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November 25, 2004

Councilors balk at extending BRA’s Urban Renewal power

Yawu Miller

After the Boston Redevelopment Authority made its case for the extension of the Urban Renewal program in March, City Councilor James Kelly requested background information detailing the need for the program.

BRA officials assured the council they would receive documentation within weeks. In fact, the BRA’s documentation on the necessity of extending Urban Renewal designation came October 27 and, according to Kelly, it was too little, too late.

Now that the BRA is facing the statutory expiration of its Urban Renewal program and is seeking the council’s approval for an extension, but Kelly says he hasn’t had enough time or enough information from the agency.

“You’re not giving us a reasonable amount of time to study something that’s very important,” he told BRA Director Mark Maloney during a City Council hearing Monday.

Neither Kelly nor any of the other councilors who spoke expressed support for the extension of the urban renewal designations, which cover 21 separate areas throughout Boston.

“I don’t think you’ve made the case that there is a need for the council to support the existence of Urban Renewal plans,” said Councilor Chuck Turner, as spectators clapped. “[Urban Renewal] gave the BRA more control over decision making, but after 40 years it’s time for the council as the representative of the citizens to become more involved.”

The Urban Renewal program, established under the Congressional Housing Act of 1949, made federal monies available to cities for redevelopment. The program gave city agencies like the BRA the power and funding to take blighted land by eminent domain for the purposes of redevelopment.

Many of the largest construction projects in Boston, including the Prudential Center and Government Center, were put together by the BRA. While council members said the program was necessary during the ’50s and ’60s when there was much blighted land in the city, they questioned the need for the BRA to continue to exercise that power.

The city’s most blighted areas have been re-developed and real estate prices in the city are at an all-time high. Real estate developers are no longer seen as needing financial incentives to invest in the city and the federal government has not given the BRA funding for land takings since the ’70s.

The BRA was created as a quasi-government agency that would operate free of intervention by elected officials. Although the agency occupies the 9th floor of City Hall, it maintains its own budget, raising revenue through the sale of land.

While the agency operates outside the control of the City Council, its director and board members are appointed by the mayor. In past years the agency has promoted projects that have had little or no support from the council. Several councilors, including Turner, Yancey and Arroyo, have in the past called for the agency to be dismantled.

In addition to the power of eminent domain land takings, the Urban Renewal designations allow the BRA to conduct title confirmations and impose development and design controls, according to Tim McGourthy, director of policy at the BRA.

But Shirley Kressel, who heads the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods, said the BRA could perform those functions without Urban Renewal designations.

“The real answer is to let them expire,” she said.

The agency has been seen by many as a tool for the mayor to exercise control over development and bestow land on friendly developers. Speaking on behalf of the BRA’s Urban Renewal powers at Monday’s meeting were two building trades representatives and Jim Keefe, whose Trinity Financial Inc. development company has landed major development deals on BRA land and built more than 2,000 units of housing.

“I don’t think we could have accomplished what we’ve accomplished if we did not have the help of the BRA,” Keefe testified.

Keefe’s business partner is Patrick Lee, whose wife, Alyce Lee, served as Menino’s chief of staff in the early ’90s.

While some developers have done well by the BRA, city councilors have often complained that the agency operates without accountability to anyone but the mayor. Because the agency’s budget operates independently of the city’s budget, the council has little authority over the agency.

Thus, the renewal of Urban Renewal plans, which must be approved by the council, presented a rare opportunity for the council to exercise power over the agency.

In addition to Kelly and Turner, councilors Charles Yancey, Michael Flaherty, Paul Scapicchio, Michael Ross, Maura Hennigan and Maureen Feeney sat through much of the meeting. None of them offered words of support for the BRA.

Opposing the Urban Renewal plans Monday were several neighborhood residents who sat through the three-hour meeting, waiting for a chance to testify.

Shirley Kressel noted that the entire South End remains an Urban Renewal area under the BRA’s current designation. Few would consider the neighborhood blighted, according to Kressel.

Other BRA Urban Renewal areas include Washington Park, which stretches from Dudley Square to Franklin Park; Kittredge Square, which includes much of Fort Hill; Charlestown; and most of downtown Boston, including Chinatown.

In Chinatown, the BRA has approved several development projects that have violated the development master plan devised by Chinatown residents, helping developers cobble together parcels of land for luxury highrises that current neighborhood residents can’t afford.

Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, said the BRA has taken the power over development away from local residents.

“The heart of the question is whether we want to see some measure of accountability in the development process,” she said.

Kressel, Lowe and other neighborhood activists have long argued that the BRA too often sides with politically connected developers and powerful institutions over the interests of neighborhood residents.

The agency played a lead role in the development of the Davenport Commons project, a 600-bed Northeastern University dormitory sited in the middle of a residential Lower Roxbury neighborhood.

Fenway resident Richard Orrario said the BRA is currently negotiating with the Forsyth Institute, which is seeking park land for a new building.

“We called attention to the fact that a park cannot be blighted,” Orrario said. “They said it was a demonstration project.”

Orrario said BRA officials never explained what a demonstration project was, despite his written request.

The hearing concluded without a decision by the councilors.

“It’s been taken under advisement,” Kelly said.

 

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