September 18, 2000
Mark Maloney, Director
Boston Redevelopment Authority
Re: Executive Order on Mitigation of Development Impacts
Dear Director Maloney:
Pressures for increased linkage by housing advocates, and the community benefits controversy in South Boston, have focused public and Legislative attention on linkage and benefits. Mayor Thomas Menino's draft Executive Order would restructure the process of negotiating and distributing benefits.
We believe, however, that the concepts underlying negotiated benefits are fundamentally flawed, and harm both urban design and public process. Because Boston lacks effective zoning to put limits on development, bigger projects mean bigger linkage payments, and the prospect of more linkage money draws community groups, as well as the BRA, to accept bigger projects without regard to good planning. "Negotiated community benefits" similarly win approval for projects that would not be accepted on design merits, in return for public services that people fear they will never get from their government. Our public officials, in turn, withhold services -- even when public treasuries are full -- and use them as bargaining chips to push through unpopular projects.
The draft Order distinguishes mitigation for "direct" and "indirect" impacts. Our comment on these is as follows:
- Direct impacts of a project on the adjacent area
should be relieved by specific project design changes
that reduce the undesirable effects, e.g., reducing
parking capacity to relieve traffic, re-siting curb cuts
to avoid pedestrian/vehicular conflicts, and rearranging
massing to minimize shadows. These should be required
through the urban design and public comment process, to
protect the environment and the public realm, and should
involve no mitigation payments to neighborhoods or to the
City. If the City or State decide that infrastructure
changes needed by a project serve a general public
purpose, the public sector should implement them.
- Mitigation of indirect impacts of a project, such as pressure on housing, or increases in transit usage, are not "faults" of development, but expected consequences of the city's growth process, and individual developers should not be expected to carry this burden. That is the function of the public sector, and a main purpose of planning. The public services listed in the draft Order -- public open space, community facilities, libraries and schools, elder services, and health and welfare programs-- are things taxpayers pay for and citizens are entitled to; government should not abdicate its service responsibilities to private developers for their use in buying their way around zoning and environmental controls. These "contributions" do not mitigate project impacts, but merely buy permission to impose them. Further, they are not "free," but paid for by tenants and customers, and by taxpayers making up the difference on contributing developers' negotiated taxes. Moreover, mitigation payments seldom bring expected results. For example, in 15-years, linkage has contributed toward only 275 affordable housing units a year--trivial in view of the estimated 40,000-unit shortfall. If we calculate the potential products of linkage in a best-case scenario, we will see that linkage--even if the square-foot rate is raised--will never contribute significantly to a housing solution. Similarly, "benefits" are seldom beneficial: "donated" public spaces are privatized or unusable, housing built by institutions is earmarked for institutional uses, roadway improvements, if done at all, are designed to move traffic faster at the expense of pedestrians. In general, planning, prioritization, and enforcement are lacking to make these haphazard donations meaningful.
The solution does not lie in institutionalizing the BRA's power as a benefits clearinghouse. The BRA already conducts project review by the barter method. Indeed, most large projects are Planned Development Areas (PDA) or other types of large-scale plans which are allowed to disregard zoning in trade for benefits. The BRA sets the example in trading development controls for public services, and has directed and sanctioned off-the-record negotiation by community groups. It can only aggravate the problem to formalize the benefit-trading power of the BRA, which is an advocate for proponents.
In terms of public participation, Mayoral appointment of IAGs will not create more open, transparent public process, but increase the Mayor's own trading leverage for project approval by allowing selected representatives to bargain for what they can get from projects they agree to tolerate. Moreover, even the most well-intentioned and well-informed citizen should not be expected to assume the burden of planning for the neighborhood under these condition; residents are not qualified city planners, and it is not fair to them nor to the community to expect them to weigh development options with the necessary expertise.
Rather than formalizing an inherently flawed process, we recommend a different approach to both development and public services:
- Public goods and services should be provided to
taxpayers by their government, and not by private
corporations in return for exemptions from the law.
These public services should be planned according to
rational, long-term public policy, in a transparent and
accountable process. They should not be withheld as
bargaining chips for undesirable development.
- Development should be regulated in an impartial way, guided by long-range city planning and unbiased by the prospect of public benefits. The City cannot review project proposals in the best interests of the city if our own public officials are looking to developers to do what they themselves should be doing. A fair tax system should be the foundation of public service funding, not the quid-pro-quo beneficence of private developers.
The concept of "payback" to "impacted neighborhoods" and the notion that developers must pay for the privilege of building in the city are misguided ideas. They divide the community in a contest of neighborhood "victimization," and unfairly burden urban developers. In fact, the city is exactly where development should take place; smart growth means building in urban centers, not in land-gobbling suburban sprawl. Urban density and vitality should be achieved by projects that truly serve the community and meet enlightened urban design criteria, and the public sector should provide infrastructure and public services to support them.
We reject the entire benefits/linkage system, and ask that it be brought to an end. We recommend that the State establish the commission it has proposed to investigate the current system, to understand all the damage that has been done. And we ask our governments to go forward without linkage/benefits, with a process that assures fair regulation and quality control in development, together with proper government provision of public services.
We believe that the best benefit is good development, serving the needs of the community in an environmentally sustainable and socially equitable way.
Shirley Kressel
President
Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods
Cc: Mayor Thomas Menino
Senators Dianne Wilkerson, Marian Walsh, Steven Tolman,
Robert Travaglini, Stephen Lynch
Representatives Byron Rushing, Jack Hart, Paul Demakis
Boston City Councilors
Sam Tyler, Municipal Research Bureau
Stephanie Ebbert, The Boston Globe
Laura Siegel, The Boston Phoenix
Susan O'Neill, The Boston TAB
David Guarino, The Boston Herald