Presidential Apartments, one of the first big complexes to arise fifty years ago in a mutual symbiotic relationship with UMass, our largest employer, has been granted a special permit by the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals to expand significantly (54 units) from the current 85 units to 139, or an increase of 96 tenants.
The 54 new units will spread out over nine new buildings and consist of a dozen one bedroom units and 42 two bedroom units. Six of these units will be "affordable" and will count towards Amherst's Subsidized Housing Inventory.
The town is currently at 10.8% and if it falls below 10% a developer can use a state CH40B wild card to build a rental housing mega-complex.
According to the Amherst Housing Production Plan between 1980 and 2010 housing production decreased by 12.8% in a town where 59.4% of the population are college students.
Presidential Apartments is also one of the complexes that is professionally managed by Kamins Real Estate and seldom shows up in Amherst police logs.
21 comments:
I'd like to see a symbiotic relationship that's not mutual.
This blog and Cowardly Anon Nitwits.
The CANS are the Anon blog posters who disagree with Larry. If you are an Anon blog poster who agrees with him you are a SOTE - Salt of the Earth!
This make so much sense. Increasing density in already developed areas.
Larry, it's not that Patrick manages the complex but who OWNS it that matters -- what people forget is that the management companies, like lawyers, are only doing what their clients want them to do.
There are some people, Kurt Shumway comes to immediate mind, who understand that you have to spend money to make money -- he doesn't waste money the way UMass usually does, but he doesn't cut corners on fixing stuff and he does stuff right.
By contrast, there are those who consider their properties to be an investment - an investment to which they are entitled to a return on each and every month. Much of Townhouse is this way -- individually owned condos which absentee landlords consider to be investments.
They hire a management company who collects the rent, from which the expenses (and management company's profit) is taken, with the "excess" being sent to the owner. If this check isn't big enough, the owner will just hire someone else, much like one will buy gasoline at a different station if the price is cheaper.
Yes, one can give Patrick credit for managing a complex where there are relatively few problems -- but the more important thing is that the owner wants the complex not to be one where there are problems and is willing to pay for that.
I should add, however, that I believe that Colonial Village is owned by the same guy who owns Presidential.
Colonial Village is (or should be) well known to the Amherst Police -- there are major problems there and it was one of two places in Amherst where I would not be after dark. I don't believe it is any better now -- and it is not UM students who are the problem here.
Amherst has a problem with drugs & gangs that no one wants to talk about. It doesn't help that the thugs are minorities -- but much as it would be racist to presume that all members of certain races are criminals, it is equally racist to give actual criminals a pass because of their race.
And it really doesn't help that the APD doesn't have sufficient backup if something gets nasty -- as I understand it, Colonial Village and the South Amherst complexes are places that officers really don't enjoy going.
If these complexes are owned by the same person, and I believe they are, then questions need to be asked.
To Anon 9:28,
"This make so much sense. Increasing density in already developed areas."
Yes, yes, it does make sense. That's the whole point. Were they to put 50 units in a part of the town that wasn't already developed, you get sprawl. Densification is on your side, not against it.
Exactly why the death of the Gateway joint project with UMass is such a travesty. The dense development would have gone up on property that formerly hosted five large run down Frats.
And would have generated many hundreds of thousands in property tax revenues.
It's not like adding this project and the several that have already been completed, along with the Olympia Drive units will bring a need for additional firefighters or police...let's just build it...they will find a way to get by and provide services.
Densification is the solution just look at southwest.
Gangs in Amherst? hahaha Sounds like a potential blog post you're missing out on, Larry. I dislike the amount of drinking that goes on in Amherst, but sometimes the things you guys say...
Actually there is gang related activity in Amherst (drugs mostly).
But no, I do not believe there are any homegrown gangs who have set up shot here.
I don't want to be confrontational, but could any of you show some examples of gang activity in Amherst? It would be news to me.
As I said, drug busts mostly.
Not the soft core stuff you get at UMass, but the hardcore stuff you can buy at certain apartment complexes.
Notice a pair, or multiple pairs of sneakers hanging on telephone cables in certain areas of Amherst? That is a place where drugs can be purchased. Type and color tells you what you can get.
Still not proof of gangs in Amherst...
Next you will be telling me there's no proof we're a UFO base.
Throwing bottle and cans at Amherst cops?
Oh, wait a minute, that's not gang activity. That's students enjoying their UMass experience.
I have had kids go through the middle and high schools. Trust me Carm, there are gangs in Amherst. And as if that's not enough, there are tons of little gang wanna-bes. That is where the majority of the sneakers on the wires comes from Walter. They think it's cool, or do it to friends as a prank.
why the sneakers are there is up in the air
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_tossing
Scott Merzbach wrote in the Bulletin
www.amherstbulletin.com/news/5324234-95/kamins-rental-town-property
"the recent party-turned-riot of 2,000 or more people occurred at Townehouse Apartments on Meadow Street, a property Kamins manages."
Before its move to 400 Amity,
KAMINS OF AMHERST, INC
corp.sec.state.ma.us/corp/corpsearch/CorpSearchSummary.asp?ReadFromDB=True&FEIN=000691473
declared its principal office location to be 55 North Pleasant.
The property card for 55 North Pleasant St (the building that houses Stackers, epicenter of Blarney Blow-out)
gis.amherstma.gov/images/cards/7314.pdf
shows it was bought by Railroad Street Partners, a James Cherewatti LLC.
corp.sec.state.ma.us/corp/corpsearch/CorpSearchSummary.asp?ReadFromDB=True&FEIN=001026952
55 North Pleasant serves as a congenial location for Cherewatti's Eagle Crest to conduct at least some business,
such as serving as mailing address for newer LLCS,
like ECHO GATEHOUSE PARTNERS (purchaser of Echo Village)
corp.sec.state.ma.us/corp/corpsearch/CorpSearchSummary.asp?ReadFromDB=True&FEIN=001095311
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