Published on February 4, 2025 3:40 AM GMT
I love the Burren.It hosts something like seven weekly sessions in arange of styles and the back room has hosted many great acts includingmany of my friends. It's a key space inthe Boston folk scene, and it's under threat from developers who wantto tear it down.
But after thinking it through, and noting that this puts me on theother side from many of my friends, I think the project should goahead. The proposal isn't to tear down paradise to put up a parkinglot, it's to put up 500+ apartments (studio, 1br, 2br, 3br), 100+of them limited to people below income thresholds ('affordable').We're in the middle of a housing crisis, where instead ofletting people build up to meet demand we've been competing witheach other to bid up the apartments that do exist. Risingrent has been really hard on our communities, folk scene included. Ofmy Cambridge/Somerville folkie friends from, say, fifteen years ago,the majority of folks still in the general area have been priced out,to Vermont, Maine, and Western Mass. While spaces to make music are akey component of a thriving community, housing is even more critical.
Part of what makes the tradeoff so substantial, with so much potentialnew housing, is that the Burren, Dragon Pizza, and other businessesalong this stretch are not making very intensive use of the space:
Much of it is parking lots, and most of the rest is just a singlestory. And this is an area just a lot a three minute walk from DavisSq Station!
Discussion also tends to assume that a lost place opens an unfillablevoid. In part because of this planned development, however, the ownersof the Burren are opening another place a few blocks away: McCarthy's and Toad. Even if thisweren't already in progress, there's clearly a strong demand for thiskind of space, and other places could open to fill it. This kind ofchurn is still bad, but it's not forever.
At a more fundamental level, however, having this conversation at thelevel of individual proposed projects is the wrong way to do it, andis a keycontributor to the rising cost of housing and infrastructure.Part of why housing prices are so high are that we've heavilyrestricted what can be built, but another significant component is therisk that community feedback will stall or cancel a project. In thiscase, illustrating both aspects, an earlier proposal was for sixstories, but, after protests, city council rezoned the parcel to limitit to four stories.
If the project does go ahead I'll be really sad to see the Burren go,but letting people build housing is critical for bringing down thecost of housing.
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