>Assembly Row is truly garbage.

I think that's harsh. Parking is unfortunately a necessity, but the new buildings have dense multi-level parking or undergrounds parking instead of a giant lot. I agree it has a suburban shopping mall feel, but new neighborhoods always feel fake until enough time passes for them to develop their own character through the people that live there. It's still all very new and they haven't even finishing redeveloping that whole neighborhood.

I have my beef with Assembly Row, it's far from perfect. But look at they've done. They build a new T stop - the first new T stop in a long time. The car dependency is better managed and controlled there than pretty much any other Cambridge/Boston neighborhood. It's the exact kind of dense mixed-use development that study after study shows we need - light retail, commercial, and a mix of rental and owned residential apartments and condos. Within the new neighborhood, it is walkable and there is T access, there is a small grocery store, there is a variety of restaurants and bars and shops, a state-of-the-art movie theater, and kids activities.

If even a quarter of new development or redevelopment in the Boston area was as good as Assembly Row, I think we would all greatly benefit from it.

>I imagine it's easier to influence such policies if a town has earned a reputation of dealing with this dire matter in good faith rather than those that reflexively oppose any development. Now is a great time to get on the winning team and secure some influence to steer policy.

This is a damn good point.

That's probably because towns were able to demand smaller unit sizes to avoid an influx of children. Many towns about 1/2 the budget is schools. Thats why they love 1-2 beds and 55+ communities.

With these new rules they will not be able to kill projects with larger bedroom counts.

Ikr?

Lynch park Beverly something for everyone

I think it is like that everywhere tbh. Outside of living way out in the sticks of luck of the draw on whether you get douchy neighbors or not.

"plenty of natural light"

Again, it’s not done. Once complete it will be a great precedent for how to develop new retail mixed used open air projects.

> 2) Any site within 1/2 mile of an MBTA rapid transit or commuter railstation could build with the same density of any other building near anMBTA station

Do I understand then, you agree with the direct MBTA-adjacent-community portion of this law, just not the neighboring community portion? Your statement is very similar to the meat of this law, with the only caveat of "same density of any other building", which could vary greatly from station to station.

Oh yeah.... I remember now. Makes sense. My dad is an older boomer who was big into the music scene in the 60s and 70s. When I was little, I used to ask him what his favorite color was (a favorite topic of all 4-7 year olds) and he always replied with "deep greens and blues are the colors I choose," so really, that's par for the course!

And yes, I agree it is better than "the people's republic of Amherst" 🤣

Assembly Row is a true celebration of mediocrity. The other redditor was accurate in calling it garbage.

Well with the sewage a LOT of these towns straight up have just septic systems. You can build an apartment with septic, but it requires a huge amount of space which will eat into 1) the profit for developers, 2) the # of units built, 3) useful space, although I wonder if they could build green space over the septic. Not sure if you wanna be walking around over leech fields that big though.

One of the things that gets me about these arguments: You suggests that each additional unit of housing is going to cost the community *more* than it brings in in taxes. Sewer. Schools. Fire. Police.

How can that be true? Larger communities exist. They all started out as smaller communities.

What's so different about your community that new housing will cost incrementally more than it will bring in?

I suspect in fact that zoning, such as this, could be really good. It's a concentrated, dense way to bring in tax revenue while keeping the impact to a small area. Higher density means fewer roads. Less plowing. Less school busses.

Find an area that is adjacent to your existing schools so there won't be bussing costs. Find an area that could be connected to any water/sewer systems that currently exist so you wouldn't have to build.

Parking is not a pain. There is a huge garage—just go in the garage.

But yeah, the fact that you need to walk through a huge parking lot kinda kills the vibe.

Yea for sure or at least to the border,some beaurocrat in Ottawa will decide what happens from Canada on but I get your point.

Honestly I have never met anyone who rode the Vermonter past St Albans so I don't what the Canuckie side is like really.

Look at south central MA. Rural peace.

Apartment complexes aren't taxed per unit. They are taxed based on overall property value. So your 400 unit property may be valued at say 50 million but those same 400 units as single households average in my town are 400k each have a tax value of over 160 million. Simple math and economic knowledge shows how there is less income and larger municipal strain with housing complexes.

Very true. A lot of people call for "why do we need the density? There is so much space out in X. Let them build there!".

Walking the perimeter isn't that bad. If you park in the garage it's always easy to find a spot. I'm not saying it's perfect because I don't think that's possible in any mall, but it's definitely popular.

it just has maintenance free siding and a fresh coat of paint and is staged.. i always find listings without a basement photo suspicious

And I think the idea is that towns near commuter train stops can still handle higher density as many people drive (or bike) to the commuter line station and ride in from there. So its a fairly smart way to increase density while still enabling people to not drive-commute long distances.

I didn't realize.... I saw a disaster of a house (had a urinal, not all the drywall had been finished, etc) listed in Shirley for $600k a year or so ago. Mind, I don't know if it sold for that, or if the seller was overly optimistic, but I remember it because fucking Shirley? And $600k wouldn't even get you completed drywall everywhere?

Absolutely, that’s why I think they should make the Vermonter an electrified high speed line all the way from New Haven to Montreal.

Only issue is at that point, we need a multi-state coalition thing, because I don’t know how keen Vermont is to listen to some jackass from the Springfield metropolitan area lol.

Holistic height hole

The depth and amount of human crazy is unfathomable. I just assume everyone is either stupid or insane and a lot of the time I'm not wrong. Try modding any big community....then you really see the extent of the rot. The level of mental illness and just plain agner is about 10x worse than what you see on the surface.

I've spent 25 years working in digital media and it's madness all the way down. I once managed a large military website and the stuff that came through my inbox was terrifying