554-556 Franklin Street
In addition to the more general Melrose 40B information we provide here, we also wanted to address some topics that are very specific to our Franklin St project and Melrose Highlands. In doing so, we hope to demonstrate that we care about the area and don’t want to ruin it for current residents.
The Highlands is a neighborhood that is facing challenges, but it also has the huge potential to be a model for how Melrose can thoughtfully grow its residential capacity. Building on the existing foundation of transportation and retail, smart and intentional infill development can help it become an even better version of itself. We believe this project will be an integral part of an evolving future for the neighborhood, providing a variety of housing options that create a more inclusive and dynamic community.
Our goal is to provide a place where longtime residents can downsize without leaving the community they love, where young professionals who grew up in the area can find an affordable entry point, and where a broader range of residents can find a welcoming home. We believe this increased density will, in turn, support a more walkable community, attracting new retail and commercial businesses that thrive on a growing population. It will also help foster the demand for improved transit options. We are excited about the future of Melrose Highlands, and we are committed to being a partner in building a community that is more accessible, more inclusive, and more vibrant for everyone. In 20 years, we hope to be sitting in front of La Qchara, greeting friends as they walk home from the train or out to a local store, knowing we played a small part in making the neighborhood such a great place to live and work.
Congestion on Franklin Street/ Pedestrian Safety
We are well aware that the Highlands neighborhood can experience times of excessive traffic congestion. Many factors contribute, the MBTA train crossings, the fact that Franklin St is a major arterial road connecting Melrose to Stoneham and I-93, and the narrowness of the road itself are all factors. Even the topography contributes, as the bend in Franklin St near Vinton St. makes it difficult for drivers to see the visual cues that indicate the type of neighborhood is about to change and more attention needs to be paid to pedestrians. We heard the feedback from neighbors and Councilor Karamcheti in or community meeting, individual meetings with direct abutters, feedback from the wider Melrose community we received as part of the ZBA process, the mayor in her letter to MassHousing, and the Planning Department throughout this whole process. We took the concerns seriously and have proposed a number of changes to address those concerns specifically.
Vehicle and Pedestrian Traffic off Franklin
The biggest change and the most impactful to minimize congestion on Franklin St was to move the vehicle entrance and add a pedestrian entrance to the side of the building. This eliminates the existing curb cut on Franklin St, and means that vehicles exiting the building will be forced to exit to Belmont St and then to Melrose St. In her letter to MassHousing the mayor urged that we maximize the public benefit of the newly discovered land between our property and the municipal lot. In consultation with our team of subject matter experts, and the professionals employed by the City of Melrose, we came to the conclusion that the maximum benefit to the city, and the Highlands neighborhood specifically, was to use part of that area as vehicle and pedestrian access for the building.
Move-Ins
We have also heard the concern regarding the process of tenants moving in and out of the building might impact congestion on Franklin St. Of course, we will make it clear in our move-in package that no trucks or vans can be parked on Franklin St and must be parked in the newly proposed short term loading area. We will monitor move-in activity to ensure compliance to that rule as well. In addition to that, we have researched industry guidelines regarding sizing for moving vans. Based on U-Haul recommendations a 3 bedroom apartment, our largest unit size, would require a 20’ truck. We intentionally sized our garage to fit a 20’ truck inside, clear of any duct work or lighting, to insure that interior space could be used, if necessary, for move-ins. Particularly during the lease-up phase, we will utilize that space to minimize impact, and it will be available after that to ensure compliance to community rules.
There have been some statistics thrown around about the number of move-in events the building will experience, and we acknowledge that the lease-up period will see a large number of move-ins in a relatively short period of time, which we will closely manage and schedule to avoid issues for either the neighborhood, or the moving tenants. The national average turnover rate for managed apartment buildings is 42% - 50%, and high demand markets, such as Melrose, tend to have lower turnover than the average. Assuming the absolute worst case of 50% that would mean 30 turnovers per year, or 2.5 per month, approximately one every 1 - 2 weeks. We will use lease terms and incentives, common industry practices, to ensure those moves are spread out during the course of the month. The proposed infrastructure and practice should be able to well handle that volume.
Primary Use of Side Door
Even though there will be a pedestrian entrance on the front of the building, we will use a number of techniques to discourage it’s use and keep the pedestrian and delivery activity on the side of the building.
We will not allow residents to remotely open the door on Franklin St, but only give them the ability to “buzz someone in” the side door.
We will institute a policy that all deliveries must be made at the side door, monitor, and enforce this policy.
We will put a prominent sign on the front door that says that all deliveries should be made at the side door.
We will make sure that our GPS location on all major navigation tools is located at the side door. This means that anyone who enters our Franklin St address into a GPS system will have the turn into the municipal lot as the last step in their turn by turn instructions. For rideshare and deliveries this should be an effective way to divert unfamiliar drivers to the side entrance.
