November 30, 2000
Mayor Thomas Menino
City of Boston
City Hall Square
Via e-mail and fax
Re: Municipal Harbor Plan
Dear Mayor Menino:
City residents are gravely concerned that you are helping the Fan Pier developer to defeat the tidelands regulations and maximize profits at public expense.
You have ignored the intent of the City's Public Realm Plan, wide-spread public protest from Boston's neighborhoods, professional input from the Boston Society of Architects Seaport Focus Team, advocacy groups on your MHP Advisory Committee, and even a possible lawsuit by a respected environmental foundation.
Your protection of this private developer's profits has sacrificed the rights of the citizens, taxpayers, ratepayers, and voters. If you are negotiating for the developer, who is negotiating for us?
In this instance, EOEA Secretary Bob Durand has shown the level of leadership that should be expected of any high public official. His department has advocated for broad and equitable public access to the waterfront, while fulfilling his charge to ensure environmentally sustainable development. But the Secretary should not have to carry the full burden of protecting the public, while our own Mayor acts as a developer's lobbyist.
A popular, fair, and responsible Municipal Harbor Plan would have been finished long ago if you didn't promise the Pritzkers your protection from regulations and from public opposition. When you encourage developers to overreach, you merely prolong the entire development process. If developers demand instant approval because the economy may turn, tell them the fastest way is to obey the law and build without a windfall of waivers and favors.
Developers should build what the city needs, without the unseemly horse-trading called "community benefits"; and government should provide public services, such as parks and transit, as decided by comprehensive planning. If you pursued this much simpler strategy, projects would be launched more quickly, and their taxes would support those services.
You must tell the Pritzkers that they can only build what is consistent with the public interest, and that their profits are not part of the regulated criteria. We all want the waterfront developed, and would hope that the developers will be successful, but we don't want just any project, at any price.
The Fan Pier project, like other major developments currently under way, will affect people from all over the city and region for generations. Better projects would emerge if you did not persistently protect private developers at the expense of the public interests you were elected to uphold.
Shirley Kressel, President
Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods
Cc:
Secretary Bob Durand, EOEA
Governor A. Paul Cellucci, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Senators Stephen Lynch, Marian Walsh, Dianne Wilkerson
Representatives Byron Rushing, John Hart, Paul Demakis,
Salvatore diMasi
Boston City Councilors
Thomas Gagen, Robert Turner, Stephanie Ebbert, Steve
Wilmsen, The Boston Globe
Rachelle Cohen, Scott Van Voorhis, The Boston Herald
Yawu Miller, The Bay State Banner
Franklin Tucker, South End News
David Jacobs, Back Bay Courant
Peter Van Delft, Dorchester Community News
Sandy Storee, Jamaica Plain Gazette
Jamie Bearse, South Boston On Line
Bettina Norton, Beacon Hill/Back Bay Chronicle