Representatives from B’nai B’rith Housing met with about 20 residents recently at the Boston Centers for Youth and Families Roslindale Community Center to discuss possible improvements to the area around its proposed development at 4259-4267 Washington St.

The building has been approved by the Boston Planning and Development Agency Board and, because of the newly-implemented Square+Streets (S+S) zoning is zoning compliant, but B’nai B’rith Housing Development Director Kevin Maguire said the company wants to help deal with the issues the development will create for neighbors, specifically the Cohasset Street and Birch Street neighborhood.

The 40 units proposed at 4259-4267 Washington St. are indeed approved, but there are future plans as well. Maguire and B’nai B’rith said the company is looking to build Phase 2 of the project in the next five years or so, and that would take the current spot of the Boston Thrift Store.

B’nai B’rith has offered to rehouse the thrift store, and representative Chris Roth said that discussions are continuing. However, in his public comment to the Boston Planning Department last year on the project, Thrift Store Board President Dan Singleton expressed concerns about not being rehoused in the same size space as they have now.

“This proposed Washington St. parcel looks like a thoughtful space,” he wrote. However, our organization is looking at a future with a whole lot less square footage at a greater financial cost. We do not want the community to assume that The Thrift Shop of Boston moving into this space is a foregone conclusion at this juncture.”

For Singleton’s full comment, go to https://gvimes.link/bnaicomments

Roth said the Boston Thrift Store has about five years left on its lease.

“We’re hoping to stay in Roslindale and we’re gathering information still,” he said.

Maguire said they only have control over their own property and will basically be looking to build a coalition with residents to pitch changes to the city. Basically, B’nai B’rith Housing is not the Boston Transportation Department (BTD) or the Public Improvement Commission (PIC).

“We are looking to articulate the issues we can think of and try to generate some ideas,” he said. “This isn’t us projecting to you guys.”

The main divide became apparent. While there was seemingly productive conversation about the issues facing neighbors, the scope of those issues was the main argument. Phase 2 is not yet planned, proposed, or, according to Maguire, even conceived of. One resident pressed him for at least stating how many units the company is looking at, and after several attempts, Maguire seemed to shrug his shoulders and just give out a number: 80 units.

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But the argument because clear: what mitigation should there be for something planned to start construction imminently and something five years from now? Several residents seemed to think the whole plan should be taken into consideration, but then that hamstrings the developer to stick to the plan, even if it no longer makes sense in the five-year interim, lest they need to go back to the community and hammer out a new deal.

On the other hand, residents pointed out that this project hasn’t had a regular traffic study, as Maguire said it is too small – and will have seniors capped at 60 percent area median income (AMI) for the affordable housing development and will be unlikely to have a car. One resident said he felt the whole idea was to split the development up so it wouldn’t meet the threshold, even if in essence, the final product may have needed one. Stretching this argument out to its logical conclusion, a developer could propose a condo building by proposing each individual unit, one-by-one, one on top of the other, and not need a traffic study for each one as it goes through the development process.

This is likely an engineering, architectural, developmental and construction impossibility, but it illustrates the point.

All that being said, residents at the meeting agreed with B’nai B’rith Housing on most of the mitigation and improvements discussed during the two-hour meeting. Howard Stein Hudson Traffic Engineer Ian McKinnon read out what had been stated.

The issues that were discussed included switching the direction of the one-way at either Birch or Cohasset to create a better feeder for the neighborhood and the daycare therein; conducting a traffic study of just the cut-through traffic at the parking lot (several residents admitted to using the parking lot from Washington to Cohasset to avoid the Adams Park Loop); and making just the entrance of Cohasset two-way until the development to alleviate neighborhood cut-through and traffic in the Square is achieved.

Maguire said they are looking at coming back in May to discuss the feasibility of those options and prioritize them with residents. The basic idea is that with community buy-in – including that of District 5 City Councilor Enrique Pepén, who lives in the neighborhood – the proposal would have more weight at BTD and the PIC than other proposals would.

For more information on the proposal, go to https://gvimes.link/bnaibrith