Two Special Permit projects approved: 1314 Washington Street and 106 River Street

The Full City Council voted to approve two projects that had been chartered by Ward 4 Councilor Lenny Gentile at the last City Council meeting in December 2022 (see Fig City News article). Councilor Gentile started by stating that he opposes both of the projects because of their size and scale. With regard to the 1314 Washington Street project, he reminded Councilors that just four years ago, Mark Development had applied for and received unanimous support (with one Councilor absent) for a project that was significantly smaller in size and scope — according to Gentile, the building proposed in 2018 was 3 stories and 40 feet in height — and pointed out that there was a lot of City staff time and Council time spent to approve that project.

Other Councilors spoke highly in favor of the project, particularly noting the design:

• Noel: “if just look at aesthetics, thinks it looks fantastic”
• Crossley: “this project is one of the best ones we’ve seen in terms of fitting into the context”
• Grossman: “thinks design looks really great”
• Bowman: “makes me think of Paris and beautiful European cities”
• Danberg: “way to give West Newton Square dignity and enhance the beauty of the square”
• Ryan: “building is beautiful”
• Downs: “styling of it responded to a lot of neighborhood concerns”

Others expressed some concern over parking but ultimately supported it. Ward 4 Councilor Chris Markiewicz said he thinks parking will be a problem but he did not think it was enough to vote against it. Ward 1 John Councilor Oliver said he is reluctantly supporting it even though he believes there already is an existing parking problem and it is going to be a worse problem going forward. Ward 3 Councilor Andrea Kelly said, “I’m not 100% on board. [I] wish we could address the parking situation but [it should] not [be] on Mark Development…[it] should be on the City. If not here, where could we do this?”

Ward 3 Councilor Malakie responding to Councilor Kelly’s comments, stated, “[We] may not need to ask Mark Development to solve [the parking problem] but [we] have to ask does it [the project] make things worse?” Ward 2 Councilor Tarik Lucas agreed. He said he voted against this in Committee because there is not enough parking for the 160-seat restaurant. He added, “Max density, max building height development … [this will be a] game changer for West Newton.”

Prior to the vote, Councilor Gentile addressed some of the issues raised by those in support of the project. He said the comments fell into three categories:

• Historic façade — which he said was preserved in the last special permit with only 3 stories;
• Housing — suggesting there could have been a substantial number of housing units added in a 3-4 story building; and
• Vitality — reminding Councilors that he has supported restaurant use in the first and current special permit request.

He suggested that the project is back because it is much more financially beneficial for the developer and because of the recent change in voting requirements — only needing a simple majority vote of the Council rather than the previous 2/3rds vote. The vote for the zoning change was 21 for, 2 against (Gentile, Malakie), 1 absent (Baker). The vote for the special permit was 20 for, 3 against (Gentile, Lucas, Malakie), 1 absent (Baker). Councilor Albright stated, “This well exceeded a simple majority.”

The second project chartered was the 106 River Street petition — a proposed 9-unit development in West Newton. Councilor Gentile stated that his concerns were the same — size and scale of the project — stating that “this is a poster child for overdevelopment on a postage-sized lot.” He referred to several Urban Design Commission reports noting that the then-6-unit building had design issues such as a 120-foot wall, lack of open space, and little or no area for playground space. Ward 7 Councilor Marc Laredo agreed and suggested that the Planning Department encouraged the petitioner to go from 6 units to 9 units. “This is a lousy project. [We] could’ve had a good project…[it] would have been attractive with setbacks and open space.”

Ward 3 Councilor Andrea Kelley disagreed, stating that blame should not be on the Planning Department but rather that the developers were responding to an express desire in Newton to have more smaller units and middle housing, and she pointed out that a project with only 5 or 6 units would not have had an affordable unit.

Ward 3 Councilor Malakie disagreed with Councilor Kelley and reported going to a series of community meetings and suggested that she did not find it objectionable if the project had stayed commercial. This point was further expressed by Ward 4 Councilor Chris Markiewicz, who reminded the Council that the project is currently zoned for business use and there was no request to rezone the parcel. He was very upset that this project was reviewed “with a business zone lens rather than a residential lens” given that this is an all-residential development proposed in a mostly residential area. Ward 3 Councilor Pam Wright agreed that the project should have been rezoned to a multi-residence zone and reviewed accordingly.

Ward 2 Councilor Tarik Lucas disagreed. He pointed out that there was a similar project on Jackson Street, where 12 condo units were approved for a 14,000 sq. ft. lot in a business zone. According to his comparison, this is a 15,000 sq. ft. parcel zoned for business with 9 condo units, and he noted this project is not as dense. He also reminded the Council that the petitioner could build 13 units by right.

A motion to send the petition back to the Land Use Committee for further discussion failed. The petition was approved in a final vote.