EXPLAINER: Boston's unique Planning Board Power set-up
The Wu administration's decision to drop planning board powers from its package of planning & development reforms has never been explained
In the 2019 white paper Abolish the BPDA then-Boston City Councilor At Large Michelle made moving planning board powers out of the Boston Planning & Development Agency and back to the City of Boston a central plank of her reform agenda - this is on page 32 of ‘Abolish the BPDA’:
Taking inspiration from these grassroots efforts, Boston should prioritize citywide master planning that is community-focused, accountable, and comprehensive. To most effectively accomplish this, Boston should remove planning board powers from the BPDA and establish an independent planning board* and planning department subject to full public accountability. *emphasis added
As Mayor however the move of planning board powers from BPDA back to the City has not been absent, but has been completely taken off the table. Here is Mayor Wu’s Planning Chief Arthur Jemison telling the Council that a hearing on February 27, 2023 - this quote starts at about the 36:18 mark of the video:
Here is a transcript of what Chief Jemison said:
“I do want to highlight a couple of things that are, that I don't want anyone to be confused about. Development is going to continue to be approved by the BPDA Board. It is the planning board of Boston and it will continue to approve development projects and determine their adequacy. That is not something that's going to change or is that something that's proposed to change, certainly in this legislation it's not something we intend to change. Second, you know the assuming this legislation passes Boston will still have the ability to enter into concessionary tax agreements, we’ll still have the ability to enter the private market as a buyer without using procurement law. Instead of doing those things because of blight, decadence and substandard housing, we'll do it for resilience, affordability, and equity. We're going to continue to do many of the things that Bostonians rely on to help them and help the development community make sure that development is good for the city.”
A year later Deputy Planning Chief Devon Quirk made a very similar statement to the Council on February 29, 2024 - he is Speaker 13 and starts at the 1:09:49 mark in the transcript:
“I want to start by highlighting some few a few things that are not changing. We will still have the BPDA Board being the planning board for the city of Boston. It will still be empowered to make the planning and development review decisions for the City of Boston. We will still have Chief Jemison as the chief planning for the City of Boston and for the BPDA, He will still have oversight over the vast majority of employees that he currently has oversight of. And we also will still have the articulating process while that is ongoing. That we're going through an effort, as you know, to improve it. We're not doing away with it. We're not saying let's start from scratch, throw it all out.”
Less than an hour later in that hearing Deputy Chief Quirk repeated this even more explicitly - he starts at the 1:58:55 mark in the transcript:
“So again want to highlight that we're retaining the BPDA Board as the planning board for the City of Boston. So a lot of the questions that you're asking, the answer is that it is not going to change. The staff and budgets and and then eventually some of the real estate will move to the City, but not the planning board function. It will remain an independent function.”
BPI has highlighted the planning board powers decision, not only in our work monitoring Boston’s planning & development reform, but also in the press:
In the Boston Globe Mayor Wu files ordinance to move BPDA under City Hall, create city planning department, published on February 29, 2024:
Gregory Maynard, the executive director of the nonprofit Boston Policy Institute, said for the most part the home-rule petition and city ordinance don’t go as far as the major changes Wu proposed in her 2019 white paper.
“Nothing they’re doing is going to change how planning and development works ... they’re just moving deckchairs,” Maynard said. “In 1960, Boston got rid of its planning department, they also got rid of planning board powers. This is the creation of a planning department without any planning board powers.”
In the Boston Herald Debate begins over revamping how Boston builds, published on March 1, 2024:
It’s a very complicated proposal,” Greg Maynard, executive director of the Boston Policy Institute, told the Herald. “There’s a lot of moving pieces here, but it is not as far-reaching as she proposed.
“The major change that was being proposed in the 2019 report was to take the planning board power out of the BPDA and put it back in the city of Boston,” he added. “The Wu administration’s current set of proposals does not do that.”
Despite planning board powers being a central part of the Mayor’s 2019 white paper, to date there has been no explanation about why or how the decision was made to drop the idea of moving them out of the BPDA and to an independent planning board.
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