JPNDC presents plans for Blessed Sacrement

Yawu Miller

Amid the 120 or so neighborhood residents who crowded into the Chevrus School to discuss the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation’s development plans for the Blessed Sacrament Church site were a dozen or so activists wearing “Save the Rectory” stickers on their jackets and sweaters.

“Save the Rectory is a new language,” commented Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council President Nelson Arroyo, eyeing the sticker-wearers. “I call it ‘hidden agenda.’ It translates into ‘I don’t want affordable housing next to my house.’”

While many of the sticker wearers spoke about the historical significance of the vinyl siding-clad frame house at the corner of Centre and Creighton streets, Arroyo and others said the demolition of the building would support the construction of affordable housing in the neighborhood.

Despite the simmering tension between the preservation advocates and supporters of affordable housing, the meeting for the most part avoided many of the polemics that have plagued discussions of affordable housing in the gentrification-plagued neighborhood in recent weeks.

It was only a week earlier that the Neighborhood Council’s Housing Committee chairwoman, Caprice Taylor Mendez, was called an “affordable housing pawn” during a heated argument where green space advocates bitterly lamented the loss of a strip of green space to two affordable homes.

Earlier this year a Neighborhood Council community meeting on Blessed Sacrament brought to the surface hostilities between affordable housing advocates and area home owners who called for market-rate housing on the site of the church.

In that meeting, some suggested that the development of affordable housing would increase crime in the neighborhood and lower property values.

Saturday, however, JPNDC Executive Director Richard Thal’s entreaty for those at the meeting to respect each other won out and the acrimony present in past meetings did not surface.

The JPNDC’s plans for the three-acre site call for the development of a four- to five-story building that would take the place of the rectory building and house commercial space and 35 to 40 affordable housing units.

The Blessed Sacrament church itself would have three floors added and house 35 to 38 market rate and affordable condominium units. On Creighton St., the JPNDC is planning 16 condominium town houses and in the nearby convent the JPNDC is planning 27 to 30 single-room-occupancy units to be developed in conjunction with the Pine Street Inn.

The Norbert School building, which currently houses the COMPASS School, would remain in use as a school.

According to the JPNDC’s project development manager, Lizbeth Heyer, 60 percent of the units developed on the site will be affordable to people earning as little as 30 percent of the area median income.

The current plans call for community space at the front of the church building with a public plaza.

“We want ways for the community to stay connected,” Heyer said.

The preliminary plans were well received at a recent meeting of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council. At Saturday’s meeting, several of the project abutters expressed concern about the affordable housing and the single room occupancy units planned for the site, as well as traffic and parking issues.

“Do you really care about this neighborhood?” Armando Silva asked the JPNDC staff at the meeting. “We have 400 units of housing being built in Jackson Square and 18 on Centre St. And you guys want to build another 125?”

Sunnyside St. resident Greg Sullivan complained that the high density of the development on the church grounds would violate zoning laws.

Heyer said that the site’s current zoning allows for 24 units of housing, a designation that the JPNDC will have to change. But she noted that no developer — nonprofit or for-profit — could finance the construction of just 24 units on the site.

“It’s not practical for this site,” she said. “You would have to demolish everything on this site. It’s clear that whoever develops this site will be seeking a significant change to the zoning.”

Some at the meeting called for more affordable housing on the site.

“I’d really like to see 100 percent [affordable] to make up for the many units that used to be affordable over the years,” said Sherridan St. resident Ken Tangvic.

The JPNDC obtained the right to develop the Archdiocese of Boston property through a competitive bid process. The JPNDC signed a purchase and sales agreement for $6 million and expects to pass papers on the property within the next few weeks.

The JPNDC is partnering with Peter Roth of New Atlantic Development, a firm with experience in both affordable housing and historic preservation.