NORTH END/WATERFRONT RESIDENTS' ASSOCIATION

Transcription

1 NORTH END/WATERFRONT RESIDENTS' ASSOCIATION P.O. Box Boston, MA Robert W. Golledge, Jr., Secretary EOEA, Attn: MEPA Office Attn: Deirdre Buckley, MEPA Analyst 100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900 Boston MA Boston Redevelopment Authority Attn: Kristin Donovan, Project Manager One City Hall Square, 9 th Floor Boston, MA Subject: 585 Commercial St., Boston, EOEA No Dear Secretary Golledge and Mr. Maloney: The North End/Waterfront Residents Association (NEWRA) is pleased to submit these comments on the Environmental Notification Form and Project Notification Form filed by GA 585 Commercial Street, LLC, proposing redevelopment of the property at 585 Commercial Street, Boston (the ENF/PNF ). The plans call for demolishing an existing 3-story, 48-foot high commercial use building that until recently housed a furniture showroom and professional offices, as well as removing an adjacent surface parking lot. In their places, the developer proposes to construct an 8-story, 85-foot high residential condominium building with 62 luxury market rate units on the upper seven floors; restaurant, retail or other facilities of public accommodation on the first floor; private roof decks; and a public roof deck with bar and restaurant service. A two-story underground parking garage for 135 cars will be constructed under the new building. The plans also call for public amenities, including a marina and public docking facility (for water taxi) on adjacent Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) property and a funding contribution for a possible extension of the Harborwalk along the outside edge of the city s Mirabella Pool at the North End Park. NEWRA is an association of nearly 350 members who have primary residence in the North End or North End/Waterfront. NEWRA has reviewed the redevelopment proposal as presented by the development team in the ENF/PNF and at NEWRA meetings on October 24, 2006, and December 5, 2006, as well as at the BRA public hearing held on November 16. NEWRA representatives also attended the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) on-site scoping session that was held by the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) on November 2, In addition, and importantly, NEWRA has conducted open meetings for neighborhood discussion and has heard from many North End and Waterfront residents voicing their opinions and concerns. NEWRA has also sought initial input and personal perspectives from neighborhood representatives who participated in the original harbor planning efforts that the City of Boston conducted in the late 1980 s that culminated in

2 Page 2 of 10 the permanent zoning and waterways regulations that today govern development along the North End Waterfront, including 585 Commercial Street. It is with the information we have collected through the above reviews, presentations and discussions that we offer the following comments, which our membership approved by vote on December 5, Substantially, our comments identify information in the ENF/ PNF that is severely limited or that we believe misrepresents the impacts or the important planning contexts necessary to frame and measure the impacts. Most importantly, more information must be made available to counter our current assessment that the project as proposed is substantially and seriously in noncompliance with City of Boston Zoning Code and the Boston Municipal Harbor Plan (the MHP ) and is contrary to established waterfront uses and development goals, including city and state uses and goals. The project as proposed cannot be built without significant changes to city zoning regulations and the MHP. We take most seriously the developer s proposal to revise these permanent development regulations. We believe the changes that may be sought by the developer and the BRA to allow the project to be constructed in its current form or a revised form will have profound and lasting adverse effects on the local waterfront s character and on public uses. These changes will also have a significant adverse effect on the North End neighborhood and on broader city and state activities and plans regarding recreational, historical, and public waterfront programs. Also, any zoning and MHP changes that may be allowed after extensive planning, regulatory review and related public process may require significant changes to the project proposal now before us. NEWRA urges the BRA and the Secretary to determine that the project as proposed cannot be approved and should not continue through the Article 80 and MEPA review processes, because it is fundamentally and substantially in noncompliance with the Zoning Code, the MHP, and state regulations, and is contrary to city and state waterfront planning and surrounding park land designation. The project should be withdrawn and revised to bring it into substantial compliance and conformance. We strongly advocate that the city and state take steps now that will move the 585 Commercial Street site into public control and park land designation. Only this course can remove the long-standing impacts of this last private parcel on the surrounding open space and recreational facilities so important to our neighborhood and the city as a whole. If the project will continue to be reviewed, NEWRA urges the BRA and the Secretary to require: 1. that the developer prepare a full Project Impact Report and a full Environmental Impact Report responding to the issues raised in this and other public comment letters;

