Serious concerns from residents about blasting and overall construction management on a Blue Hill Avenue residential housing project in Mattapan were left unaddressed when an online community meeting set for last Wednesday night (Jan. 28) was cut short due to technical difficulties, a move that infuriated neighbors who had planned to sign on to air months’ worth of grievances.
Officials promised to reschedule the session, which was cancelled after about 15 minutes of discussion with city officials.
Developers are looking to build out 44 units of rental housing in one building, with parking, on a vacant lot at 1471 Blue Hill Ave., but the project faces challenges as workers will have to blast through a large outcropping of Roxbury Puddingstone so that the foundation can be laid.
“We have people seriously affected by what’s happening now,” said Culbert Street neighbor David Venter at the end of the brief session. “If blasting – which is only one topic of concern – continues today, tomorrow, and the next day, we are going to continue to have impacts, and our houses could have impacts with shaking and vibrating and we haven’t been able to talk about that. We want to reschedule ASAP because we’re in a situation that’s very concerning.”
Before the meeting was derailed, Derek Skeffington, of Dellbrook Construction, said, “We are still in our drilling and blasting phase. That is realistically expected to last another 20 days to a month. After that part, we’ll start the foundation excavation and go through mid-April. You’ll see dump trucks exiting with materials.”
He added that the building should be out of the ground in the summer with a completion date of May 2027.
Before the technical difficulties arose, Matt Shaughnessy of Maine Drilling and Blasting, located in Milford, gave a detailed review of the blasting and drilling processes. He explained the procedures for getting a blasting permit from the state and the Boston Fire Department – and noted that pre-blasting surveys of abutters is part of that process. He said Boston requires them to offer the surveys to those within 325 feet of activities, but didn’t indicate if any had been done on this project.
“The work is very structured and for good reason,” he said. It “is dangerous…and especially in an urban environment so it’s important we are safe.”
A neighbor, Dane Fletcher wrote in an email afterward: “I don’t mean to sound overly disrespectful toward anyone in particular, but I have to say that was an obnoxious display of unprofessionalism. It demonstrated disregard for extremely concerned residents who wanted to be reassured that their legacy homes are not going to be further damaged from the blasting in frigid temps.”
He added, “There are well-documented dangers in blasting in such cold temperatures. We’ve had one of the coldest Januaryson record and you are blasting within a proximity to homes that were built mostly in the 1930’s with field stone foundations.”
Said meeting moderator Mohammad Missouri, executive director of the Office of Neighborhood Services (ONS): “We’re not trying to cut people off. We’re not sure why this happened. We will make sure everyone can attend another meeting.”
Issues arose before the meeting began, when the provided passcode didn’t work. After a new online meeting was started, about 39 people were able to sign into the new session, which was set to last 40 minutes – but after about 20 minutes, the presentation stopped. Attendees were then advised to click a link in the chat to start a new session, but that meeting ended before many were able to access it via the new link.
That third session attracted just a handful of neighbors, resulting in the call to reschedule a better-organized presentation.
Officials in attendance included developer Lincoln Avenue Communities of California, Dellbrook Construction, the Boston Fire Department, National Grid, the Boston Transportation Department, and Maine Drilling and Blasting.
After the shortened meeting, neighbors told of their lives being upended by the blasting activities, which they said were much louder and caused much stronger vibrations than they were led to believe they would while creating dust that seeped into their homes.
In addition, they said, construction work was frequently blocking access to abutting Woodhaven and Culbert Streets. Some also worried that homes might be getting damaged by the blasting in frigid times.
Shaughnessy, of Maine Drilling, had previously noted that after every blast they do a post-blast report to include a seismic reading that measures shaking or ground movement. He said that state law requires no more than two inches per second at peak particle velocity, but the city requires it to be one inch per second.
“Boston is very strict on that and to date all of our readings have been below the state level,” he said. “That is by design; we don’t just go out and stick dynamite in a hole…There’s a lot of science in this.”
Fatima Ali-Salaam, chair of the Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council (GMNC), said she has twice asked city and project leaders to send daily blast and sound alerts with full data to residents. “I have had no response from either of them,” she wrote in the meeting chat.
Shortly after that, Missouri ended the online meeting.
Residents said they hoped the next meeting would be more productive.
“The failure of the meeting itself only compounded this frustration,” wrote Venter. “Construction and blasting activities are continuing, and residents require timely, meaningful engagement—not further delays caused by preventable organizational failures.”
