Winn plan for Walden Square housing addition remains a bad design that is wrong for the area
As a resident of North Cambridge and Neighborhood 9, I love what what’s going up in my neighborhood at New Street, Blanchard Road and Jefferson Park. Great public housing projects, great designs, great locations. But WinnDevelopment’s scheme to plant a 60-unit slab smack over Walden Square Road plus a second 35-unit building wedged between the existing nine-story 110-unit building and the rest of Walden Square’s units? Not so much. To be clear: We are talking about a slab-and-tunnel project over Walden Square Road that would destroy a dozen mature trees, tear up the main road and create a 250-foot tunnel under one of the two new buildings that would sit on pylons. Can anyone reading this show me one successful example of this type of residential – not commercial – design that is equal in scope and size to what Winn wants to put up?
When 626 people and counting sign a petition to put the kibosh on this plan for Walden Square Road and the petition lands on deaf ears, one has to wonder if Winn and the city are listening or they if are on automatic pilot, having already chosen to build at any cost and any size. Hopefully, the slab-and-tunnel scheme will be prohibitively expensive, allowing for better public housing projects to go up in my backyard.
And if Winn thinks that green-lighting affordable housing projects with 100-plus units in our fair city is an onerous process, try living at Walden Square Road in the coming years.
Federico Muchnik, Richdale Avenue, Cambridge
What is a “slab-and-tunnel project”? You use it several times but this is not a term that appears anywhere else I can find besides this article and your petition.
“tear up the main road” Walden Square road is absolutely not a main road.
“Can anyone reading this show me one successful example of this type of residential” These look like standard 5/6 over 1s. there are thousands of these all over the country and the world.
“Hopefully, the slab-and-tunnel scheme will be prohibitively expensive, allowing for better public housing projects to go up in my backyard.”
What would a public housing project you wouldn’t fight against actually look like?
Is slaw dan totten? ;-D
Slawon Monday, March 18, 2024 at 7:19 am
What is a “slab-and-tunnel project”? You use it several times but this is not a term that appears anywhere else I can find besides this article and your petition.
ANSWER: It’s a large building over a tunnel. See Winn’s scheme.
“tear up the main road” Walden Square road is absolutely not a main road.
ANSWER: It’s certainly the main road for everyone living at Walden Square.
“Can anyone reading this show me one successful example of this type of residential” These look like standard 5/6 over 1s. there are thousands of these all over the country and the world.
ANSWER: Show me 1. I am referring to a 6 story building over a 250-foot tunnel as a residential unit, not business. Show me a photo.
“Hopefully, the slab-and-tunnel scheme will be prohibitively expensive, allowing for better public housing projects to go up in my backyard.”
What would a public housing project you wouldn’t fight against actually look like?
ANSWER: Lincoln Way, Blanchard Road, Jefferson Park.
I’m glad the AHO allows us to bypass NIMBY concerns. Let’s expand that to all of our housing.
“Is slaw dan totten? ;-D”
No and the way you nimbys assume anyone who disagrees with you is actually your personal nemesis in disguise is hilarious to me.
“ANSWER: It’s a large building over a tunnel. See Winn’s scheme.”
So it’s a scare mongering term you just made up? Glad to clarify that.
“It’s certainly the main road for everyone living at Walden Square.”
No it isn’t. A main road isnt whatever road you happen to live on. Main roads are roads that form a core part of the network, generally have higher traffic levels, and typically have concentrations of shops and services. None of those is true about that road. It’s a minor residential access road that currently feels more like a path through a parking lot than an actual road.
If anything is a main road for those residents it would be Sherman or Walden, if not Mass Ave.
“ANSWER: Show me 1. I am referring to a 6 story building over a 250-foot tunnel as a residential unit, not business. Show me a photo.”
Tons of 5 over ones (look ant most of the new ones in Everett for a specific local example) are built over parking on the ground level. Nothing meaningfully distinguishes that from this tunnel. I’d prefer ground floors that have usable space for people instead of cars but this seems like a great way to fit housing on a site that otherwise wouldn’t fit it, and without NIMBYs like you complaining about losing parking.
There are some even wilder examples too. See this in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liziba_station?wprov=sfti1
Or this in Germany: http://www.secretcitytravel.com/berlin-august-2014/berlin-alternative-sightseeing-u-bahn-metro-through-house.shtml
“ANSWER: Lincoln Way, Blanchard Road, Jefferson Park.”
Those projects are very similar to this one in size, architecture, building style, and construction techniques. What is the actual difference?
I actually live on Richdale Ave as well and I just want to say I fully support this project.
The original comment wasn’t me but I’m happy to concur.
The reason we passed this law was to prevent frivolous concerns such as these from sinking an affordable housing project. Despite AHO, this project has been delayed for more than a year as things have been worked out. Let’s get those shovels in the ground, bring on the slab!
Slaw’s examples in China and Germany are ghastly, truly horrific. Google “Corviale” outside Naples for more bad urban design.
“The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright
We won’t let Cambridge down: we will fight to keep low income folks here. They create the riches we benefit from. AND we will provide them with quality public housing instead of warehousing them in institution-type buildings.
https://www.change.org/stoptheslab
640 signatures and counting.
