1314 Washington Street receives approval from Land Use Committee

The Land Use Committee voted (7-0-1 Markiewicz absent) to approve the request to rezone the properties at 1314 Washington Street and 31 and 33 Davis Street from Business 1 to Multi-Use 4 and voted (6-1-1 Lucas against, Markiewicz absent) to approve the request for a special permit for a 50-unit multi-family dwelling that would provide 9 affordable housing units (8 to households earning 50-80% AMI and 1 to households earning up to 110% of AMI), a fractional cash payment equivalent to 0.3 units, underground parking, and preservation of the historic Santander Bank space with a 160-seat restaurant, along with waivers of parking requirements.

The initial discussion focused on the December 1 letter from Mark Development’s counsel, which stated that Mark Development is “anxious” to receive approval by the close of 2022 but was unable to guarantee its ability to secure off-site parking for the proposed restaurant use or to have final arrangements in place by the upcoming meeting. The petitioner asked the Land Use Committee to consider approving the project with a retail use rather than a restaurant use, recognizing that it could come back and request an amendment to the special permit to allow restaurant use with the provision of off-site parking at a later time. The restaurant use would have a total parking requirement of 160 stalls and require a waiver of 97 parking stalls. By contrast, a retail use would have required 115 stalls and a reduced waiver of 52 parking stalls.

Councilors expressed strong sentiment to keep the restaurant use, as that was the preferred use to help create vitality for the project. The Committee closed the public hearing and proceeded to review the draft Council Order. Continued concerns were raised about parking, using special permit funds to support NewMO, and the inclusion of passive house and sustainability language in the Council Order.

Councilor Kelley was the most vocal about the need for language to be included regarding a back-up plan for parking. The petitioner’s attorney, Stephen Buchbinder, said that the backup would be to revert to a retail use, but Councilor Kelley said that would not be acceptable as it was made clear that the Councilors want a restaurant use and not retail.

According to Kelley, “I wanted to see the developer commit to finding a way to park 20-25 cars offsite for restaurant use. I don’t want them to resort to retail vs. a restaurant in order to avoid the parking problem that other merchants and residents talk about. Retail is not doing well, look at the vacancies, and doesn’t provide the type of foot traffic and vibrancy that would really enhance this village center.”

She suggested a solution could be a valet/shared parking arrangement for night-time and weekend use. The Committee agreed that language would be included in the Council Order, and the item will be subject to second call.

Land Use Chair Rick Lipof said the development is the result of several meetings with public comment and review. He said the developer offered the Committee flexibility with regard to the commercial component of the project but the Committee chose restaurant use. He added, “While parking was constantly on the minds of the committee members, the committee favored vibrancy in the Square at night.” According to Lipof, “I feel that the Council needs to look at West Newton holistically with a focus on parking to support vibrancy. We need to get creative in our approach.”

When asked why he voted against the special permit request, Councilor Lucas said, “I voted NO because there is not enough parking onsite to sustain a 160-seat restaurant. The offsite parking plan provided by the transportation consultant was inadequate. Making people walk up to 6 minutes through West Newton is not the type of project we should be approving.” He added, “The project is also too big for the area. Five stories (60 feet) with an FAR of 2.48 is too big for that location.”