reduce the rear height to five stories from six, and raised the Massachusetts Avenue height back to nine stories. They came back with support from the condominium across Walden Street that had previously opposed the project.
But for Monteverde, it was the same issue. After hearing two hours of public comment from housing advocates in favor and many nearby neighbors opposed, Constantine “Gus” Alexander, chairman of the board, proposed a series of eight anodyne conditions for the project. Monteverde suggested adding that the building should be no higher than would be allowed under the city’s new Affordable Housing Overlay, a zoning mechanism designed for projects to be approved without discretionary review – that is, without needing to go through the monthslong public process that this project is engaged in.
The board first voted on Alexander’s conditions without Monteverdi’s, and only Laura Wernick, an architect, voted in favor. The remaining members – Brendan Sullivan, Andrea Hickey, Monteverde and Alexander – voted against.
Financial limitations
Hope and Korb explained to the board that although they might be able to comply with the AHO’s height limitations, they had thoroughly investigated complying with all of its other requirements, especially setbacks, and that the project would not be economical if they did so.
Sullivan expressed that he thought the AHO’s constraints should apply.
Hope
“I thought you established the overlay wasn’t a design guideline,” Hope said, referring to an extensive discussion from the December meeting when Hope had strongly put forth that the AHO was just one mechanism to develop affordable housing, but not the exclusive method. “You’re using it now as a glass ceiling.”
Discussion devolved.
After a recess, the project team returned and asked the board if it would support an eight-story building that stepped down to six stories on Walden Street, or a seven story building of uniform height.
“Well, I do think seven could work,” Monteverde said. “You got me between a rock and a hard place.”
“Certainly eight-six is a move on Mass. Ave., it leaves your offer intact on Walden,” he said.
Hickey told the petitioners: “I could support an eight-six; I’m not wild about a seven-story overall.”
Although petitioners suggested they would be ready to return to the board in June, Alexander insisted that they not hear the case in the middle of the summer and scheduled the next hearing for Sept. 9.
But there’s reason to think even then the board will give no quarter. After the meeting adjourned, Alexander was heard on a hot microphone: “I would like to see this building go down another story.”
The Board’s only vote was on the continuance. Had a vote been taken on the Chair’s proposed motion, the project would have been rejected and there would be no continuance. That fact was made quite clear.
It is incorrect to say that it was housing activists on one side and neighbors on the other. There were neighbors on both sides and people who have a history of activism on housing issues on both sides as well. I would also say that, from my informal observation, the people who talked about the specific project were mostly opposed, primarily because of the size (mostly the height), and people who will show up for most (but definitely not all) things denominated affordable housing said that it should be approved because all affordable housing should be approved. The other thing that struck me was that a certain number of opponents questioned the developers’ motives, but not the supporters’, while a large number of supporters questioned the opponents’ motives, often in quite derogatory terms, to which many opponents objected during their testimony.
This comprehensive permit application asked for a really large number of variances, far more than the Board was used to seeing in a 40B application. The law still requires the Board to judge variances on hardship and reasonableness, to see if the requested variances do or do not create a detriment to the public good and do or do not nullify or substantially derogate from the intent or purpose of the zoning ordinance. The references to the AHO were for that purpose, to compare what was asked for here to a standard that the City Council had recently set as a reasonable measure for affordable housing projects to exceed what’s allowed for market-rate housing projects.
Nowhere in the law is there a rule that says affordable housing is by definition a public good, and you can stop thinking once those magic words are intoned. We still need to pay attention to the good of the whole community, including whether the proposed housing is a good place for people to live in and, in this case, whether it will have a detrimental effect on the well-being of the elderly and disabled residents of the Russell Apartments next door.
I’m not sure it’s great to get into semantics, but the board certainly took multiple votes, and although the first vote was initially cast vaguely as a motion for regarding conditions and was later re-characterized as a “sense of the board,” after quite a bit of confusion, it’s still a vote. Perhaps it is not a “vote on the permit within the meaning of the Chapter 40B statute,” but it’s a vote nonetheless. I’m comfortable with the article’s characterization.
As for the word “rejected” in the headline, it’s intended as lay shorthand and I think the article is clear as to the current status of the permit.
Why would an additional story or two have a detrimental impact on the well-being of the elderly and disabled people who live next door?
I would not be so arrogant as to speak for the tenants at the Russell Apartments when they have spoken for themselves, in a piece that still appears on the front page here. I trust the BZA to acknowledge their full humanity and take their views into account in rendering a decision in this case.
The developers will probably come back with a single height building that meets the AHO. Compared to the current plan, it will be shorter in the front but taller in the back. Probably the same “mass” as the current plan, but meeting the AHO limits. Not sure this will make the opponents happy.