Courtesy of everyblock.com, I'm disappointed to see that the new housing on Litchfield St certainly won't be the kind of housing that will attract stability or permanence to our heavily transient neighborhood.
Instead it will be 5 townhouse units that will probably look a lot like the ones shown here that were built on Adamson St a few years ago by the same developer who bought the Litchfield lot.
Too bad the City allows this sort of development that contradicts the promises of the North Allston Strategic Framework to "preserve the essential character of North Allston’s residential areas" and "ensure the continued integrity and cohesion of the existing residential neighborhoods."
These might be nice places to live for a couple years but I don't think too many families will live in one of these for any length of time. Would you want to live with your family next to something like this?
http://boston.everyblock.com/building-permits/by-date/2009/3/2/201326/
Seems like a perfectly nice place to live; indeed, we're moving into a similar place in Allston. I will now look forward to our new Allston neighbors being disappointed in having us move there.
ReplyDeleteHi F,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the neighborhood. I have no idea who you are or what type of neighbor you will be, so I have no reason to be disappointed that you are moving there. My disappointment is with the developer who is building this style of housing and how we have experienced our neighborhood changing because of buildings like these. Here is the experience of a neighbor who lives next what was built to replace the lovely single family home that used to be at 34 Raymond Street:
The Raymond Street house was designated as a historic house and was in fact featured in one of Harvard's pieces on development in Allston (Harvard had nothing to do with the property it was simply giving a list of historic homes in A/B in one of its factsheets, a list which decreases daily); . the designation delayed the demolition but the historic commission seemed to have no power. The new apartment buildings are not in scope with the architecture of the neighborhood and there is no green space. The current residents tend to be early twenties with a penchant for large loud parties (starting Thursday ending Saturday each week as if a bell goes off), with no regard to abutters. This past Saturday at one a.m. I spent asking four lads outside who were drinking beer to please stop yelling using the f bomb as if it were the word "the".
That doesn't sound "perfectly nice" to me.
You can read more about this at http://allston02134.blogspot.com/2007/08/raymond-street-teardown-has-neighbors.html
F,
ReplyDeleteCan you please explain why you look forward to your new neighbors being disappointed? I would think the whole point of living in a community with folks in close proximity, rather than some sort of rural setting, would be to try and get along and enjoy having neighbors.
Harry, thanks for the background; I hadn't seen that earlier post. Hopefully it's just an exception and not the rule..
ReplyDeleteab_resident, I was just being sarcastic. In reality I'm sure my neighbors will be great. This post just irked me, by stereotyping me as a less-desirable neighbor because of my house's architectural style.
ab, I find it interesting that you posted this. You should have added "as long as they are not BC students"
ReplyDeleteF,
ReplyDeleteThanks for clearing up the response. I'm glad to hear you were only being sarcastic and I hope you enjoy living in the community. You will find out that there are a lot of great people living in the community.
But let me say in Harry's defense I think his legitimate concerns stem from the amount of development that has drastically increased over the recent years from absentee landlords who only want to maximize their profits without any regard to the surrounding neighborhood by building very densely populated structures that do not support family style living. The fact of the matter is that these type of apartment type units do entice living conditions that create problems. If you don't believe me just pick up the local paper and look at various disturbances reported in the police section each week. Most of these occurrences happen in dwellings that are not family occupied, so when folks such as Harry raise these concerns I believe they a completely justified.
Don't forget that along with these types of developments come other problems such as overcrowded parking conditions, increased noise, and fewer long term residents to name a few.
I hope you do not think that I am categorizing everyone who lives in these apartment style units but past experience has shown that there have not been problems until these type of developments started being built in a lot of neighborhoods.
With that being said I hope you enjoy living in the neighborhood.
Units which add to the density of our neighborhood and aren't likely to provide long-term housing for families decrease our quality-of-life. Of all the housing built in the last several years, *all* of it is this type and none of it is equivalent to the lower density housing in which residents have grown up for decades. I'd like to see (gasp) single-family homes being built instead.
ReplyDelete