The Melrose Planning Board is currently hearing Site Plan Review cases for two “infill” development projects in the Melrose Highlands: one at 453-463 Franklin Street (Franklin Market building), and one at 14 Chipman Ave (being built on top of the VFW Building). Our Committee supports these proposals as sensible infill developments in a historic mixed-use, transit-oriented neighborhood that will benefit from more housing growth to support its commercial base. Please find our letter to the Planning Board below.
Date: May 23rd, 2022
To: Melrose Planning Board
Subject: Support for 453-463 Franklin; 14 Chipman Ave
This letter serves as an endorsement of the special permit requests for the two transit-oriented development proposals on the May 23rd public hearing agenda: 453-463 Franklin Street, and 14 Chipman Avenue. Specific comments on the proposals are enumerated below.
Our members are highly supportive of transit-oriented housing development in Melrose, and of the idea that households served by transit should not be required to own or pay for automobile storage if they do not need or want it. By supporting redevelopment projects where parking is optional for residents, we can encourage more no- or low-car households to move to Melrose, and we can do our part to try and make that housing a little easier to build, and hence a little more affordable and a little more sustainable.
That this neighborhood is “transit-oriented” is clear, and we are pleased to see that the MBTA has recently announced an intention to increase bus service in the Highlands. Their Bus Network Redesign proposal will restore a historic connection between the Highlands neighborhood, Stoneham, and Anderson/Woburn via a newly-constituted 133 bus. This would dramatically expand suburban job connections, as well as shopping and recreational opportunities, for Highlands residents, who retain access to all the north-south bus, commuter rail, and subway service they have now. We expect that city staff, and our elected officials, will join us in strongly supporting these service changes at the MBTA’s public hearings next month, and will continue demonstrating commitment to regional connectivity by supporting housing proposals along these routes.
The Highlands is a classic example of an existing mixed-use neighborhood which can be expected to be strengthened through the sort of redevelopment that encourages more foot traffic to local shops and amenities. These buildings do that, while maintaining active retail storefronts that will blend into the existing streetscape. If we wish to see these neighborhoods grow and thrive, we need to invest in them by allowing more residents who want to live in them to do so.
Historically, the Highlands neighborhood has been relatively underdeveloped. The Massachusetts Housing Program (MHP) Center for Housing Data maintains a database of Transit-Oriented Development within the MBTA’s service area. Their analysis found that Melrose Highlands, with an average density of 5 units per acre, has considerably lower rates of housing development than not only the Wyoming Hill neighborhood but also the Cedar Park neighborhood. It is also considerably less developed than other similar-situated neighborhoods such as West Medford or the Waverley neighborhood between Belmont and Watertown. This lagging housing supply is bad not only for the region’s housing market, but also for local businesses, who are not able to draw from as deep a pool of customers as other more-developed commercial centers within the region.
You will likely hear from residents who will say that while they are in favor of new housing, they are concerned these new proposals are, either individually or taken in combination, simply too much. We believe that the MHP data shows that, compared to other similar neighborhoods, there is more than enough capacity in the Highlands to accommodate these new places to live. Taken together, these projects would increase the unit density of the Highlands service area by a mere 2%.
Please find specific project comments below:
453-463 Franklin Street
- The developer of the parcel has requested an open space waiver. We feel this is appropriate. The existing building has no open space, and the 5% required by the base zoning would yield only around 250 square feet, or an area slightly larger than a parking space. That said, we believe that the Highlands neighborhood does need enhanced greenery and open space. Because so many of the neighborhood’s structures are single-story, and because there are no mature street trees in the Franklin core, there is a pronounced lack of shade in the summer. The applicant and project attorney should consider further outreach to the city to see if the proposed contribution to the streetscape improvement fund could be used to bring direct open space benefits elsewhere on Franklin. The city last year experimented with placing a public parklet directly outside this building. A similar amount of open space could be achieved through a permanent parklet in front of the building; this would have the benefit of being open and accessible to all, and it would support additional foot traffic to the future retailer at this site.
- The provision of 30 bicycle parking spaces at this location is laudable and appropriate for a site which truly wishes to encourage more walking and biking locally. The Committee will reach out to the developer with recommendations to ensure the type of rack used here is accessible. We encourage the developer to explore ways to make this area secured. Sales of eBikes have substantially outpaced sales of electric cars during the pandemic, and industry analysts see this trend continuing. The developer should expect to market this building to people with ebikes, and they should expect that their future tenants will want to know their ebikes are secure.
14 Chipman Ave
- This project will dramatically improve land use on this site, which currently contains numerous surface parking lots. These existing lots create stormwater runoff issues, lead to localized heat islands, and return no economic value or public vibrancy to the city. We are excited to see a proposal which puts these parcels to productive use, providing needed housing and additional revenues to the city and to local businesses. We do not have concerns with the requested building height or FAR, and believe it is more than fair for the developer to be permitted to develop an additional floor in exchange for the preservation of the VFW Hall and the stacked parking, two perceived costs we believe they were likely encouraged to incur.
- We are pleased to see a detailed planting design, which really can help to improve the overall pedestrian experience. We encourage the design review subcommittee to advocate for as many tree plantings as possible, given the lack of mature street trees and shaded spaces within the Highlands neighborhood. There are numerous larger trees at the northernmost portion of the site; the developer should be asked to retain them.
- We are concerned that the proposal does not sufficiently provision bicycle parking options for residents. We understand that the city’s zoning code does not require them. For a building of this size, though, the developer should expect there to be enough tenants who wish to have bicycles that meaningful capacity is warranted. Many other developments permitted in the past three years have contained more capacity than this building appears to currently propose. We ask that the developer work with the Planning Board to further clarify the capacity of bicycle parking on site. This should be everyone’s preferred mode for these residents to get around Melrose.
- We question the need to expand the parking capacity of the surface lot north of the VFW building, which we understand to only require nine spaces. This area is one option for providing building tenants a secure bicycle parking cage, particularly because it can be directly accessed from the North-South bike route along West Highland Avenue. A considerable amount of short-term street parking is available on Chipman and West Highland for VFW events.
- This project will result in a developer contribution of over $40k to the city’s Streetscape Improvement fund. Residents concerned about the intensity of auto usage originating from this site should advocate directly with the mayor’s office, as well as with Councilor Karamcheti, to utilize these funds directly to benefit street safety in the Franklin Street area. This road has been the site of numerous severe crashes, and while $40k cannot comprehensively solve the street’s safety issues, it can fund meaningful interventions to improve safety on Franklin.
We are excited to see these development projects proposed for the Highlands neighborhood. We feel they will benefit our city, and can be further tweaked through Design Review to more closely reflect the community priorities expressed through the Master Plan, the Housing Production Plan, and the NetZero Action Plan. We encourage the Planning Board to grant the requested special permits.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Melrose Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee