FW: [Cleveland-Circle] Dighton Street proposal

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May 31, 2023, 2:18:19 PM5/31/23

to AllstonBrighton2006

On 5/31/23, 2:11 PM, "Eva Webster" <cleveland-cir...@googlegroups.com on behalf of evawe...@comcast.net> wrote:

Kudos to Charlie and Diane for writing an excellent letter in opposition to the extremely insensitive and detrimental development project on Dighton Street – and many thanks to BAHS for standing up on this issue. We are so fortunate to have the venerable Brighton-Allston Historical Society in our civic landscape.

Besides the size of the proposed project, which is highly inappropriate in that location, I think that the cookie-cutter design of the building -- superficially sleek but completely banal and soulless -- is downright depressing and very disrespectful to the established character of the Brighton Center neighborhood.

The proposed building could be just as well built anywhere - in any recently developed urban area anywhere in the country, or in the middle of nowhere. The architect made no effort to reflect and tie the design to the existing surroundings. It’s as if a computer software alone - not a thinking and feeling human being -- produced it.

We should not be allowing this type of architectural design to keep showing the middle finger to older, traditional structures in our historic Boston streetcar suburb neighborhood. It is especially wrong on small residential streets, where simplistic, crass buildings like that end up abutting older homes and stick out like a sore thumb.

It’s as if developers are trying to wag a finger at other neighbors on the street, “We’re coming for you too”. The sense of instability it produces is very harmful to the neighborhood. People lose confidence that it is safe to invest in home improvements, which many of the older homes need.

There are some residential streets in Brookline where I noticed modern boxes lacking any charm popping up, but at least over there, those structures are roughly at the same scale as neighboring homes – unlike what is proposed on Dighton St. in Brighton.

Context is everything. Ignoring the context of the neighborhood, or the street where the structure is to be built, is architectural and planning malpractice – and it’s spreading like a contagious disease, probably because it’s the cheapest way to build (I assume).

We need to fight it with all we have. Otherwise, Allston-Brighton will completely lose its soul and unique character - everything that will be built in our neighborhood will look like the boxy grey elephant at 81 Chestnut Hill Ave. at the corner of William Jackson Ave.

I cringe every time I see it. Chestnut Hill Ave. is a major street in Brighton. Did it deserve this?

But when I visit some areas to the west of Boston, I often see buildings that were built not long ago, and yet have more traditional design that is respectful to nearby homes. For example, Avalon in Newton looks like this:

So why can’t we have respectful design in Allston-Brighton?

To be fair, we do have some nicely designed newer buildings in Brighton, but they are few and far between.

For some reason, right now, every new large residential building that is built around here seems to be in competition for the Ugliest Building of the Year. It’s so sickening. I see this as a total failure of the BPDA and the Boston Civic Design Commission.

It’s one thing to promote development and affordable housing. But where does it say that those buildings need to be so ugly? Are they being built ugly because there is too much pressure on them to deliver 20% of affordable units? I don’t know. We never get a chance to get to the bottom of this issue. It’s as if citizens’ longing for beauty and harmony is not important enough to have a place in planning.

I just hope we can start paying more attention to design issues and, overall, raise our expectations in that regard.

It shouldn’t be just about quantity, but also quality and beauty. It is sad when the goal of creating a beautiful neighborhood is not given a prominent place in various public meetings that are held to discuss development proposals. But we do have power to change that if more people stick their heads out on this issue.

On 5/31/23, 11:08 AM, "'Charlie Vasiliades' via Cleveland Circle Community" <cleveland-cir...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Dear neighbors-

FYI on the letter about this proposed project near Brighton Center that the Historical Society just submitted to the Boston Planning & Development Agency today......

Best,

- Charlie Vasiliades

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