Mission Hill locals are pushing back against two approved developments and one project currently under city review along Parker Hill Avenue. The residents say they are worried the additions would eliminate parking, clog traffic and alter the community demographic and dynamics with transient residents.
“If it’s not [Northeastern University] students, it’s going to be Longwood Medical Area and short-term people,” said Richard Giordano, a Mission Hill resident who has community planning experience. “I understand there’s a need for [students] — the problem is that it doesn’t stabilize a neighborhood.”
Savage Properties, a Boston development company, is creating each of the three developments at 11-11A, 36 and 85 Parker Hill Ave. The sites begin at the bottom of the street’s steep slope that allows one-sided street parking.
The building at 85 Parker Hill Ave. first served as a home for New England Baptist Hospital nurses and, later, seniors before its eventual sale to Jason Savage last year, said Giordano.
The three apartment buildings will total 223 units consisting of 112 studios, 70 one-bedrooms and 41 two-bedrooms. The site at 11-11A and 36 Parker Hill Ave. will cost $8 million and $9.5 million, respectively, according to the BPDA.
Giordano spoke out against the apartment unit mix of 11-11A at a zoning appeals meeting in late February. He contrasted the social dynamic that studio- and one-bedroom apartments create between different age groups in Mission Hill.
“When you have a neighborhood where people are bringing up families, the stability that’s there is that everybody is looking out for each other,” Giordano said in an interview after the meeting. “That kind of thing just does not happen when you’ve got… 3,000 students living on Mission Hill.”
Martin Beinborn, a resident and the president of the Community Alliance of Mission Hill, said that in his 15 years on Mission Hill, he has witnessed families and students fade into the distance as they fight against rising rent prices.
“They have to compete with investors,” said Beinborn.
Absentee investors generate much more revenue renting to students than families, he added.
Beinborn said the alliance’s only leverage against displacement is to push back on intrusive development plans. He said the alliance has set two meetings with developers — one to provide details and feedback about the plan; the other to present modifications and formally vote. The second meeting – on the site at 85 Parker Hill Ave. – has been postponed to April 15, per the developers’ request, said Beinborn.
Boston’s Planning and Development Agency must approve the project.
The agency said it received differing requests for smaller (studio and one-bedroom) and larger (two-bedroom) units for the site at 11-11A Parker Hill Ave. Officials decided to add more two-bedroom units in addition to studios and one-bedroom apartments, according to an agency spokesperson.
Giordano and Beinborn also expressed concerns over parking due to an expected influx of residents and students moving into the proposed apartment buildings. The 35 parking spaces proposed between the three buildings will put pressure on a street that already lacks the bandwidth for more parking, deliveries, and daily traffic, Beinborn said.
“Oftentimes development isn’t synchronized with traffic planning,” said Beinborn. “It would have made sense to look at it from a traffic standpoint first, but I think that hasn’t happened.”
He said officials are exploring calm traffic on other narrow streets, such as Terrace Street, but that thus far it’s been more talk than action.
Beinborn also said he has been hearing that the heavy student population – near the Orange Line tracks up on Fort Hill – has spilled into Mission Hill and is causing various problems.
Beinborn also pointed to the alliance’s now defunct “Problem Properties Task Force,” made up of university representatives, residents and campus police. That group used to analyze where police calls clustered to understand issues like disruptive and boisterous student parties.
Beinborn said the community worsened after the task force dissolved, but he is now hoping to open dialogue with residents from all ages to improve relations.
“We need more talking to each other,” he said. “I’m sure there are quite a few people here who could take us around or give us the other perspective… and to find some compromise.”
This story is part of a partnership between The Independent Newspaper Group and the Boston University Department of Journalism’s Newsroom program.