The Boston Planning Department met with a few dozen residents last Wednesday for a public meeting on the proposed building at 92 Spring St. in West Roxbury.

The virtual meeting covered the plan to put 44 condominium homeownership units on the site in four stories of height. Development Attorney representing owner and developer Ivan Biesty said the plan would need zoning variances for the project, which is located in a neighborhood shopping district. The anticipated variances included floor area ration (2 required, 2.13 proposed), height in feet (35’ required, 43’5” proposed), parking (1.5 spaces per unit required, 1 proposed [44 spaces]) and off-street loading (one bay required, none proposed).

Interestingly, the four stories is compliant in height with the zoning district. Pulgini said there will be seven affordable units as described by the Boston Inclusionary Development Policy (IDP).

Verdant Landscape Architecture principal Katya Podsiadlo said for the landscaping plan, they are looking to install new street trees and permeable pavers to support the shade trees; however she said the maximum height of the species they select will be limited because they have overhead power wires to contend with.

McKay Architects’ Robert McNeil said they designed the building to slightly wrap around the site envelope and will create a semi-private courtyard for the residents. They will also be reducing the number of curb cuts on the site and funding a bus shelter for the nearby MBTA 36 Bus Stop.

One big issue for some residents was that of notification. Resident Margaret Sullivan (no relation) said too many residents do not use email or are unfamiliar with the Planning Department’s notification system – https://gvimes.link/planningalerts – and that residents need something more.

“That’s not good enough,” she said. “I promise you: of the owners here I’m the only one on the email list. The city manages to email us when we have a tax bill, so the folks from your office need to talk to them to get our emails… We are abutters, and we should be notified and the city does have our email if you can’t afford a stamp.”

Pulgini said local newspapers, like The Bulletin, advertise such public meetings. While that used to be the case, Project Manager Daniel Polanco said that stopped earlier in 2025.

“We no longer put ads in the newspaper for this; we used to but with our new process we’re trying to take a different approach,” he said.“We can work with those folks who don’t have access to email to notify them as much as we can, but the process that the Planning Department uses to advertise our meetings is through our email blasts. We will certainly take your comments back and let folks know about the meeting. And that we can somehow let folks who don’t have access to our website know.”

Sullivan pointed out that she printed out the notice and shared it with residents, and she claimed that was how many of the residents heard about it.

Resident Colleen Connolly said she was notified by Sullivan.

Advertisement

“There has to be a better way to let abutters know,” she said. “Post cards go a long way. We need to do a better job of letting abutters know. It’s really bad that neighbors have to notify other neighbors.”

Sullivan, Connolly, Lisa Steigman and other residents also brought up the fact that the zoning code in the area currently calls for 1.5 spaces per unit, which would give the project 66 spaces. Pulgini said Boston is changing its outlook on parking, and has been for some time.

“There is nowhere to park,” said Steigman. “Twenty extra cars on Cass Street would be disastrous. We have children, all neighbors, we all stick together and watch each other’s kids, and we’re so aware, no one wants to drive on Centre or Spring, it’s so congested, and so we have very aggressive drivers driving up Cass Street with dogs getting hit, children almost getting hit, and so the concern here is parking and driving.”

Sullivan said she agreed, and said that historically, cars came anyway and filled up the streets.

“There will be overage, the building behind us only had one or two [parking spaces per unit] but for their three-bedroom units, they had three roommates in there with three cars, it’s just the nature of that,” Sullivan said.

Pulgini said the city’s outlook has been to reduce parking minimums, though it’s been doing that piecemeal and not done a comprehensive rezoning of every district, though that is on the table now in the Boston City Council.

“The city would not allow us to do 1.5 parking spaces per unit,” he said. “You’ll see a lot of developments throughout the city that have excess parking and nobody using it at all. I think one-to-one parking is, in my opinion, the maximum the city would allow under any circumstance, even as-of-right. They would push you to reduce your parking to get to that one-to-one.”

The comment period for 92 Spring ends on June 10. To leave a comment, go to: https://gvimes.link/92spring