Zoning Board hears resident pushback on additional Watch Factory apartments
Immediately after Watch Factory Lofts management firm Berkeley Investments met with neighbors about adding a new building to its mixed-use development, it returned to the Zoning Board of Appeals to continue discussing the project with the city.
At its special meeting on Thursday, April 30, the board refrained from taking a final vote on whether or not to approve zoning variances Berkeley requested, but tentatively scheduled a site visit on Thursday, May 21 that would be open to the public. A representative of the project will attend the ZBA meeting on May 19 to confirm the date of the site visit.
Project attorney Michael Connors of Connors & Connors LLP told board members about the ways in which the team had made changes to its plan to accommodate neighbors, including details about the physical design and soundproofing of the building. He also said Berkeley was committed to funding neighborhood improvements such as a pedestrian path to the river, crosswalk improvements, and possible contributions to a local park on the site of the former Fitch School — although Recreation Director Kim Hebert says the city plans to leave that lot empty for the next five to 10 years.
Chair John Sergi said the ZBA had received letters both in favor of and against the new building. Four residents attended to speak against it, raising concerns about the project’s size, its affordability, whether it fit statutory requirements for being exempted from certain zoning requirements and its potential traffic and parking impact on the area.
The developer’s traffic study, which posits that the project will not substantially impact local traffic, has already been approved by the city’s Traffic Commission, and Berkeley recently redid a study demonstrating that significant parts of the Watch Factory campus’ available parking is underused. The study estimates that even with these new units, the campus will maintain around 250 empty parking spaces at peak occupancy.
Still, neighbors raised concerns that some of that vacancy is due to residents taking up street parking. Local resident Mark Lasoff proposed that the developer should study parking on nearby streets or consider opening its parking lots up to residents of neighboring streets.
Multiple nearby residents argued that the development was overly tall and had too many units, but development team members emphasized that the new building’s unit count was misleading, since it would mostly consist of smaller studio and one-bedroom apartments.
Esther Chung Byun, Berkeley’s senior director of development, said the company had focused on compactness and sustainable design, but that in light of current economic building conditions, it required a significant number of units to be economically feasible to build. “That size of 140 units is the sweet spot. It’s what we need for the overall economics of the project to get done,” she said.
Some residents suggested that the company could build on other parking lots across Crescent Street to avoid blocking the neighborhood’s view of the river. Connors said any such buildings would require a complete zoning change, and that in previous community meetings, neighbors expressed distaste for buildings on the company’s other parking lots as well.
Board members expressed mixed feelings on the project. ZBA member Matthew Deveaux emphasized that he was not in favor of the project’s proposal to contribute approximately $4 million to the city’s Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund instead of pricing some of its new units more affordably. He pointed to the recent permit for Cardinal Cottage as proof of the fund’s insufficiency: “We just found out that all the city can build with $2.8 million is two affordable units.”
The project will return to the board for another installment of the public hearing on June 2.
Additionally, at the ZBA’s regular April 5 meeting, the board:
- Granted the owners of a house on Hillcroft Road permission to build a second-floor addition to their house and first-story mudroom, which would encroach into required front and back yard setbacks, because of the lot’s unusual rounded shape.
- Postponed a hearing for a comprehensive special permit for a 323-unit residential development at 245-265 Winter St. proposed under Chapter 40B of the state’s general laws to its next meeting on May 12.
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