Current Parking Situation In the Highlands
In 2022 Melrose did a survey of public parking available in the Highlands. A copy of that information can be found here. The survey shows that there are over 125 public parking spaces within 400 ft of the Melrose Highlands MBTA station. The chart below details the limits and costs of those spaces and the map shows their locations in the neighborhood. In 2022 there were 250 overnight parking passes sold city wide with only 16 residents indicating they would be parking in the Highlands Commuter Rail Lot and 4 in the Municipal Lot. For 2025 those numbers are 15 in the Commuter Rail Lot and 2 in the Municipal Lot. Although there have been no recent utilization studies performed in the Highlands Parking Lots, random counts of cars at various times have shown that the lots are virtually never at parking capacity. If you include the street spots along Belmont St near Melrose St (which were not included in the numbers quoted above and which are almost always vacant), the existing parking appears to be sufficient for demand.
Additionally, the Ella, which was feared to materially worsen the parking situation in the Highlands, has nearly reached full occupancy, and many had not even noticed the new tenants or their cars in the neighborhood.
Highlands Public Parking Details
There is one last comment we’d like to make regarding traffic on Franklin Street. After looking at the issue from all directions, coming up with potential mitigations, and hearing the feedback from all sides, two things seem clear. One is that there is no obvious answer, and no consensus on what can or should be done to help. The other is that most of the traffic on Franklin St isn’t local traffic seeking access to the homes and businesses there. Mostly it is through traffic moving into or out of Melrose. Franklin Street is one of the few arterial roads that connects to points west because of the geographic barriers created by the Middlesex Fells Reservation and Spot Pond. The Highlands neighborhood is sadly faced with a textbook issue of having a business district on a principal arterial roadway, complicated by the intermittent train crossings. Looking at the problem from this perspective reinforces the idea that keeping the vehicular traffic from entering and exiting directly onto Franklin St. is the single biggest mitigation for this problem available to the project.
Set Backs/ Lot Coverage
The proposed building has been widely referenced as going right up to the lot line. That is not true, and in fact the project as proposed has a lower lot coverage percentage than many other buildings approved and existing in the Highlands or in Melrose generally. The front and back set backs were intentionally designed to be large enough to allow for extensive landscaping in the front, vegetative screening in the back, and to allow an amenity space for tenants.
Plan Detail Showing Front Set Back, Sidewalk, and Street
In the detail above showing the front of the building and the street, you can see that, at the ground, the building is set back 13.7 feet (13’ 9”) from the property line at it’s narrowest. The property line does not go all the way to the curb. Although it’s not labelled on this detail, there are approximately another 8 feet from the property line to the curb. That means the proposed building will be set back about 21.7 feet from the curb. As a comparison the commercial building to the east has no setback from the property line, so is approximately 8 feet from the curb and the condo building directly to the west is set back about 33 feet from the curb.
Plan Detail Showing Back Set Back
In the detail above showing the back set back you can see that there are 17.4 feet (17’ 5”) from the back of the building to the property line at its narrowest. This allows for a generous vegetative barrier between the building and the back abutters, as well as a dog walk area for tenants. Reduction of massing and buffering is also enhanced in the back by the cut out in the center of the building and the step backs on the 5th and 4th floor, as well as the elevated vegetative buffer on the patio.
Annotated Plan Detail Showing Front Set Back in Relation to Adjacent Buildings
In the annotated detail above you can see that the placing of the proposed building acts as a transition from the commercial, heavy foot traffic area to the east and the residential area to the west. Not only it the set back a middle distance between the adjacent buildings, but the front is heavily landscaped toward the residential neighborhood and has features that activate the streetscape and invite pedestrian interaction toward the commercial neighborhood. This was intentionally designed to ease the transition from one type of neighborhood to the other.
Use of Public Land
Annotated Detail of Proposed Melrose Owned and Private Owned Areas
There have been many comments about a private property using public land and residents urging the city not to allow this. On the surface that seems like a reasonable request, but there a few things to unpack in that idea. First, just about every private property that has a driveway uses public land to enter and exit their property. You can see one example on the map details above that show that the property line and the edge of the street, or even the edge of side walk do not usually line up. 554-556 Franklin St, in its current use as a single family home, uses the public land at the end of it’s driveway for vehicle access and the land at the end of its walkway to access the sidewalk for pedestrian access. If you own a home or a condo, you almost certainly do the same. And you did not have to ask permission from the city to do so. This “Right of Access” is a fundamental principal of Massachusetts common law.
However, this situation is a little more complicated. We are proposing to create publicly available space on private land and to install and maintain landscaping on public land. Because of that we are looking to formalize the roles and responsibilities of both the City of Melrose and ourselves through an exchange of easements that will “run with the land,” meaning all potential future owners of this property would have the same rights and responsibilities as we pledge personally. This would also allow the city to enforce the promises we make against us and any future owner.
The picture above shows the ownership and uses for the land in question. The light green area is the currently existing public drive aisle owned by the city and available for public use. It would remain completely unchanged. The purple area is the private land that we are proposing to make available for public use in perpetuity. It consists of part of the 4 additional parking spaces (which we are proposing to outfit with publicly available EV charging stations at our cost), part of the loading area that can be used by the public, especially businesses in the neighborhood who currently don’t have a loading area and use either Franklin St itself or the drive aisle for that purpose, and the seating area near the bus stop along Franklin St. The yellow area is the area where pedestrian and vehicular traffic for the property would traverse the currently unusable land owned by Melrose to access the public way that is already accessible to to all vehicles and pedestrians. The dark green area is the public land where we are proposing to add and maintain greenspace.
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