Suggested questions for the Boston Redevelopment Authority at its series of "Neighborhood Nights"
-- posted Jan. 23, 2004

The BRA is holding a series of neighborhood meetings around the city in the coming months (schedule posted below).  The BRA officials at the meetings are Director Mark Maloney, Planning Director Rebecca Barnes, Economic Development Director Susan Hartnett, and "workforce development" officials Constance Doty or Ken Barnes.  They each make a presentation, and then there is a Q and A period.

The BRA is trying to show that it is indispensable and benevolent. The BRA is probably trying to ward off efforts to create a City planning department which would be accountable to the people of Boston, and to gain support for the BRA's effort to perpetuate the expiring Urban Renewal Plans, which have given the BRA so much power for over forty years.

Please attend if you can,  and take this opportunity to review ABN background information on the BRA and ask the BRA officials some important questions, e.g.:

  • Where do they get their money?  They claim to be self-sustaining, without State or City funding.  Yet they have a $45 million annual budget.  How do they support a staff of over 300 employees?  How much is from "fees" from developers they regulate and permit?  How much is actually from City appropriations (e.g., $725,000 in City money for the BRA's "planning" activities when Barnes was hired)?  How much is from property they took over in the EDIC?  From Federal and State grants they get to administer?
  • Why do they lead years-long planning and zoning processes in neighborhoods and city-wide (remember "Boston 400," heralded to be the City's first comprehensive plan since 1965?) and then help developers violate the plans and zoning with loopholes like PDAs (Planned Development Area), Chapter 121As (which give both zoning exemptions and tax breaks) and urban renewal U-Districts?  In fact, the BRA even abuses the loopholes -- e.g., Kensington, a half-acre project which was allowed to count the public streets and neighboring private properties to pretend to reach the one-acre site-size requirement for the PDA zoning exemption.
  • What is the BRA's role in getting affordable housing built?  Why do they ask developers to include 10% "affordable" housing based on regional median incomes (a HUD standard but not necessarily a City standard) when they know the Boston median income is about half of that, and in some neighborhoods much lower?
  • Why are they encouraging demolition of historic buildings by stimulating land speculation through regulatory manipulations to permit unlawful redevelopment in historic areas (e.g., the Gaiety Theater in Kensington, the Russia Wharf buildings) and by rezoning to encourage demolition ( the downtown Residential Development Area half-acre PDAs) etc.
  • Why is the city being filled with parking garages while urban public transit is being starved?  Why doesn't the City/BRA work on our behalf to make public transit better and cheaper?  Why is the City/BRA obstructing the Arborway restoration and a rail Washington Street service?
  • How much tax-exempt land does the BRA own?  (450 parcels totalling 250 acres of land!)  Why don't they pay PILOT?
  • Why are they still giving out huge 121A tax breaks when there is no blight?  How much are we losing on 121A commercial (not residential) projects?
  • Why are the institutions paying only $10 million in PILOT payments, when they own $8-10 billion dollars worth of property?  $10B of property would pay about $80 million at 25% of commercial taxes, the institutionsl "rule of thumb."  (From this should be subtracted linkage and other "benefits" extorted from them in trade for building permits.)
  • Why did the BRA take the one-acre Hayward parcel of downtown City-owned land by eminent domain, and deprive the City of Boston of the $23 million bid price AND the 350 units of housing the bidder offered to build?  This one parcel would have solved a full quarter of the "tax crisis" homeowners are now suffering from.  What about other BRA takings of City land that drained the budget?
  • Why is $40 million in HUD economic development loans intended for "distressed areas" going to five-star hotels that the financing market won't touch?  And why is $30 million of that now expected to go to one developer, Dick Friedman (who previously was handed City Hall Plaza for a hotel site).

Schedule of BRA "neighborhood nights":

  • Dorchester - January 21, 2004 - Great Hall of the Codman Square Health Center - 6 Norfolk Street - Dorchester
  • North End/Waterfront/West End - January 29, 2004 - Piemonte Room, 5th Floor - Boston City Hall
  • Hyde Park/Roslindale/West Roxbury - February 4, 2004 - Sons of Italy Hall - 9 Birch Street, Roslindale
  • Jamaica Plain - February 11, 2004 - English High Community Center, 144 McBride Street, Jamaica Plain
  • Charlestown - February 25, 2004 - Knights of Columbus - 75 West School Street, Charlestown
  • Allston/Brighton - March 10, 2004 - Honan-Allston Branch Library 300 North Harvard Street, Allston
  • South End/Bay Village - March 23, 2004 - Blackstone Community Center - 50 West Brookline Street, South End
  • South Boston - April 28, 2004 - Condon Community Center - 200 D Street, South Boston
  • Back Bay/Beacon Hill - May 5, 2004 - Boston Public Library, Central Branch, 700 Boylston Street, Conference Rooms 5 & 6
  • Roxbury - May 12, 2004 - Roxbury Community College, 1234 Columbus Avenue, Roxbury
  • Chinatown - May 26, 2004 - Quincy School, 885 Washington Street Chinatown

All meetings will be held from 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.