Real Estate

Question for the community here:

There is a single-family house at one end of my street that has been abandoned for several years. The property is starting to decay and neighbors have mentioned that it seems the squirrels are starting to take over the house. Word on the street is the family has long moved away and not paid taxes on the property for many years.

Beyond being an eyesore, at some point this becomes a real safety issue. We have a lot of kids on our street and I'd hate to see anyone get hurt poking around the debris.

Does anyone have any experience dealing with this kind of issue? I did send a letter to the assessor's office back in the Fall but never rec'd a response. This is a prime West-end spot that would surely fetch a nice premium for the town if they were to take the land and sell it to a developer.

Any advice welcome!

Neighborhood meeting organized by the Hanover Company about the proposed 182 unit apartment building on Grove Street in East Watertown (on the former Aggregate Industries property site). The event is at The Atrium School at 69 Grove St. at 6:30pm on January 10th.

In the mail last week there was an invite to a neighborhood meeting organized by the Hanover Company about the proposed 182 unit apartment building on Grove Street in East Watertown (on the former Aggregate Industries property site). The event is at The Atrium School at 69 Grove St. at 6:30pm on January 10th.

The sale was written about in the Globe last Sept. when:

"Town officials are checking to see whether the developers of a proposed apartment complex in East Watertown are under scrutiny by the state for their business practices."

I received a flyer today in my mail inviting me to a "renovation" meeting.

I am encouraged by the flyer. Has anyone heard if something new is being proposed here? After a few moments of thinking about this I couldn't understand why I would be invited to a meeting about "renovations". I've never heard of a property checking with neighbors on renovations.

In my experience these types of meetings are often to check the temperature of the neighbors to a potential use that may not be allowed for their particular zoning district.

How long has this building been vacant and what was its last use?

Thanks for the help.

I'm going to do a bit of research on my own about this site from a zoning perspective.

At this point though I'd settle for some weed pulling.

My son recently pointed out that the traffic lights by the Repton Place development on Pleasant Street include video cameras mounted next to the traffic signals and aimed at the traffic lanes. Does anyone have any idea why these cameras are present? Is someone (police, Repton Place?) monitoring the traffic and if so why?

I ask because a few years ago when Campanelli redeveloped the property, they promised and delivered a lot of new landscaping behind this building. But now, the part behind 480 Arsenal Street is not being maintained; the grass is about two feet high, dry and yellow. It's like Brushfire R' Us back there.

Now that it's not being maintained, it's being used, again, as a dumping area for people looking to get rid of stuff. Right now there's a rusty shopping cart and some hefty bags back there.

They're maintaining the stuff on the building's side of the fence. Are they aware they own the stuff on the Laurel St. side of the fence or do they think the town maintains it?

(Just a note for those not familiar with it: This building isn't visible from the street. It's behind the Auto Zone store. To my knowledge, it's also NESN's headquarters. About a year ago the owners applied for and got a permit from the town to install cell antennas on the roof).

The company spearheading the redevelopment of the Coolidge School into age-restricted housing will receive $11M in low-cost loans via MassHousing. The release, which you can see here, says nice things about Watertown officials' diligence in the decision-making process regarding the old school:

“A thoughtful analysis by the town of Watertown of the best use for the Coolidge School and strong community support determined that senior housing would be most beneficial to the community,’’ said MassHousing Executive Director Thomas R. Gleason. “The Coolidge development will not only rehabilitate and preserve a historic building, but it will also provide greatly needed affordable housing in Watertown for older residents.’’

H2otown agrees that it's a thoughtful analysis, but isn't it generally true that town-owned properties would always be used for age-restricted housing, because of fear of the potential cost of new enrollees in the town's school system? (That is, if the property in question isn't reused to create a municipal facility, as with the Browne School's upcoming transformation into a state-of-the-art police station?)

From Westword: "The developers of a proposed Lowe's store at 20 Seyon Street want to withdraw their application for a special permit that would allow the home improvement giant to install fewer than the required number of parking spaces for the project."

Proposed zoning changes discussed by the Town Council on Tuesday would minimize required parking and give developers alternatives to building affordable housing units. The council seemed to be tilting toward zoning that would result in fewer affordable housing units. After listening to the presentation of town planner Greg Watson and consultant John Connery, At-Large Councillor Steve Corbett addressed the issue of affordable housing:

"All of the burden for providing affordable housing is falling on the developer." Corbett favors allowing developers to slightly increase density of a project to offset the cost of sub-market-rate housing, and to lower the percentage of affordable units developers are required to build into a project. "I think 15% is just too high." Corbett also noted that other towns have what are called "impact fees," cash payments in lieu of the value of affordable housing. "We take all of the give-back in the form of affordable housing, and we have other needs."

At-Large Councillor Marilyn Devaney concurred with the idea of allowing developers to give cash payments in lieu of building affordable units. She pointed out that Watertown already met the 10% affordable units standard set by the state: ""We're not a family community anymore. We're 53% absentee landlord, which means we get two girls, a guy, and it reflects on our community -- we hardly have 2600 population in our school system. I think we need to get businesses in to help homeowners with their high water bills, high property taxes, and have jobs. We have met our 10% on affordable housing, good for Watertown, but I think we have to start seeing what we can do to enable people to stay in Watertown -- we're losing a lot of lifelong residents."

Watson: "Let's not have a protracted negotiation every time surrounding affordable housing. Let's tell people what we expect up front."

Councillor Donohue said, "I have a concern that affordable housing has gone too far." But parking is a concern, too, he says: "Parking is a serious issue all over Watertown; the issue of a parking structure in the central business district is very important to creating business stability in that area."

District A Councillor Angie Kounelis, a longtime foe of the increased number of affordable units being built at the Coolidge School on Grove Street, asked incisive questions about whether changing parking requirements would lead to abusive development and overcrowded on-street parking: "On School Street, there was new construction -- it was kind of a sideways house. How would this new provision have affected this development in terms of parking?" None, says Watson. "I still have concerns about the parking. What about the St. Theresa's property? How would this affect that property?" Watson replied that the new zoning wouldn't require the condos going in at the former church to have more parking spots, since all the planned units were two bedrooms or more.

Connery, who helped the develop the new zoning, defended the new parking proposals "One of the things that creates a bad impression in a multifamily area is a large surface parking area that has no design value and sheets of runoff...But if you have tremendously punitive parking standards for one and two family, you force people to build something that's very unattractive."

Nothing's been set in stone yet -- the Council voted to send the new regs to committee for further review.

Today's Globe has a piece on a Paul Green's new School of Rock opening in Watertown near the Watertown Mall on Elm Street. Time to mint some young Watertown rock stars!