Northland Development is proposing significant modifications to its Needham Street project, the company announced on August 15.
Citing changes in the real estate market, Northland said it intends to replace all of its planned office space in the Saco-Pettee Mill with additional housing units, bringing the total number of units from 800 to 822. Four of the 22 added units will be affordable.
Additionally, the proposal (see fact sheet) will eliminate 300 parking spaces, reducing total on-site parking by 22%. While Northland said that the changes will reduce traffic volume by 1300 trips daily, it also plans to eliminate a proposed shuttle service to transport residents and employees to and from the Newton Highlands MBTA stop.
In a statement, Northland Senior Vice President of Development Peter Standish said that overall, the modifications will have a positive impact.
“We believe these changes will be a benefit to the community as they will increase the number of residential units (market and affordable), reduce the overall size of the development and significantly reduce traffic on Needham Street,” he said.
President and CEO of the Charles River Chamber of Commerce Greg Reibman said that even with the proposed changes, the development will serve as an important community staple.
“At the end of the day, it’s giving us the housing we need, and it still has the retail and restaurants. There’s public space there that everyone’s going to enjoy – a village green, bike paths,” he said. “It will be a place everyone can go. It’s not just limited to people who live there.”
However, some Newton residents have raised concerns about the new plan.
Newton Highlands resident Srdjan Nedeljkovic, who is a member of the Newton Highlands Area Council and the Newton Transportation Advisory Group, said that the proposal to repurpose the planned office space for housing will eliminate several smaller-scale residential buildings, which were intended to provide a buffer between the large-scale development and the historic Upper Falls neighborhood. While he has yet to see the updated designs, he said the move could be damaging.
“I was very favorable towards their initial proposal to interject some smaller-scale buildings that would also be housing – like townhouses, for example – that would provide this transition zone between the larger buildings and the old historic village center,” he said. “It makes for a really smooth transition from the high density to the lower density. I hope that they’re not removing those buildings, but I’m afraid, at least, by my interpretation …that they might be.”
In a newsletter to the community, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said that Northland will be required to file a Special Permit amendment with the City Council and be subject to a period of review before the changes could be approved.
“That review will include several public hearings so questions and concerns can be raised,” she said. “Northland has not yet officially filed their proposed amendment; we anticipate it will be filed later this fall.”
Reibman said that he was disappointed by the potential setback to the development and hopes the review process will not distract from the project’s benefits.
“I hope that the City Council recognizes that voters approved this originally in a referendum in 2020 by a 58% to 42% margin, that Northland had more than 100 meetings with the community leading up to this, and that generally people are supportive of that project,” he said. “I would hope that any approval process and proceedings won’t take that long or be that complex.”
Former Ward 5 City Councilor-at-Large Deb Crossley said that while it is necessary to address key concerns about the proposed changes during the review process, she hopes the City Council will remain focused on moving the project forward, as it will provide desperately needed housing for the city.
“Although I want the Council to focus on this expeditiously – it’s a really important project, and they should not protract the decisions that need to be made – there are, however, things to talk about and be careful about,” she said. “The one that I think is most important is that the project still provides some kind of shuttle service to make the [MBTA] more accessible to its residents.”
Other residents are also concerned about access to public transportation. Nedeljkovic said that if Northland supported a potential Green Line extension in the railroad corridor behind Needham Street (currently the path of the Upper Falls Greenway), the development could make major advancements in transit access.
“By extending the Green Line …Northland could become a model for transit-oriented development where people would not have to rely only on their cars for mobility,” he said. “At a minimum, Northland should publicly support the Green Line extension as a reliable way to improve transit options in the corridor. Furthermore, Northland should step up to fund construction of the platforms at the proposed Green Line station adjacent to their site.”
Northland representatives will meet with the Upper Falls community liaison group on Wednesday afternoon to present their new proposal.
Ward 5 City Councilor Bill Humphrey said that he’s looking forward to hearing from Northland and the neighborhood in that meeting to understand how the development can best serve the community.
“The national economic situation is very different from what it was at the time, before I was on the Council, and we all want to see a successful outcome here with the project so deep underway, so I’ll be curious to see how this evolves,” he said.
Ed. Note: We updated this article to include graphics presented by Northland on August 21.