Frustration set in on both sides Monday as a six-story building project for more than 30 condos at 88 Ellery St. was continued again by the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Conservation District Commission. The project has been before the NCD since its Jan. 12 meeting.
Developers said they weren’t getting the specifics that would let them win their certificate of appropriateness and advance their project. Members of the commission felt the building just wasn’t clicking, and it was important to set a standard with the six-story projects coming through new multifamily housing zoning laws.
“These early projects that we’re seeing with six-story additions are really going to set the tone,” said Felix Rosen, an alternate on the commission.
The existing two-story, single-family 1873 home of 4,006 square feet would get a partial demolition and a rear addition of around 47,692 square feet. The proposed building was also meant to respond architecturally to a six-story development next door at 84-86 Ellery St., another preservation of an existing house with a taller addition at the rear.
The multifamily housing zoning has inspired even more projects nearby: a block away is a six-story project at 60 Ellery St., and around the corner is a six-story project at 406 Broadway.
The neighboring projects share Dan Anderson as an architect, but belong to different clients. Anderson was able to make some alignments between the two that commission members appreciated.
“Each time you come back to us, it improves the approach and the general aesthetic qualities of the project,” chair Tony Hsaio said.
Yet when it came time to either move the project onward to an architectural review or keep it with the commission, member Catherine Tice wanted to keep it. “I still feel that, in a sense, we’re looking at four different buildings. There’s the one peeking from behind, there’s the brick structure and then there’s the very contemporary structure on the side,” Tice said. “The new building needs to be more significantly integrated into the historical building in front … I’m looking for more contextualization within the style and scope of what else is on Ellery Street and in the neighborhood.”
Anderson and project lawyer Patrick Barrett were vexed and confused, grappling with what they called vague and subjective directions.
“The degree to which they can speak to each other is open to interpretation,” Anderson said of the projects’ structures. “The materials, the color, the form, the level of detail are the only tools that we have. And I’m told that it’s not color and it’s not material.”
Both felt an architectural review was the right way to address smaller details. “Short of that, I’m looking for very, very specific pieces,” Anderson said. “Please don’t tell me ‘make it more beautiful,’ right? I need something a little bit more concrete.”
Commission members said they appreciated and applauded the work done and the progress made, and acknowledged everyone had arrived at the hardest part of the neighboring projects: the fourth building of four.
A continuance has to be agreed to by the applicant. If the applicant refuses, it goes to an appropriateness vote – which can set conditions for revisions that must be seen at the architects committee meeting. (All commission members are allowed to be on the architects committee.) , There are no votes at that stage, and applicants must adhere to what is recommended there, said Allison Crosbie, a preservation planner for the city and the facilitator of the meeting.
The developers agreed to one more continuation. “It looks like we have very little choice. This process, in this particular moment, is deeply frustrating,” Barrett said. “I accept this continuance, but do so grudgingly, and we’ll come back in a month and that that will be the end of it for us.”
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