Belmont Street / Trapelo Road

Here are my notes from tonight's presentation by MIT Urban Design and Planning students on how to improve Belmot/Trapelo Road. There were about 175 people in the audience.

“You can’t turn a hot dog into filet mignon”

 

The Trapelo-Belmont Corridor

Making a Place

Results from the Graduate Land Use Studio at MIT

 

1. Vision for HarvardLawn area on east
2. Cushing Sq and Palfrey Sq
3. Waverly Sq
4. Broad issue of economic dev – whole corridor
5. Q&A

 

Harvard Lawn

“Belmont’s next great neighborhood”

 

The signs are hard to read, no announced entry to Belmont

Lack of a mix of housing types

Lack of coordination with Watertown – the opposite sides of the street don’t match in how they are developed

Main goal: increase the residential: 3-unit housing for young adults and senior

Signature space to announce entry and slow traffic

Watertown is going to rezone this next year!!

Should enhance pedestrian link

 

Grove street intersection: “run for your life”

Most cars are commuters going through, not stopping

Needs to be better balance between auto, bus, bicycle

Could make this a place where people will want to linger

Short term:

Could make crosswalks more visible, more aesthetic, add traffic island

Better signals and signage

Long term:

            Widen sidewalks and add benches

 

 

School Street

Create a school st commercial zone to allow for more businesses to get synergies from each other and take advantage of city services

Recommendations:

change zoning to allow mixed use – residential on top of commercial

Would allow more people to move into Belmont – and smaller residence

            Enliven business district –

Improve pedestrian experience – widen sidewalks, add trees and benches

            Have parking permit program: Allow business owners and employees to park on first 100 ft of side streets and Watertown side – gives customers more parking on street in front

 

Our Lady of Mercy is closing, senior center will be moving

“By right” Zoning only allows single family dev

A developer could take advantage of Mass Law 40B to build higher density

Recommendation: create church reuse district: give town greater control over how property will be developed after sale, allow for affordable/senior housing (now a developer could develop sr. center into 2-unit development)

 

Cushing and Palfrey Sq

Common st to Pequosette Park

Think Cushing Sq has even more potential

Recommendation: 2-3 stor buildings “Town Square/Center District” must have

Add distinctive paving – brighten the visual monotony, add safety by buffer between sidewalk and street

Increased signage – create a “true place along the road”

Between 1998-2002 – 11 pedestrian accidents in Cushing Sq – recommend adding pedestrian islands, not wide enough for 4 lanes plus parking but 2 lanes won’t accommodate 700 cars/hour at peak. So recommend 3 lanes plus parking – center turning lane. This has been shown to be effective. Allows cars to pass trolleys. Allows partial bikelane

Parking: recommend parking deck of 2-3 stories on the mucicipal lot and adding meters to road and create permit program for business owners (like above)

 

Palfrey Sq

Only 13% of Palrey Sq is dedicated to active retail

If zoning changes were made, Belmont Used Cars could be developed into a restaurant with housing on top – could be 6 dwelling units with parking

Recommend to create a gateway to Pequosette Park by turning the truck parking lot into “gateway” or relocate the VFW and extend greenspace up to Trapel or just use the narrow strip between VFW and truck parking lot

Park is now just for small children or active sports – needs benches, walking path, uncover Wellington Brook which would provide a centerpiece for park

 

Waverly Sq

Vision: increase pedestrian and business activity

Promote use of transit (MBTA brings you downtown in less than 18 minutes)

Recommend: raised crosswalk near Butler school and add crosswalk in front of Korean church and add crosswalk in fron t of Shaws

Realign Waverley street to make it more perpendicular to Trapelo Road

Build a parking garage in a corner of Shaw’s lot

2 drive lanes, left turn lane in middle, bike lanes

Traffic coming into Belmont is narrowed down to one lane at Shaws

Need bus shelters

Beaver Brook and Sprague Pond

Could put in paths and bike lanes in Cramer Park

Trapelo road is actually close to Belmont Center – could connect them better

 

More on Waverly Sq

There’s an “emerging village green”

Shaws and bike store are anchors

But it feels like a “vast asphalt expanse”

Lots of businesses are closed half the year

Commuter rail station is underused

“Smart Growth” concepts – make transportation easier, allow people to live and work nearby, leverage existing infrastr

ucture, provide diverse housing options – single family house is not best for everyone – take care of people who are house rich and cash poor – Belmont is getting older.

