The Residences at Fairmount Station
Fellow BMGers,
Please come and join the Southwest Boston CDC, Hyde Park residents, as well as other advocates for affordable housing and transit-oriented development at the Boston Zoning Board Hearing on Tuesday March 24 at 10:30 a.m., and lend your voices to a chorus of support for our proposed affordable housing development, The Residences at Fairmount Station.
Boston is a beautiful city with many resilient industries and special characteristics that have helped it to preserve a relatively strong economy even in the midst of the last big recession. However, our city and state have certainly not been immune to the devastating long-term effects of the mortgage crisis of 2008, such as the rash of foreclosures and the sudden restriction of capital by financial institutions. The housing supply in Boston has over the years become notoriously constricted and unaffordable for many working people of various income levels.
Recent studies have shown that Boston faces significant challenges in the years ahead in terms of maintaining a strong middle class and reducing an ever-widening income gap between the richest and the poorest residents. Indeed, far from being immune from the nationwide trends of economic polarization, Boston is third in the nation in terms of income inequality, according to the Brookings Institute. The growing lack of affordable housing is one of the most pressing of Boston’s inequality-related challenges. According to a Boston Globe story from last year, the number of homeless individuals in Massachusetts rose more than 40% between 2007 and 2014. Over 6100 families were housed in emergency shelters and hotel rooms paid for by the state in fiscal year 2014. This situation is untenable as well as inhumane. It is clear that we need more housing if we are to continue to prosper as a city.
The creation and maintenance of affordable housing is one of the foremost goals of the Southwest Boston CDC. We believe it is a very important mission, especially in the current economic climate. In furtherance of this mission, we are planning to create 27 new units of rental housing right next to the Fairmount commuter rail station, priced primarily for working families making between $28,000 and $66,000 a year. We hope to construct an attractive and efficient modern building, complete with a playground for kids and a community meeting room, on a site where there is currently a condemned barn-like structure and an unsightly jungle of weeds. By placing this building so close to the train station, we hope to encourage residents to make use of the new and improved Fairmount line, for which the MBTA has recently added stops and reduced fares/ We also hope and expect that the influx of new residents and energy will benefit the locally-owned businesses in both Logan and Cleary Squares, adding a jolt of life to those somewhat struggling retail districts.
From our perspective, there is no downside to this development. People in need of housing will benefit, and the community as a whole will benefit from the increased economic activity. If our residents take full advantage of the close proximity to the train station, forsaking their cars for train trips into the city, then the environment will also benefit. We see this is a wonderful opportunity to invest in the future of Logan Square, the Fairmount commuter rail line, and the Hyde Park neighborhood while also doing something substantive to ameliorate the housing crisis our city faces. In order to proceed, however, we need those who share our commitment to affordable housing to come to Tuesday’s hearing and, if possible, speak in favor of our petition for zoning relief.
Thank you!
Dan Farnkoff (member of the volunteer Board of Directors of the SWCDC)
I believe the city did not re-zone that entire corridor when the new T stops were built. It’s been a catastrophic planning failure to date. This project and countless more like it need to be approved.
Here’s an interesting column on the need to build a slew of new housing along the Fairmount Line. My add would be they also need to figure out commercial expansion zones in various squares along the route to service all those new residents.
Can I get a “recommend”, drikeo? 🙂 Even better, can you make it tomorrow?