The Boston Planning Department held a Notice of Project Change meeting last Wednesday in a virtual format with about 45 people shown on the video conference.

City Realty, the proponents behind the Allston Square Project – a sweeping redevelopment of several buildings in Allston encompassing 334 Cambridge St., 16 Highgate St., 2-8 Harvard Ave., 4-8 Franklin St., 415 Cambridge St., and 20 Braintree St. comprising more than 340 units – is requesting its third notice of project change (NPC) since its initial Boston Planning and Development Agency Board approval and Boston Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) approval all the way back in 2019.

The last time an NPC was filed, City Realty said the economy had shifted and it couldn’t provide the homeownership units the community had been demanding throughout the public process and in return, it increased the affordability of the rental units that were originally homeownership. This time, it’s asking for reduced parking on several buildings.

That didn’t go over well in Allston, where about 12 percent of the dwelling units are homeownership units.

The first is for 1 Highgate St. – City Realty wants to eliminate all parking, a total of 50 spaces, in an 82-unit building. Same thing for 10 Highgate St., removing 17 spaces and bringing the total number to zero for a 71-unit building. On 20 Braintree St., the company is looking to remove 14 spaces for a total of 10 spaces in the building of 66 units, and for 8-12 Wilton St., City Realty wants to eliminate the proposed semi-automated parking system and 28 spaces. For 8-12 Wilton, City Realty is proposing 22 spaces total for a building of 107 units.

City Realty blames the current economic conditions and the pandemic for the changes. Attorney for the project Drago & Toscano’s Jeffrey Drago said the pandemic hit just after they received final approval from the ZBA.

“Right when we were going through our final process and approvals, the pandemic hid and that, obviously stopped a lot of construction,” he said. “After that, economic conditions changed. Cost of construction, cost of labor (all increased), and partners that my client had had dropped off, convention bank financing got much more difficult to obtain – especially on big projects and that wasn’t just unique to this project but across the city – and City Realty built a big section of the project but financing became very difficult. But they actively tried to find partners and find financing for the project.”

Drago said essentially they had to wait and see and then change the project.

“We looked at things we could potentially change, and given that the city has been reducing parking on all new projects; mostly below a .5-ratio, but also removing things like stacker parking – which are huge expenses on projects moving forward and then looking at the Allston-Brighton mobility study, the changes we’re proposing is to remove a number of the parking spaces on the different buildings. We’ll still have some, but that would fall in line with that mobility study and many of the goals you hear out in the community, the City of Boston and the Zoning Board.”

Residents were split on the issue. Many said they were concerned about the loss of parking, while others said they wanted the project to move forward, but were wary of the myriad of delays the project has so far faced and questioned whether this would be the final notice of project change.

“I don’t understand why you would want to reduce parking; you’re already well below what is typically required by zoning,” said resident Mike Dorgan. “Parking is becoming more and more of an issue in the neighborhood. The amount of congestion this is going to incur, you know if people don’t have cars, they’re going to take Uber or Lyft or whatever, and that basically doubles the amount of traffic on the roads.”

“I am very glad to see the reduction in parking for this project, as with other projects, that has been shown to lead to a reduction in traffic, even if it means slightly more use of on-street parking,” said resident Nathan Mandell. “But I also want to echo the point that City Realty has lost much of the trust of the community, given how delayed many of these projects have been, and again although I am very supportive of this project going forward, if they continue to drag their feet in getting these projects off the ground, it will only become harder and harder to get these to the finish line and get future approvals.”

Some residents were very much for the loss of the parking.

“I’m a car-free resident of Allston and I’m very excited to see these plans in their current state,” said Colin Demar. “I fully support the project as-is, and I would support the project even if it had no parking attached to it. It’s a very walkable neighborhood and I want to see it built-out.”

Allston Civic Association President Tony D’Isidoro asked about a proposed traffic study City Realty was supposed to provide. City Realty Partner Josh Fetterman said they hired Stantec to do a traffic study, for which they have been working with the city over the last couple of years. He said he will find it and release it to the community.

D’Isidoro said he felt that wasn’t good enough, and that any such report should have been released to the community exactly when it was completed.

“Given this long delay, if that report exists, I don’t even know if it has any value anymore because so much has changed since your initial approval,” he said, pointing to half-a-dozen developments and projects that have since come up and been approved. “There are just a lot of components that weren’t there when this report was first done.”

Boston Planning Project Manager Nick Carter did say that the department has been looking at this project in context as others move forward.

“We are evaluating all of these projects holistically and we are doing mobility studies which do include transportation studies for this neighborhood at the moment; I do want people to know these are not just one-offs,” he said.

The comment period for the project ended two days after this meeting. The Boston Planning and Development Agency Board will take up the item in a forthcoming meeting.