Would like to extend zoning height to 45 feet – but only for desirable dev like senior housing – in north section

In south section would like to relax parking restrictions to allow people to park and take commuter rail

Example: RTK building could be 3 stories with residential above

 

Need a ”green garage” for commuter rail – northeast corner of Shaw’s, make it shared: commuters in day, for town at night so, of 325 spots, give 200 spaces to commuters with preference to Belmont residents, 40 business spots – could get funding from MBTA and state. Showed examples of attractive parking buildings

Need a restaurant like Legal Seafoods or Full Moon and add specialty food market

 

 Corridor Wide Economic Dev Recommendations

End goal: strengthen business and create business opportunities – give residents incentive to shop locally, meet neighbors

How – 1) create town Economic Dev Comte – appointed by Town Selectment, should represent Belmont-Watertown Chamber of Commerce: provide long term strategy. 2) create a salried Econimic Dev Director (Somerville has one) – official liaison between businesses and town, oversee business permitting process. 3) implement a Trapelo Corridor Merchant Assoc through Nat’l Trust Main Street model – incorporated under 501c(3) to handle streetscape design, marketing

 

Friday night, kids are not home, you want a relaxing dinner, you might go with friends, would be nice to walk down to Trapelo Road, see neighbors. Restaurants are anchors. This has revitalized Arlington. Pulses of restaurant traffic are opposite businesses. But Belmont is one of most difficult to get a liquor license. Legal Seafoods, Figs won’t come without liquor license. You need a 60-car parking lot to open a restaurant – virtually impossible (1 parking spot per 2 seats with 120 seat minimum) recommend 1 parking spot for 4 seats with 60 seat minimum. Belmont: can’t serve after 11, no second drink unless ordering a full meal, most expensive license fees ($500 non-refundable fee which is likely to get rejected). “It’s not going to become a bar town. Loosen the belt”

 

How to pay for this: now there’s only one property classification: $10.70/$1000 assessed. Should assess commercial diff than residential. Commerical should be higher like it is in Watertown – increase by $1.08/$1000 = $200,000 for town. Businesses would be amenable if they got more services and town generated more customers. Could increase another $1.08 the following year.

Now businesses have to shovel snow, trash, recycling, parking passes, etc. Town could offer bundle of services that business would pay less for and would generate revenue for Town. But if some businesses mooched it wouldn’t work.

Set up districts like Cushing Sq where businesses in that District would pay for specific improvements.

Use financing strategies like TIF/DIF

 

Prof:

Taller bldgs can make the wide street more inviting

Ch. 90 $ can help with road construction

Arlington has dealt with Mass Ave, Wellesley with Route 16

Residents recognize that the road is old and outmoded

 

Q: when you raise the commercial tax rate, you are limited by prop 2-1/2 to offset in the residential. Also, in Arlington, you have traffic running into residential areas.

A: we’ll look into concerns about Prop 2-1/2. With regard to parking, need to look holistically corridor wide – there are underutilized spaces. By adding a deck lot…

 

Q: How will this affect the rest of the town?

A: An economic development committee/director would look at whole town. W e are talking about taking business from Cambridge and Watertown. Level of service on streets would be approved.

 

Q: chairman of alcohol commission: Your info is correct. We have 8 beer and wine licenses, 7 are in use. Our rates are comparable, maybe a tad higher. Some of the things are in the state rules.

A: We got our numbers from the State ABC

 

Q: Waltham resident – Mass Bicycle Commission: Bikers will ride in right lane and there could be accommodations for this. 12 feet for parking and bike is not adequate – bikers will get doored. 13 feet is adequate enough but there are issues at intersections, e.g., Concord Ave people turn from traffic lane instead of from bike lane

A: We’ve found that the cyclists using it now are those who are comfortable on any road – we want to encourage other cyclists

 

Q – Town meeting member, architect, has done master planning: Thanks to students. Everyone will find details to disagree with. The importance is to give us inspiration, let us work out the details.

 

Q – resident off Trapelo Road: Given the parking issue and economic dev issue – is the neighborhood supportive or are we creating a problem by bringing in traffic from surrounding areas.

A: Want to concentrate parking, economic dev in certain areas like Waverly

 

Q – Albert Press business owner in Palfrey Sq: concerned with plan to increase sidewalk size but doesn’t change how the buses work. For businesses that receive deliveries this is an issue. Trucks will double park and then the buses can’t get around the trucks.

A: Sidewalk is already wide in front of Albert Press. Could reserve parking for loading at certain times of day.

 

Q – Wateryown resident near School St: Used to own business next to Shore Drug. Witnessed 8-10 accidents, many serious. Met with head of Watertown and Belmont police – they said there was nothing they could do. Is there some coordination between Watertown, Belmont and the state

A: We haven’t talked about coordination between Watertown and Belmont. We have recommendations for School St intersection – straighten cross walk and add median. Belmont has control of the street.

Q: I asked Watertown tree warden for trees opposite Shore Drug and they were there in two weeks. So these things can happen – sometimes all you need to do is ask.

 

Q – don’t put meters in, we just took them out

 

Q: Parking deck would be great. First level could be halfway below ground.

 

Q – Bemont town mtg member: Many of recommendations are same as Economic Dev Study by the Vision 21 committee, e.g., need for economic dev officer.

 

Wrap-up:

 

Prof: if you are enthusiastic about this, don’t let this momentum die.

 

Prof: Aron Ben Joseph

Look on MIT urban studies and planning site (11.360)