Monthly Meeting
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Berklee School of Music
921 Boylston Street , Room 311
Opposite Hynes Convention Center
6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
AGENDA
Guest Speaker: Jackie McBride
President, Park Plaza CAC and Chair, Development Committee,
Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay
Jackie will lead a discussion of the zoning tool called "Planned Development Area," which allows owners of an acre or more of land to write their own zoning.
Kensington Place in Chinatown, Columbus Center in the South End/Back Bay/Bay Village, Russia Wharf on the Fort Point Channel, and the recently bought Hancock properties in Back Bay are current projects where PDA designation is being used to evade City zoning and approve whatever the developer and BRA agree to approve. There now about 60 PDAs in Boston, and the number is growing as developers learn how to use and abuse the PDA provisions.
If you haven't had a PDA project in your neighborhood -- you will some day. Come and hear how it works. If you're familiar with PDAs, come and tell others.
PDAs, invented to encourage comprehensive planning, are actually being used simply to evade zoning -- and deprive people of the legal protections given by the zoning variance appeal process.
Therefore, ABN will be organizing a petition to the Boston Zoning Commission to eliminate PDAs from the zoning code. Any good development can be done without PDAs, with standard zoning process and project review.
Free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome -- come and bring your friends and neighbors!
For further information, cal 617-421-0835