The Future of Fort Hill

Yesterday I went to the community input meeting regarding new building developments around the west side of Fort Hill. The meeting took place at the First Church of Roxbury and was attended by a small but vocal group of local residents, most of whom had been living on the hill for a long period of time. I was clearly the youngest and newest resident in attendance and one of the few people there who wasn't a member of the BRA, Department of Neighborhood Development (DND), or one of the residential planning committees for the area.

The meeting started off well enough. One of the representatives from the city did a Powerpoint presentation in which he broke down the scope and scale of the proposed development into two segments. The first segment focused on the area around the intersection of Highland and Marcella Sts. There's roughly an entire city block, mostly vacant, that has a few stand-alone brownstones sticking up like broken teeth from a worn out gum. The city would like to fill in the gaps on Marcella St. with new brownstones that would compliment the existing ones and provide parking either behind or alongside the new units. On lower Highland St., there's a decent chunk of space across from the city's salt barn where there is interest in building mock-triple deckers. That section of Highland currently has other woodframe homes (some single-family, some multifamily) so the intent would be to have the new development match that. The new homes would be mock-triple deckers rather than actual triple deckers because of the expense. One of the city's reps said that triple deckers are too expensive to build these days. Instead, they're exploring the idea of building homes which look like triple deckers on the outside, but may actually be three-level duplexes with the split down the middle of the building. Again, these units would have their own parking spaces either behind or adjacent to the proposed buildings.

The second segment of the presentation highlighted scattered empty lots on Marcella, Highland, Hawthorne, Vale, and Fulda Streets. Unlike the other spaces, which are concentrated and being put out to bid for a developer, these scattered units would be made available for individuals to purchase the land and build their own homes at their own expense. The city would have some say over the scale and design, but otherwise it would be up to the landowners to pay for the construction of their homes. Similar work has been done on Cedar St between Highland and Centre Sts with beautiful results.

Once the presentation was done, the attendees were broken into two groups to discuss the city's plans. Our comments are to be included in the RFP which will set the goals and targets for the overall development of the area. In my group, there were longtime Fort Hill residents who sounded the alarm over parking. They claimed, rightly so, that more housing with more spaces for parking would lead to increased traffic and greater headaches for current residents in need of parking spaces. For some reason, residents in this neighborhood actually choose not to park in their driveways. More often than not residents with driveways park on the street, which means that residents without driveways have to compete for a limited amount of space. I suspect that the steepness of the hill discourages many people from using their driveways. Driveways in the neighborhood tend to be accessable via the backdoors and a flight of stairs. In other words, people are lazy.

Things started going downhill in my group when we moved on from the topic of parking to density. Personally, I'm a big fan of density. I loved it when I lived in London and Japan and enjoy walking through the Back Bay, Cambridgeport, and Jamaica Plain. From what I remember hearing, dense communities tend to be safer ones because the residents have a greater degree of familiarity with each other and they look out for one another more often. On a purely emotional level, though, I enjoy dense neighborhoods like Cambridgeport and Jamaica Plain because of the uniformity of appearance (all brownstones or all triple deckers with no breaks in between) and because I find the jumbled and varied sights and sounds to be appealing to the senses. Unfortunately, some of my neighbors don't share the same impressions. The Cedar St. residents, in particular, were against increased density. One woman insisted that increased density would lead to greater crime and noise. Other residents felt that the new homes shouldn't have buildings too close to the street because the units on the ground floors would become easy targets for crime. As one woman put it, "Who would want to live that way?!"

I don't know what my expression was, but I know I was thinking that these folks are crazy! Yes, more people will likely lead to more noise. That's understandable. But, more people leading to more crime is unfounded. If they were truly worried about that, why would they even live in a city? As for the setback of the buildings, while I agree that they shouldn't be too close to the street because of the resulting loss of space on the sidewalks, those folks might want to take a walk down my street someday. Most of the buildings have windows which start around 3 feet from the sidewalk. There are even two new buildings, completed this spring, which have residents living in ground floor units. Everyday on my way home I can see right into the living room of one unit and get a clear glimpse of the beautiful fishtank inside. If these new residents (who are probably just glad to have a new home) can move in and live there with no problem, how dare these curmudgens speak for them?!

The me-first attitude continued to fill the room when the two groups came back together. It seems as if parking and the "rights" of abutters were major concerns in both groups. A coalition of opinion formed which believed that current residents should have the right to purchase abutting lots first so that they could build driveways and gardens for their homes. I agreed to an extent. While they should be able to secure enough of a lot for a driveway and/or a garden, some of these people spoke as though they had the right to acquire an entire block before it was put out to bid. Thankfully one of the city's reps spoke up and explained both the process by which they could acquire the lots and that the abutters are not necessarily entitled to purchase them first. It was so nutty at one point that even someone renting thought she had the right to buy first since her aparment abuts one of the lots!

Anyway, even though I stayed until the end of the meeting, I don't know if anything was truly accomplished. There's another meeting on July 12 meant to follow up on this one, so I guess I'll attend and see whether any new developments or suggestions will have been incorporated into the process. It's an interesting process to say the least. I'm amazed that anything gets built in this city if this is how it happens each time. I'd be interested in learning how other cities pursue development and seek public participation and comments.

Comments

[eeka]

Hey! I just bought a place up on Fort Hill. It's the top floor of a 1900 threedecka. Thanks for the great info...

~eeka

[3rd Decade]

My pleasure. Say hello if you see me around.