Developers for a project at 3458 Washington St./7 Kenton Road, currently the site of Keegan’s Service Station, came before the Stonybrook Neighborhood Association on March 9 to present a proposal for a four story, nine unit residential building on the site.
This is not the first proposal for this site; a previous one was for a 37 unit building, but after community feedback, the project proponents decided to lower the number of units.
Developer Brad Cangiamila said that the current lot is a little over 10,000 square feet, and the proposed building will have 12,000 square feet of livable space split up into a combination of two and three bedroom condominiums for sale, with the four 3rd floor units being bilevel.
The building will be three stories with he fourth story set back, and the top floor will feature four roof decks. The developers were unable to answer a question of where the mechanical equipment and utilities will go, but they suggested they could go in the roof or in the garage.
City Councilor At-Large Julia Meijia attended the meeting and said she is interested in the community side of development, and would be happy to provide support in the community process.
SNA member Jennifer Uhrhane was concerned that the developers stopped at nine units to avoid including any affordable units, which would be required at ten units.
Cangiamila said they wouldn’t have a problem working out some sort of financial contribution to an affordable housing fund.
Another comment was made that Washington St. should be activated with some sort of commercial space on the ground floor instead of housing units. “We will see closed blinds all day,” a neighbor said, adding that the current design “would call for really robust landscaping along the front” to give people something to look at along the street level.
Several comments were also made about the current design of the building, which appears to be a plain gray building. “I urge you to do something else color-wise,” Uhrhane said. “Everything being built here [in JP] looks exactly the same.” She also suggested that the developers make the neighbors aware of the list of variances they would require both from the city zoning code and PLAN: JP/Rox.
Cangiamila said that the architect can add more details, but didn’t want to do too much for an initial meeting as they anticipated changes to the design of the building.
This project is in a commercial zoning area, so it would be a change of use triggering a lot of different variances.
After the developers left, the SNA and community discussed the project and comments were made that the developers seemed unprepared for the presentation. Someone said that the developers want to see if they are on the right track with the community or not before having plans that are really set in stone.
Mejia said she would like to see home ownership opportunities for people to live in a more mixed-income situation, and offered her office to help support the SNA in their process. “I’m new and I want to be useful,” she said.
This proposal was very preliminary, and the developers expect more meetings with the community to come up with a proposal that works for the community.
35 Brookley/10 Stonley Update
The 45 unit proposal for 10 Stonley Road was set to go before the Zoning Board of Appeal on March 10, but at the request of Mayor’s Liaison Lindsey Santana, the developers deferred. SNA member Jennifer Uhrhane said that the “main sticking point” that remains with this project is rhat the volume and number of units is too large, in the opinion of many mmebers of the community.
Despite many efforts to work with the developers to lessen the number of units, Uhrhane said that the developers didn’t want to make any changes. However, she said that there might be a new affordability calculation that might be able to work and a compromise can be made. “I’m feeling a little relieved,” she said, after learning of the deferral.
3502 Washington St. (Doyle’s overflow parking lot) update
SNA Steering Committee member Jonathan McCurdy said that the developers who proposed an eight unit residential building with one commercial space has withdrawn their proposal. The subcommittee members had not heard anything from the developers in a while, and the proposal was originally proposed in October of last year.