Student housing developer Scape is facing intense opposition from a neighborhood group for proposing a 500-unit high-rise in the Fenway. The proposal is Scape’s second attempt to develop the site. Image courtesy of Gensler

Describing their affluent section of the Fenway as an “extension of the fashionable Back Bay Residential District,” it’s pretty clear where the Audubon Circle Neighborhood Association is coming from. 

Good for them. 

But should the group, which represents a high-priced pocket neighborhood, be granted veto power over Boston City Hall’s longstanding push to get students out of triple-deckers and residential apartment buildings and into dormitories? 

Because that’s, effectively, what’s happening right now in the Fenway. Opposition from vocal neighborhood critics like the Audubon Circle group having scuttled plans to build a privately–run dorm on the edge of the edge of the tony neighborhood where a parking lot now stands. 

An Important Goal 

U.K. student housing giant Scape arrived in Boston just two short years ago with big plans to roll out $1 billion in privately-run student housing in apartment-like dormitory high-rises in the Fenway. 

With Boston Mayor Marty Walsh prodding the city’s colleges to add thousands of new dorm rooms over the next decade, Scrape’s debut in 2018 on the city’s student housing scene grabbed headlines. 

Having rolled out privately run student dorms across the United Kingdom, Scape began laying plans for as many as 1,300 units of student housing at three different sites in the Fenway, including the Audubon Circle site. 

Walsh and his housing chief, Sheila Dillion, welcomed the proposal. 

However, the prospect of more student housing in the already heavily college-centric Fenway sparked a backlash among some homeowners in the neighborhood, and especially in Audubon Circle. 

This vocal, influential minority all but rejected the developer’s argument – also used by the city – out of hand: that the new dorm high-rises would help free up older apartments in the Fenway now occupied by students from the many colleges in the area, from Berklee to Northeastern. 

A 26-story Northeastern University dormitory tower in Roxbury is attracting neighborhood complaints to little avail, in contrast to a similar project in the Fenway, raising questions about who has power in Boston planning debates. Image courtesy of Elkus Manfredi Architects

So, Scape ran up the white flag last year. Going back to the drawing board, the British builder revised its original proposal, and came back with plans to build three apartment buildings instead.  

As for the parking lot in Audubon Circle, that would become a 15-story apartment high-rise with more than 500 units, 53 of which would be set aside for use by families visiting nearby Boston Children’s Hospital. 

An ‘Inappropriate Intrusion’? 

But Audubon Circle members and other neighborhood critics are once again crying foul, arguing Scape’s latest plan is simply a dorm in disguise, which frankly it may very well be. 

The building includes a large number of furnished studio apartments renting out for $1,600, or a good $1,000 less than the market rent. 

Absolutely scandalous. Just imagine all the riffraff that will descend upon Audubon Circle after hearing about those rents. 

But seriously, if Scape’s latest plan also pulls a few – or even more than a few – student renters out of packed apartments in the Fenway and other neighborhoods while also providing some relatively less expensive options for everyone else, how can that not be a good thing for the city as a whole? 

Of course, the complaints don’t stop there. The height of the building is also an issue for Audubon Circle, with claims it would “overwhelm” the neighborhood’s quaint rowhouses. 

Yet it’s hardly as if the building will be plopped down in the center of Audubon Circle. Far from it. Rather, Scape’s proposed new high-rise stands on the border that effectively represents the leading edge of the tower-packed Longwood Medical Area, with similarly–sized buildings around it. 

Then, of course, there is the “transient” nature of the renters that Scape’s latest proposal would attract, ACNA President Dolores Boogdanian argued in a letter to the Boston Planning & Development Agency. 

The group is pushing Scape to simply ban undergraduates from renting the apartments, which it calls “critical to preventing the occupancy that ACNA regards as a negative, unwelcome and inappropriate intrusion into the neighborhood.” 

“Inappropriate intrusion.” Right. 

Who Gets a Vote? 

Unfortunately, the pushback by Audubon Circle has already had an impact, with the BPDA having recently extended the comment period to this past Friday. 

All of which offers a striking contrast to Northeastern University, which is seeking city approval to build its second student dorm tower with private development partner American Campus Communities. 

The 26-story, 975-bed dorm would take shape on a surface parking lot in Roxbury. It follows the developer’s rollout of its 825-bed LightView residence hall on a Columbus Avenue lot across from the Northeastern campus. 

Scott Van Voorhis

As with any dorm project, it has sparked grumbling in the neighborhood, but so far, city officials and the developer aren’t jumping through hoops to placate project critics. 

City planners clearly have not given veto power to Roxbury residents when it comes to new dorm construction. The same could be said for Dorchester, where UMass Boston built its first dorm after years of griping from opponents. 

It’s not clear why Audubon Circle should be treated any differently. 

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.