Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Community Integration at Jamaica Plain

[Kristen Simmons (simmonskristen]

Tom,
Thanks so much for putting this on the listserv! The cohousing project
mentioned is Stony Brook Cohousing (Boston). The group came together in the
fall of 2006 and now has control of the Blessed Sacrament Church building,
one of six buildings (which will all be separate entities that are part of a
master condo) on the site.

My group is buying the church building from the developer who owns the
entire site. It's permitted for 37 units with plenty of room for common
space. More than we know what to do with, in fact! The developer had
originally planned to do luxury condos in the church building, which doesn't
work so well in this economy.

We are seeking new members, and all are invited to tour the site tomorrow,
March 13 at 10am. For more information about the event and the project,
please visit our website, call or email.

website: www.stonybrookcohousing.org
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stony-Brook-CoHousing/312771196582?ref=ts
Twitter: http://twitter.com/CohousingBoston
Meetup: http://intentionalcomm.meetup.com/195/

Cheers,
Kristen
617-549-0332

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On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Thomas Lofft <tlofft [at] hotmail.com> wrote:

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> By MONICA BRADY-MYEROV
> Published March 8, 2010  UPDATED 1:07 PM
>
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> http://www.wbur.org/2010/03/08/jp-church
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> BOSTON — Blessed Sacrament’s soaring dome is a symbol of Jamaica Plain’s
> Hyde Square neighborhood.
>
> “This has been a landmark in JP for 100 years and it’s also one of the few
> significant pieces of land that’s left in JP,” says Richard Thal, the
> executive director of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation
> (JPNDC), a community group that works to create affordable housing.
>
>
> Jamaica Plain's Blessed Sacrament, surrounded by construction here, is
> being transformed into a housing complex. (Monica Brady-Myerov/WBUR)
> In 2005, JPNDC beat out commercial bidders and bought the church property
> from the Archdiocese of Boston for $6 million.
>
> “This is the story of an incredible community that was so engaged,” Thal
> says, “where hundreds of people came together and said, ‘We have got to find
> a way to make this a community resource.’ ”
>
> They did that by overcoming roadblocks of financing, zoning and planning to
> develop the three acres in a heavily residential neighborhood. While there
> will no longer be any religious worship at the church, part of the building
> will remain accessible to the community. The most challenging part of the
> project will be converting the 12,000-seat church — built back in 1890 —
> into housing.
>
> Inside, the ceiling reaches 10 stories high. The Archdiocese took the
> stained glass windows for another church, but the space still feels
> religious.
>
> “This area in the initial design is preserved as the common space, as an
> atrium,” says Brian Goldson, of New Atlantic Development, the firm that is
> overseeing construction of a four-story building inside the church. It will
> be what is called a co-housing complex — a type of condo where residents
> live as a community.
>
> “Taking a church and turning it into housing is a bit of a challenge,”
> Goldson says. “You ask the church what it wants to be and it tells you it
> wants to be a church, not a bunch of condos.”
>
> >From the outside, Blessed Sacrament will still look like a church, which
> is comforting to the community.
>
> “We heard from a lot of the neighbors and former parishioners that they
> would support the kind of vibrant mixed-use, mixed-income redevelopment of
> this parcel, but if they did anything with the church they would never talk
> to us,” Thal says. “That was just out of the question as far as they were
> concerned.”
>
>
> Richard Thal, left, and Brian Goldson stand within the under-construction
> Blessed Sacrament church in Jamaica Plain. (Monica Brady-Myerov/WBUR)
> One of those neighbors and former parishioners is Demaris Pimental, who
> owns a beauty shop down the street. As a parishioner, she was devastated to
> see her spiritual home sold, but she is happy to see the Blessed Sacrament
> campus turned into homes community members can afford. She and others feared
> developers bidding for the property would raze the church building and put
> in luxury condominiums. Pimental says a mix of housing is better.
>
> “It’s not good to have only low-income (housing),” Pimental says. “It’s
> good to have a little bit of market value. And keeping that balance is a
> challenge for our neighborhood because gentrification will change that
> unique taste of diversity that Jamaica Plain has.”
>
> The rectory now has condos on sale at below-market rates. The convent is
> being converted into housing for formerly homeless people. Construction is
> half way done on a new apartment building and retail space. And two former
> school buildings will be rented, one possibly to a charter school.
>
> All uses, community members say, that fit with the neighborhood.
>
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>
> Tom Lofft
>
> Liberty Village, MD
>
>
>
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