June 14, 2000
To Boston City Councilors:
On June 5, I testified at the Council hearing on the BRA's budget request. The BRA is asking for $725,000 for a new Chief Planner and staff, and $750,000 for operational funding from the City. I asked, on behalf of the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods, that planning be funded outside the BRA. If the new planning staff works for the BRA, it will do no more legitimate planning than the current planning staff has done. The same BRA conflict of interest will continue to define Boston's future as a series of uncontrolled development projects rather than as an integral community.
As you have heard, Boston is the only city that has combined the planning agency and the Redevelopment Authority. Under Ed Logue, the BRA demanded State legislation to absorb the Planning Board, ignoring this basic premise of independent planning. We need to re-separate the two functions. Planning must be comprehensive, long-term, professionally competent and responsive to a broad constituency. This will not be achieved within the BRA.
The Boston Globe has written four editorials saying the same thing. I gave you a copy of three of these, along with my own Op-ed, "BRA lacks a vision for the city" (June 8, l9l98), and the Alliance white paper on planning sent to the Mayor in November 1999. Here is the fourth Globe editorial, printed the day after the Mayor's State of the City address this year.
Funding BRA planning, and other operations, through the City will only help the BRA circumvent Council review authority over BRA activities, by letting the BRA use its "own" money to fund controversial items and using City money for "routine" matters. This is already illustrated with the BRA funding for the arcade on City Hall Plaza, where the BRA has tried for five years to eliminate your oversight on their gradual privatization and commercial redevelopment of the Plaza.
You have a historic opportunity to reverse a 40-year-old mistake that has gravely damaged Boston's environmental health, urban design, and quality of life. With your power over the budget, you can stop this subversion of City Council power, and restore to the citizens of the city a real planning agency. All over the city, the need for planning has never been more obvious.
Sincerely,
Shirley Kressel
President, ABN