On Wednesday, March 25, the Boston Planning Department held its second virtual community meeting this month regarding a proposal to increase the size of a previously approved project application for 1702 Hyde Park Ave, near Wolcott Square in the Readville section of Hyde Park.

The first, held on March 3, had been marred by technical difficulties, leading to the do-over.

At issue was a project change – filed by local developer Thomas Geraghty in January – proposing to add two stories and 24 residential condominium units to a design that had been approved by the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) Board back in August 2023.

The project change, if successful, would increase the size of 1702 Hyde Park Ave. to seven stories and 68 units, while reducing its parking by one spot – to 34 garage spaces.

The proposed expansion is based on the fact that project applications abutting 1702 on either side (1690-1700 and 1740 Hyde Park Ave.) were subsequently approved at a greater height and scale, and on the reasoning that the change would bring the design more in line with them aesthetically.

The proposed reduction in parking spaces – despite the increase of units by more than half – is based on the fact that the site is a short walk from the Readville commuter station and a couple of bus routes, thus making it a transit-oriented development (TOD). The low per-unit parking ratio is also a reflection of Mayor Michelle Wu’s policy of decreasing car dependency in the city.

That noted, the site – a junk and scrap yard – is in an industrial section of Hyde Park Avenue and is removed from most neighborhood amenities.

The lack of onsite parking was at the center of the pushback during the meeting’s Q&A.

Although there are no direct residential abutters to the four approved developments (1717-1725 Hyde Park Ave. is across the street from 1702), there are residential areas close by the outer sides of the three rail lines (Fairmount Line, Franklin Line and the Providence Stoughton Line) between which that end of Hyde Park Avenue runs. A fifth development (36-40 Sprague St.) – near the tracks about a half mile from those four – also recently came online.

These new projects would – if the 1702 change is approved – result in about 750 new units.

Consequently, the concern was that those anticipated incoming residents – many of whom, it was argued, will keep their cars because of the realities of getting around in that part of the city – would park on those residential side streets because of the lack of onsite development parking.

“The City has to recognize this isn’t the downtown core,” said Readville Watch Coordinator Roberta Johnnene after relating her slow trip home from Logan using public transit on a Sunday night. “We’re not somewhere where there is an Orange Line, or a Red Line, or a Green Line that runs continuously. So the transit-oriented development has to be metered with enough parking, and enough recess [parking], and enough access for people who need to get to these facilities that are the furthest away from Boston that you can get and still say that you’re a city resident.”

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Johnnene also alluded to the development’s proximity to Route 128 and I-95 and to the fact that local residents often commute out of the city and so need their cars to get to their destinations.

“But would you buy a place that had no parking if you worked in Rhode Island?” project attorney John Pulgini asked after she had brought up her commute to Woonsocket.

“No, but you know what? Maybe I would because if that’s where my family was, and that’s where other factors were that I needed to be, then yes, maybe I would,” she came back.

Project impact advisory group (IAG) member Craig Martin also commented on the residential streets likely being used as parking areas for people moving into the developments. “Yes, they will park a distance to go to a side street,” he put forward, referring to his own parking methods from his time living and working in downtown Boston. “Especially if it’s your kind of person that’s going to be taking the train every day, and they just want the car for the weekends to visit grammy, or whatever else,” he added before describing it as a worst-case parking scenario.

In his comments and responses during the Q&A, Project Manager Stephen Harvey also shed light on City Hall’s inward-looking TOD policy approach and goals. “Commuter rail is not rapid transit,” he acknowledged. “But it is transit that gets you from this location to the city through Dorchester, through Hyde Park, and different parts of the city, so it does provide a mode of transportation – along with the vehicles and along with the bike accommodations [1702 will have one-to-one bicycle parking, as well as 14 visitor bike spots] – that are provided with this proposal.”

Underlying all of this, however, was the fact that 1702 is already approved for 44 units and 35 parking spaces, and that – in the filing to expand it to 68 units and 34 spaces – the developer, as Johnnene put it, is “asking for another bite at the apple, and it doesn’t matter that they were last.”

During the Q&A, Johnnene had touched on community-friendly elements of neighboring projects that had been quietly taken away – post-approvals – to further benefit their developers. This informed her last statement, which she addressed to Harvey but aimed at the Planning Department as a whole. “If you guys keep giving in to them, it’s never going to change.”

For project information, or to comment, visit – https://gvimes.link/1702hpave

The comment period closes on Friday, April 3. Comments may also be submitted to Stephen Harvey by emailing him at Stephen.J.Harvey@Boston.gov.