3 Page 3 of that a full public process be conducted to consider revisions to the permanent zoning regulations and the MHP in the manner and broader planning framework that were used by the City in the late 1980 s and early 1990 s, as required (then and now) by state regulations, to establish the waterfront development requirements now in place; and 3. that the BRA and the developer conform to a planning and public process that avoids undue influence of one developer s noncompliant project proposal on the broader planning evaluations of development alternatives and related public process that should be conducted in the permanent zoning and MHP reviews. Height and Conformance to Surroundings City zoning and the MHP restrict height at 585 Commercial Street to 55 feet. This height restriction prevents new structures from walling off the neighborhood from the waterfront, limits shadow and massing effects that could compromise the public waterfront experience, and conforms new construction to the existing heights along the North End Waterfront and in the neighborhood. In approving very limited instances of substitutions to the Chapter 91 required heights in the MHP (at Pilot House and Sargents Wharf), Secretary Susan Tierney s May 22, 1991 decision states A similar policy on restraint (on building height) is in effect in the North End. where 55 feet is an absolute limit (emphasis added) that does not increase with distance landward of the high water mark. Taller buildings have been planned by the City only in locations where the additional height is in keeping with the dimensional characteristics of nearby structures. For example, a 75 foot height limit was chosen for Sargents Wharf in order to be consistent with the size of historic buildings in the surrounding property. The 585 Commercial Street project is surrounded by heights of no more than 55 feet and mostly by open space. The exceptions allowed at Pilot House and Sargents Wharf due to higher existing buildings do not apply, and the expected public benefit of affordable housing at Sargents Wharf clearly does not apply at 585 Commercial Street, where no on-site affordable housing is proposed. There is no justification for a height greater than the 55 foot statutory limit. None has been provided. On the issue of the urban planning context, the ENF/PNF is most misleading. The ENF/PNF reaches far afield to draw extensive comparisons and connections between 585 Commercial Street and buildings and uses that exist or are planned at remote locations along the North End Waterfront and in the North Station development area. But the document says little about the adjacent uses along the waterfront, which are exclusively park land, including recreational open space and recreational facilities, with no buildings along the harbor side of Commercial Street above about 15 feet for hundreds of feet.

4 Page 4 of 10 In keeping with the Chapter 91 regulations, new construction along the waterfront should provide a stepping down from the urban landscape of the landward areas to the water. Instead the developer characterizes the project as a transition zone between the 55 feet of the North End and the 155 to 400 feet allowed in the Bulfinch Triangle and North Station development areas. 585 Commercial Street is in the North End, not in the Bulfinch or North Station development areas and not in Keaney Square, as the ENF/PNF purports. The area surrounding 585 Commercial Street is separated from North Station and Bulfinch both physically (North Washington Street and bridge), by zoning regulation, and historically. We respect the boundaries between Boston s historical neighborhoods; any development at 585 Commercial Street should do the same. To buy into the developer s contrived context is to accept extension of the North Station and Bulfinch Triangle development areas into the North End and eventually allow construction around 585 Commercial Street to rise to at least 85 feet, possibly more on the landward side. According to Secretary Tierney s decision, contemplating 85 feet at 585 Commercial Street should necessitate an evaluation of full build-out to 85 feet or more at the surface parking lot next to Langone Funeral Home, at the funeral home site, at the 600 Commercial Street ( Brinks ) Garage and possibly at the Steriti Skating Rink site, if the rink were ever surplussed in the future by DCR (a prospect that has for many years caused real concern in the North End). This build-out scenario is unacceptable. There has never been, in any public planning effort, even a thought that the 585 Commercial Street site would be used for the purpose proposed in the ENF/PNF. We can now only imagine how strongly the public and Secretary Tierney would have opposed this proposal if it had been part of the City s Harborpark plan in It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. There are direct adverse impacts of the proposed height, as well. The existing building, at 48 feet, divides and encumbers the adjacent park land, an impact any visitor to the site readily senses. A higher building will do more harm. How will the public seeking open space and respite be compensated? Views of the harbor, the sky over the harbor, and many historical and contemporary landmarks will be lost from Freedom Trail vantage points on Copps Hill and from hundreds of long-standing residential units in the North End. How will those residents, building owners and the general public be compensated for this loss? Today, tourists traveling the Freedom Trail from Charlestown have a clear view of the Old North Church (a lighted beacon at night) along most of the Charlestown Bridge as they approach the North End. Increasing building height at 585 Commercial Street to 85 feet will obstruct the view of the church along most of the bridge.