I don’t see anything gastly about them. Space is limited in cities and fitting in housing around transit is great. the 93 spaghetti north and south of the city is ghastly not things like that.
Corivale, outside of Rome btw, looks so bad in large part due to neglect. That is a political choice more than an architectural one, and this architecture looks nothing like that anyway.
You are literally fighting against an affordable housing project. You can convince yourself that you support social housing but your actions say otherwise, and you don’t convince me.
https://www.change.org/stoptheslab
644 signatures and rising.
Corviale, neglect – how and why do you think it got to be that way? Could it be – just as it was with Winn – that the owners/stewards stopped caring? 21 Walden Square + Winn’s neglect + 20 years = mold, rodents, decaying apartments…
This is what awaits Walden Square 2.
Have you ever seen the community at Lincoln Way? Have you noted the pride they take in living there? Do you walk through Lincoln Way and appreciate the landscaping, the layout, the safety and serenity that is intrinsic to that project?
It’s the 21st century. We can build better and we should. Winn’s design is so obviously profit-driven it’s no surprise nearly 700 people have signed the petition.
Aren’t you arguing that they should continue not caring and stop making investments into improvements there? Your stigmatization of the projects contributes to the ability to abandon the residents too btw.
Lincoln way is fine. Having seen public housing developments in other countries that actually place a value on it it’s nothing that special. I like the modal filters and the pedestrian path through the center (although not the way they used planters to break up the path and make it less useful and harder to navigate for people on bikes or wheel chairs). It still dedicates way too much space for surface parking, is far less dense than it could and really should be, and it lacks a real central courtyard in the center in favor of parking and small and partially privatized green spaces. Despite all that I’m glad it exists, we need more affordable housing and I’m glad the residents like it but wish more people had the opportunity to do so.
You have no actual substantive arguments against the project. The improved paths to the underpass, and separation from driveway traffic will make pedestrians and people on bikes safer and more comfortable/serene. I do not care that people in cars driving down this back alley will go through a tunnel. I don’t see why anyone would.
I do not like losing trees either but building more housing in urban areas preserves more trees in the broader sense by reducing the drive for sprawl, which eats more green space than anything else. See: https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/07/27/save-the-trees-build-urban-housing/
If you succeed, and thankfully because of the AHO you won’t, you will not make a better project you will prevent this project and prevent the hundreds of low income people who would have lived there from doing so. It is clear what your real intentions are.
The objections raised here/in the linked petition boil down to a vague assertion that this development doesn’t fit the neighborhood – which, what does that mean? Who gets to decide what is right or wrong for the area? Why should a guy who doesn’t live in Walden Square and isn’t even an abutter to it, who owns a 1.9 million-dollar property and ran for City Council primarily campaigning on opposing the Affordable Housing Overlay, be the arbiter of whether nearly 100 low-income families (from a waitlist exceeding a THOUSAND households) will get the opportunity to live in this neighborhood in the future?
The “tunnel” keeps getting brought up as some kind of huge deal-breaker, but I sincerely do not understand what the problem is:
* Given how the petition invokes the presence of children in the area, is the concern that it will invite crime? Unlikely, as the management offices and building lobby are right there.
* Will it somehow impact the structural integrity of the building? I’ll defer to engineers/architects over a filmmaker, thanks.
* Will pedestrian access be harmed? Nope, the revised design retains direct access to the Yerxa underpass. The petition claims the building will “force foot traffic onto narrow walkways” – but currently, one side of Walden Square Rd has no sidewalk at all, while the other “sidewalk” is half made up of unsafe and mostly unmarked crossings of parking lot exits. The only foot traffic being “displaced” by the new buildings is people walking in the road. The proposed new walkways are much more accessible than what’s there now.
* Will vehicle circulation be impacted? No. The road isn’t being “torn up,” it will remain wide enough for 2 lanes of traffic. The only big change from a driver’s POV is the road being covered for a short section, and I’m sure they’ll survive the few seconds without open air views while passing through. Plus, putting housing over the existing road is better than the alternative of replacing more green/common areas.
Also, the few provided examples of “good” developments in the area actually seem quite similar to the proposal here. I suspect the only meaningful difference is that those developments are outside of the area that Mr. Muchnik considers “[his] backyard” and so it’s easy for him to offer up those examples as “see, I don’t oppose ALL affordable housing!!” If the New St or Blanchard Rd developments were located closer to his house, he would certainly find some reason to oppose them as well, probably their height.
Another dense development in an already dense part of a very dense city. What’s wrong with West Cambridge?
