Development Pitched for Maverick Street

Zoning Attorney Jeff Drago pitched his client’s plans for 28 units of housing on Maverick Street along the Mary Ellen Welch Greenway.

At a Friends of the Mary Ellen Greenway Council meeting last Thursday, Drago said his client, City Realty, has purchased the parcels at 167-169 Maverick St. that once housed the Saints and Angels Ceramic Store and wants to renovate the existing three-story brick structure and erect a five-story addition for a total of 28 housing units with 11 parking spaces at the ground level.

“Those of you who are familiar with those parcels know it was the former Saints and Angels Ceramic Store and the adjacent three unit brick building to the left,” said Drago. “So we’re proposing to combine those parcels and raze the small one story commercial structure because it really is not in the best of shape.”

Drago said his client wanted to meet with the Greenway Council because of the project’s close proximity with the park.

“We’ve met Gove Street Citizens Association members for an initial meeting and now the Greenway Council,” said Drago. “This is going to go through the Article 80 Small Project Review process just because of the size of the proposal and we will also have to meet with the Parks Department because we’re abutting the Greenway as well. This is really the early stages of the project and we wanted to talk to folks early on. We have had a pre-file meeting with the city, but we have not officially filed anything with the BPDA yet.”

During his presentation Drago pointed to the recently city-approved project at 173-177 Maverick St., which he said has a similar height as City Realty’s proposal.

With flooding a continuing problem on the Greenway due to rain runoff Drago said City Realty has come up with a plan to eliminate rain runoff from the proposed building onto the Greenway.

“All of the rainwater and all of the rain runoff from the building will be stored in a holding tank,” said Drago. “Rain water would be collected from the building, go into this holding tank that is under the surface parking in the rear of the proposed building, and then the excess rainwater will be slowly distributed and reintroduced into the storm water system. Right now there isn’t anything like this so all of the rainwater goes down downspouts and eventually makes its way down into the Greenway adding to the existing flooding problems. But as part of this project we’ll be harvesting and mitigating all of our rainwater.”

Due to the projects close proximity to the Greenway City Realty, a shadow study was conducted and concluded the worst time for shadowing is the winter with the building casting little shadow impact onto the Greenway during the other three seasons.

Greenway Council member Karen Maddelena said her major concern was having only 11 proposed parking spaces

“If you could consider having more parking spaces that would be great,” she said.

Drago said the project hopes to take advantage of the city’s Compact Living Program so the proposal is limited on how many off-street parking spaces can be included.

“If you are part of this compact living program you are limited to how much parking you can actually have,” said Drago. In order to qualify a project for this program, Drago said the proposal has to be walking distance to a train station.

“It is designed to encourage those folks moving here to use other modes of transportation,” said Drago. “The developer has to make space available for bike parking–space would otherwise be used for off-street parking. So if you are going to take part in the compact living program you actually are prohibited from having more parking. Now, this is something we wanted to see what people’s thoughts were. Obviously, this could evolve over time but if we were to add more parking we would have to remove this project from the compact living program.”

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