5 Page 5 of 10 Alternatives The MHP states The Harborpark Plan recognizes Boston Harbor as a unique resource that should be accessible to all residents of the city as a place to live, work, and gather for recreation or the quiet enjoyment of life and nature. The intent of the Plan is to ensure that there is a balance of such uses on the entire waterfront. If one considers the entire stretch of the North End Waterfront, from Long Wharf to the Charlestown Bridge, there is only one area dedicated to active passive public recreation where North End Waterfront residents and the broader public can find quiet enjoyment free from concession stands, water transportation commuters, outdoor restaurants and bars, and throngs of tourists. This is the short stretch of the harbor from the Coast Guard Base to the Charlestown Bridge, including 585 Commercial Street. This wonderful park is no accident. It was carefully planned by city officials and carefully laid out by Frederick Law Olmstead s firm. The Olmstead vision has been more fully realized in the decades since, as, one by one, the commercial and industrial parcels in this area have been added to the park through public will and investment. Only one parcel continues to interrupt this vision and compromise the park uses: 585 Commercial Street. There is now an opportunity to make the park whole. 585 Commercial Street sits on the waterfront, surrounded on three sides by state park land, including the North End tennis courts, the Steriti Rink, and a public walkway and pier. Adjacent to those public facilities are the equally enjoyable Charlestown Bridge, the North End athletic fields, the bocce courts, a large tot lot, the Mirabella Pool, and sitting and viewing areas at the harbor s edge. The area must be preserved for park land purposes, active recreation and quiet enjoyment by residents of all ages and economic status. Anything to be built at 585 Commercial Street should enhance those uses and should, at a minimum, do no harm. We ask how 62 housing units likely to be priced at more than one million dollars will enhance the existing uses, and how restaurants and bars on the ground floor and on the roof will not change the character of the park land or compromise quiet enjoyment. The developer states that the project will bring activity to an area that is a dead zone. Are luxury condominium buildings, restaurants, bars and spas the only way to bring safety and activity to park land on our waterfront? Should 85-foot condo buildings also be added to the Esplanade to enhance the quality of the public experience there? Why create the bustling, commercial context now surrounding Christopher Columbus Park at the North End Park? That is exactly what will happen with developments such as the 585 Commercial Street proposal. The North End Park is unique in the area, and it should be protected that way. In defining the alternatives to the proposed project, the ENF states the only alternative is a No Build. Under the No Build Alternative, the site would remain in its current

6 Page 6 of 10 condition, and the building would be used for storage and/or remain vacant. The site would remain inaccessible to the public. This certainly might be considered a most dire prospect, if not for the more dire proposal to run a national presidential campaign at the site. This description of project alternatives is laughable, intentionally misleading and unresponsive. Certainly, the site was in far better active use and was accessible to the public (on the ground floor) only recently, until it was purchased by the developer. Any further review of the proposal must include a detailed review of a broad set of alternatives that comply with existing zoning and the MHP and alternatives that are compatible with adjacent public park land uses, along with an assessment of the physical, institutional, and economic requirements and impacts of each. Public Rights in Tidelands As stated in the ENF/PNF, the Waterways regulations (310 CMR 9.31(2)) require that a non water-dependent use serve a proper purpose which provides greater benefit than detriment to the rights of the public in said lands. We submit the following preliminary review of the detriments and so-called benefits of the project proposal: 1. The project, due to its monolithic form and mass, will effectively wall off the North End, both horizontally and vertically, from the waterfront and harbor. The plans propose a glassed, narrow view corridor through the center of the building on the first floor. This will provide only fleeting views of the water by passersby on Commercial Street. Because the neighborhood across Commercial Street is primarily a hillside, the glassed foyer will provide no substantial mitigation for the obstruction caused by most of the mass of the proposed building. 2. Two existing viewing and pedestrian access corridors of particular benefit and importance will be constrained or obstructed by the proposed project. One is the view and access corridor on the east side of the building, between 585 Commercial Street and the Steriti Rink. This corridor has a special benefit because it lies along the site lines from the top of Hull Street and Copps Hill Burying Ground down to and then along Commercial Street and is contiguous to the Freedom Trail. It is the first view of water and sky above the harbor that tourists on the Freedom Trail see as they leave the North End historical sites. Another is the wide harbor view corridor along Commercial Street and at Prince Street, on the west end of the building, contiguous with the views provided through the existing DCR tennis courts. This view is particularly important, because it includes, from different angles, the historical Charlestown Bridge, the Leonard Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, Charlestown s City Square and waterfront, most of the historical areas of Charlestown moving up Bunker and Breeds Hills, and the Bunker Hill Monument. The developer proposes instead to face part of the building with mirrored glass, which will only reflect the industrial-looking Kinney parking garage across the street.

