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– News covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added
A rendering of rejected condominium complex on Sea Street
In Salem recently a large development proposal was thwarted in a move only known to have happened once in Quincy when a development team including Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch’s consigliere unsuccessfully pressed for variances to build a several time larger than allowed per the local building codes condominium complex against overwhelming public opposition as the site is on an already congested and dangerous run of Sea Sea near Quincy’s Department of Public Works complex.
Note the well worn imprint of this rubber stamp
An iStock image.
The surprising to many rejection of Quincy Mayor Koch’s consigiiere and his private sector business partners’ application was imposed after years of various Quincy city officials all but pre-approved rubber stamping of often larger to far larger residential complex application throughout much of Quincy, whereas in Salem another developer withdrew its plans to develop seventy apartments on top of an MBTA Commuter Rail station parking garage in Salem after the developer paid the MBTA a million dollars for the air rights needed to be able to build the apartments.
The City of Quincy Quincy Center’s Kilroy Square parking garage
A Quincy Quarry file photo
A key problem for the Salem project was parking. While the 494 space MBTA parking garage in Salem upon which the developer proposed to build the apartments has only been averaging roughly 50% of capacity use since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the fan, the garage was frequently at least close to full use in prior years.
The City of Quincy, on the other hand, has often trimmed parking space requirements for local so-called Transit Oriented Development projects as well as even built a parking garage wherein a couple of local developers are renting spaces from the city at rental rates below, if not well below, the cost of providing this parking capacity while at the same time the developer then sublets these parking lots to their tenants at a tidy profit.
North Quincy MBTA station air rights development
A Quincy Quarry News file photo
Similarly, as far as Quincy Quarry knows the air rights over the Quincy Center MBTA station are still under at least a memorandum of understanding with the same developer who is finishing up its 600 unit apartments and some retail complex in the air rights over the MBTA’s North Quincy station.
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Ever wonder why they are building the parking lots FIRST around here. No worry, Blackrock knows what they are doing. It is more concerning that Blackrock is handling the finances of many retirement plans for city employees. Is this the same in Quincy? I would be very concerned. All that mayor is, is a monkey with a grinding box. He is owned, not in charge
Tell the Salem developer to come to Quincy, there’s still plenty of rubber-stamping going on here. It’s almost to the point where developers are running the city. They’re even being paid ($$$$) to “design” public projects before the projects are even announced to the public.