I’m wondering why comments are so binary. Why is it impossible to have both good design for affordable housing? Underprivileged deserve a nice place to live too. In many cases, some of the bulk presented can be broken down into several sections making human scale and a core of a neighborhood folks deserve. I don’t see the writer saying he is against affordable housing, but wants a better design. If that is the case, I agree with him. Design makes people want to live there. Not as being warehoused but being part of the community. In the past, some new suggested designs actually created MORE units, but were ignored. Housing shouldn’t be formulaic as in AHO, but I do believe context should be considered (which it was in the original AHO and in ENVISION). there are many moving parts and just because a better design is being asked for doesn’t mean those people are evil, NIMBYS, selfish, tone-deaf. I find single issue housing advocates and their developers have greater hearing problems than those who live there. Just the way I see it…
Another example of buildings over a tunnel in London for the Busway for Hammersmith station: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4930674,-0.223615,3a,75y,193.27h,113.28t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1shgA8LYm9tjwVLE4v4ygdlA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en&entry=ttu
It’s hard not to read this as disingenuous opposition from someone that just doesn’t want to deal with construction at the end of their street.
For one, when you were campaigning for council, you said that you’re in favor of more affordable housing, and that anything above 7 stories is too tall. Great, these buildings are only 5 and 6 stories tall.
You say that it doesn’t fit in with the neighborhood, but the existing Walden Square apartments already have a much taller 9-story building.
You say that you’re in favor of those other three housing developments that you listed, but a quick Google search doesn’t surface any record of you speaking in support of them during the planning phase at all.
Your track record of public advocacy seems to be tangibly opposing affordable housing (like this development and the AHO) and paying lip service to the general idea of affordable housing.
Happy to be proven wrong here, but it really does seem like you spend more of your energy on opposing affordable housing than supporting it, yet want to be seen as some champion of it.
Oy vey, cwec.
Only 5 and 6 stories? Add 2 stories for the tunnel. And anyway, who says I can’t adjust for off-avenue stuff? On Mass Ave, 6-7 stories, mid-level, gentle-density to keep our streets sunlit, avoid heat islands, wind tunnels, and make the buildings fam-friendly. At Walden Square – ANY structures over the road and wedged between buildings as WS2 proposes is sheer folly.
Yeah, that 9-story building is an aberration and sticks out like whoever planned it wasn’t looking around. BTW: They got away with that size under the proviso they’d leave open spaces – a supposed “understanding” between city and developer which we can kiss goodbye (to open space) if Winn gets its way.
Support? How can I support said trio of developments when I’m just getting into politics – taking a breather from filmmaking? AHO 2.0 may be what I’m trying to amend/adjust but I got into this dogfight to stanch Winn at Walden Square – and that’s where I’ve returned to post-election.
Lip service, eh? Have you seen the videos of our tour of successful public housing (please, don’t call it affordable. That’s downright false) projects and why we want more of them in the 21st century? Modern public housing cannot be, should not be reminiscent of central planning slabs from the seventies and before. Use your eyes. Look at where public housing residents are happy, want to stay, proud of their ‘hood. Talk to them, cwec. See what kids – mostly minorities – have to say about living at 21 Walden Square versus – say – Lincoln Way. Can’t you see how jazzed the folks at Lincoln Way are about their homes? They “mark” their turf with plants, art, and more. They know and talk to each other. Their kids play within view of their mom’s and dad’s kitchens. Walden Sq. kids want 1 thing, cwec: to get out. Ditto their parents. And if Winn builds these folks will have still another burden to bear.
My advocacy for public housing is as solid as my advocacy for gentle-density mid-rise buildings to house the folks that need a roof over their heads. Moreover, I advocated for more triple deckers – perhaps the best model we have in Cambridge – in “A” zones and I want very much to keep buildings at about the same height or not much higher than the tree-line. It’s just why the working class, middle class, and upper class want to live here in the first place.
https://www.change.org/stoptheslab
669 signatures and counting.
Don’t know why you’re chastising me for the term “affordable housing”, when you yourself use it throughout your films and your candidate website.
Do you seriously believe the intangible “burden” of living near buildings that you deem insufficient is worse than the tangible burden of not having stable, affordable housing that would be relieved from the 100+ families that could move into Walden Square II?
Your “advocacy” for affordable housing seems a bit toothless, since you’ve only got two films on your website that are about the positives of public and affordable housing, in comparison to the three films in opposition to this development alone, not to mention the multiple Cambridge Day articles and the change.org petition.
You launched a campaign for council in order to restrict the number of affordable homes that can be built, both in this project and across Cambridge as a whole. You don’t really seem like someone all that concerned with creating more of it
“Only 5 and 6 stories? Add 2 stories for the tunnel.”
How does that math work? The habitable area is shrunk by the tunnel not expanded by it, it is fewer floors if you don’t count the tunnel.
If you want to keep all the density “On Mass Ave” it would nee to be more than gentle density there. This is gentle density and it should be spread throughout the city.
” ANY structures over the road and wedged between buildings as WS2 proposes is sheer folly.”
Who says? You? Why should we care?
“under the proviso they’d leave open spaces – a supposed “understanding” between city and developer which we can kiss goodbye (to open space) if Winn gets its way.”
Again what is the logic here. Building over parking is not kissing goodbye to open space and this will actually improve the path network.
“Support? How can I support…” Yet you find plenty of time to oppose. Almost like, despite your marketing to the contrary, you oppose affordable housing and do not support it.
“My advocacy for public housing is as solid as my advocacy for gentle-density mid-rise buildings to house the folks that need a roof over their heads.”
Yes, you oppose both in practice while paying lip service to them in theory.