7 Page 7 of 10 Both of these corridors now play an important role in attracting the public to stroll to the water s edge and the existing Harborwalk. The project will narrow these corridors, create high walls along them with attendant shadow effects, and possibly add a sense of private ownership, where no such sense now exists. 3. Shadow study graphics presented at the back of the ENF/PNF clearly show that the project will significantly increase shadow on the two access corridors mentioned above, the tennis courts, Commercial Street and the Freedom Trail, the Harborwalk, the existing public pier and the watersheet. Reducing sunlight in these areas will make them less attractive and comfortable for the public, who seek light and warmth, at least 7 months of the year. 4. The ENF/PNF states that the public will benefit from an increase in housing stock that will be provided by the project. But the housing proposal is consistent with the types of development that the public and the City intended to control with the 1991 MHP, as the MHP clearly states, over and over. The development will add to the economic burdens of existing residents in the North End and will make the neighborhood more inaccessible for most of the population. 5. The ENF/PNF describes the facilities of public accommodation (FPAs) as a voluntary public benefit, because FPA requirements of Harborpark do not apply to this zoning subdistrict. 585 Commercial Street is designated North End Local Business Subdistrict. But the developer proposes to change zoning in a way that would bring it in line with the North End Waterfront Subdistrict, for which the Secretary s decision clearly requires FPAs on the ground floor of any buildings of private tenancy constructed on filled Commonwealth tidelands less than 100 feet from the water s edge. The developer s proposal to change the zoning and uses at 585 Commercial Street should make FPAs a minimal threshold requirement for the privilege of building nonwater-dependent facilities on tidelands, not a public benefit, and certainly not voluntary. The development proposal with its FPA component will provide, at best, no net benefit relative to public rights on tidelands. The project calls for replacing open space (the existing parking lot) and FPA (the former furniture showroom) with other FPAs. What is the measured benefit? 6. The plan calls for replacing a public pier now used for strolling, viewing and fishing with a small marina and water taxi dock. on public park land! The public benefits of the existing pier are clearly evident and are available to all. We do not see comparable, let alone enhanced, public need or public benefit of the marina and water taxi. We believe, instead, that the proposed facilities effectively privatize the watersheet. Only those who

8 Page 8 of 10 enter into expensive private contracts will be able to enjoy most of the proposed pier facility. Today, anyone of any economic status can find respite on the pier. Many who do are economically disadvantaged. Public use of the marina and water taxi will be physically and economically limited. The pier plan significantly reduces public benefits. 7. The plan also proposes a possible extension of the Harborwalk behind the Mirabella Pool again on public park land! The EIR/PIR should determine the feasibility of this proposal with detailed construction plans and through preliminary negotiations with the North End community, city parks and recreation officials, elected officials and federal and state agencies with authority over harbor structures before this proposal is given any weight in any regulatory decision on the project. We conclude that the project as proposed will cause significant detriment to existing urban features and public amenities that promote the rights of the public in tidelands, and the project has no significant benefit. In particular, the plan proposes no significant public amenity within the site s property lines, and instead proposes only limited and possibly infeasible benefits on public park land that will compromise existing public use of the Harborwalk, the public pier, and the public recreational spaces and facilities. Special Public Destination Facilities The 585 Commercial Street proposal should be subject to Requirement 8 in Secretary Tierney s 1991 decision, requiring special public destination facilities (SPDF). We ask the current Secretary to require that the project include SPDF and be reviewed on that basis, if the project is allowed to move forward. Affordable Housing Housing on the waterfront for all of Boston citizens is a priority of the MHP. The project as proposed provides no affordable housing on the waterfront. The project instead will produce the negative economic impacts that the MHP was intended to prevent, by contributing to a further increase in housing costs and driving out those who can no longer afford to live in the neighborhood. An accounting of the number of residential units constructed in the North End Waterfront since the MHP was implemented should be taken, with the gain or loss of affordable housing units. This accounting will show that the North End Waterfront continues to be available only to those with great means, and that the situation described in the MHP has actually worsened, primarily because the City has ignored the affordable housing goals of the MHP along the North End Waterfront since With the redevelopment of nearby Battery Wharf, no affordable housing will be created on the waterfront or anywhere else in the North End. Payment made by the Battery

9 Page 9 of 10 Wharf developer into Boston s neighborhood housing fund, presumably for construction of affordable housing at different locations in Boston, amounts to less than the average sale price of one unit there. With 104 residential units being constructed, the Battery Wharf payment represents less than 1% of the value of the units, not 10%-15%, and certainly not the 25% goal in the MHP. This situation should not be allowed to worsen; and affordable housing should be required on-site. Providing off-site affordable housing in the North End is counterproductive. It preserves the waterfront area exclusively for high end market housing, and it likely would be accomplished by converting buildings that already provide affordable rental housing opportunity. We ask that the 25% affordable housing goal of the MHP be enforced. The proposal for meeting the affordable housing requirement must be detailed and must be carefully measured for benefit. Transportation - Traffic and Pedestrian Access The plans include a two-story underground parking garage for 135 parking spaces, to serve 62 residential units and first floor commercial uses. Why is the City lining the North End Waterfront with large parking garages? Currently, there are thousands of spaces in garages and open lots along the waterfront. Hundreds are now in construction at Battery Wharf. Hundreds more have been approved or are proposed nearby, at Lovejoy Wharf and Bulfinch Triangle. What is the impact of this expansion on traffic congestion and on the air quality of the North End? What is the effect on air quality for the public strolling the Harborwalk or actively using the North End Park? Commercial Street is already plagued by traffic congestion and unsafe vehicular movements that place great risk on the public, particularly pedestrians traveling the Freedom Trail or crossing Commercial Street to use the park facilities. The project will only worsen these problems and increase these risks. The developer has characterized the project as transit oriented development (TOD), because it is located a quarter mile from one of Boston s largest public transit hubs. How is a parking garage providing nearly a two to one space to unit ratio transit oriented? How does this project design take advantage of or promote public transit use? It is no wonder that at a recent NEWRA meeting the developer, when pushed, stated that it did not intend to apply for TOD designation from the Massachusetts Office of Commonwealth Development. The 585 Commercial Street site provides enormous opportunity for activating and inviting public use along the waterfront, if it expands upon the adjacent public park uses. But the proposed project will have the exact effect that zoning and the MHP were established to

10 Page 10 of 10 prevent: it will privatize the waterfront, it will disrupt recreational and other park land uses, it will block the neighborhood from the harbor, and it will increase the economic hardship that has driven many North End residents from the neighborhood they can no longer afford to live in. We ask the Secretary and the BRA to relieve us and the broader public of the burden of months or years of effort and anguish it will take for us to change the 585 Commercial Street project and fight amendments to our waterfront development regulations that will be attempted in piecemeal fashion. We value those regulations just as they are - as they were intended by the citizens, neighborhood groups, and state and local elected officials who worked hard to create them 16 years ago. The purpose, benefits and goals of the current permanent zoning regulations and the MHP, clearly stated in the MHP, have not changed and should not be changed. The protections they provide to the North End community and to the public s rights in tidelands are needed more now than when they were established. We ask you to support our request that the developer withdraw the current plans and propose something very different that may truly promote the public s interests. Respectfully, Victor Brogna, President cc: Mayor Thomas M. Menino Senate President Robert E. Travaglini Speaker of the House Salvatore F. DiMasi Councilor Salvatore LaMattina Council President Michael F. Flaherty Councilors Felix D. Arroyo, Robert Consalvo, Maureen E. Feeney, James M. Kelly, Jerry P. McDermott, Stephen J. Murphy, Michael P. Ross, John M. Tobin, Jr., Chuck Turner, Charles C. Yancey and Sam Yoon James W. Hunt, Chief, Boston Environmental & Energy Services Antonia Pollak, Commissioner, Boston Parks and Recreation Department Bryan Glascock, Director, Boston Environment Department Stephen H. Burrington, Commissioner, Department of Conservation and Recreation Karl Haglund, Department of Conservation and Recreation Arleen O Donnell, Commissioner, Department of Environmental Protection Vivien Li, Executive Director, The Boston Harbor Association