Weekly Transcript Round-Up for 3/07/25
Proposal to curtail ZBA powers & diversify membership; Hearing on hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending on Boston schools; Council weighs in on DC discussion of immigration policy
This was another busy week in Boston, with a lot of action inside & outside of City Hall.
At Wednesday’s Council meeting District 1 City Council Gabriela Coletta Zapata proposed a number of changes for how one of Boston’s most powerful & important boards - the Zoning Board of Appeals - does business, explicitly arguing that the ZBA’s power to grant variances should be curtailed;
At a lightly attended hearing on Monday Boston Public Schools & City Hall officials spent more than 2 hours laying out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investments in the City’s schools - find out if BPI’s 5 questions got answered.
Keep reading for more on those two stories. There were a few other dockets that BPI was watching at this week’s regular Council meeting:
Two docket were on the biggest story of the week: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu testifying before the House Oversight Committee about conflicts between federal and local approaches to immigration policy, alongside three other big-city mayors. BPI talked to WBUR about the stakes and the Council also got in on the action, voting on two resolutions about immigrant policy at their regular meeting on Wednesday - #0619 starts at the 1:04:38 mark & #0622 starts at the 1:39:42 mark in transcript:
Docket #0593-#0603 were 11 mayoral appointments to the Monument Square Landmark District Study Committee, most of whom were approved by the Council on 12-11-24 for a similarly named body. According to District 1 Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata that similarly named body was a clerical error, and these dockets fix that mistake. The Council approved all 11 appointees by voice vote at the 39:56 mark in the transcript.
COLETTA ZAPATA PROPOSES SWEEPING CHANGES, RESTRICTIONS TO POWERFUL ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
Docket #0613 is a home rule petition proposed by East Boston’s City Councilor Coletta Zapata, and it proposes significant changes to the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) - she is Speaker 16 & debate starts at the 2:06:58 mark in transcript. Councilor Coletta Zapata said she has three goals: first to diversify the required expertise of ZBA members; second to strengthen the Council’s oversight of the ZBA; third to curtail ZBA’s power to grant variances. Most of the proposed reforms are focused on the second & third goals:
Variance Justification: Require ZBA members to provide justification for variances that deviate from hardship standards (state law and Boston zoning code).
Board Expansion: Expand the ZBA by adding experts in environmental protection and civil rights, as well as a homeowner and a renter representative.
Reporting Requirements: Mandate the ZBA to produce and publish a report to the council (specifically the Planning, Development, and Transportation Committee) detailing each variance that doesn't meet hardship standards.
Variance Review Panel: Establish a panel to review and audit variance approvals for compliance and equity.
These list of reforms appears to demand significantly more resources to ZBA, in terms of the ZBA appointees’ time, City Hall staff staff time, and money to pay for all the new work that this HRP would require those folks perform.
The docket was referred to Councilor Coletta Zapata’s own Government Operations Committee, so there should be more action on this soon.
HOW DID BPS & CITY HALL OFFICIALS ANSWER BPI’S 5 QUESTIONS ABOUT MADISON PARK’S RENOVATION?
On Monday just 5 of 13 Boston City Councilors - Worrell, Mejia, Murphy, Flynn, & Breadon - attended the Ways & Means Committee’s hearing on two applications to the Massachusetts School Building Authority:
Docket #0458 - was for 9 schools to the “Accelerated Repair Program;”
Docket #0459 - was for Madison Park Vocational Technical High School to the “Core Program,” which is for substantially new construction.
BPI had 5 questions for the BPS and City Hall officials who testified. Here are the questions, and those officials answers.
Can BPS officials talk through how they came to the idea that Madison Park’s renovation would cost $500M? Specifically, can BPS talk through what led officials to believe that Madison Park would cost the same as the new Revere High School, which was going to be less expensive as both a new build and a college prep HS, was estimated to cost $500M back in February 2023?
Carleton Jones, the Executive Director of the Public Facilities Department, explained that the original $500M figure came from a feasibility study done years ago. At that time, costs were estimated to be around $600 per square foot. However, a recent project came in at $1,300 per square foot, so costs have significantly increased. The feasibility study was just an estimate, not an actual design estimate - he is Speaker 5 & starts at the 23:39 mark in the transcript.
The vendor and timing of the study that estimated $1,300 per square foot is not clear. Listening to the timeline described by City & BPS officials to the School Committee and the City Council, the much higher feasibility study seems to have been produced in the fall of 2024. But according to the City’s own website about the Madison Park renovation, the Madison Park feasibility study was completed fall of 2023:
The Feasibility Study for the Madison Park project was prepared by Annum Architects in collaboration with the Public Facilities Department (PFD), the City of Boston, and school community stakeholders from August 2022 - October 2023.
This highlights the confusion around decision-making, process, and even leadership over this project. For example in response to a question from District 9 Councilor Liz Breadon about who was the point person of this project, Chief Stanislaus said “Chief Irish is the point person for the mayor” - she is Speaker 8 & starts at the 1:40:35 mark in the transcript.
Chief Irish was not at either formal MSBA presentation - last week’s before the School Committee or this week’s before the City Council.
How much money has been spent on outside consultants like the designers who testified on January 22 for the Madison Park renovation so far? How much of that work will be usable for the MSBA process?
Director Jones told the Council that the City had spent about $6M on the MPHS project to date. About half of that was to a single firm - the architectural firm Perkins&Will, which has a $7.4M contract with the City, of which approximately $2.9 million has been expended - he is Speaker 5 & starts at the 1:00:03 mark in the transcript. The other major vendors are Annum Architects, which according to the City produced the feasibility study, and LeftField Project Management, who was hired as the City’s Owner Project Manager - he is Speaker 5 & starts at the 1:14:08 mark in the transcript.
In terms of how much of the work will be usable for the MSBA process, Director Jones said that the work would not be used in its current form and none of the current vendors could be carried over because the entire bidding process would need to be re-run - he is Speaker 5 & starts at the 59:30 mark in the transcript.
An outside consultant was hired by BPS to write a long-term facilities plan in 2024 - what work have they produced so far? What role did they play in the decision to apply for MSBA to renovate Madison Park, rather than have Boston pay for it?
This answer was the most interesting of the hearing. In response to a question about a Boston Globe article referencing this the RFP in the screengrab below, BPS Capital Planning Chief Delavern Stanislaus said “BPS did not hire a consultant to write a long term facilities plan” - she is Speaker 8 & starts at the 1:26:33 mark in the transcript.
However, as you can see from this RFP, that is exactly what BPS did:
Chief Stanislaus then claimed: “[BPS] submitted the long term facilities plan before that date to DESE” - she is Speaker 8 & starts at the 1:27:02 mark in the transcript.
This highlights one of BPS most persistent issue during the Wu administration: an on-going debate over exactly what constitutes a “long-term facilities plan” with Skipper & Wu on one side, and the School Committee and other outside agencies on the other.
Acting DESE Commissioner Russell D. Johnston wrote about this issue in a memo released last May updating the Board of Elementary & Secondary Education on progress on the June 2022 agreement between BPS & the Commonwealth:
The District committed to developing and implementing a long-term master facility plan, which was submitted to DESE on December 29, 2023 . . . As DESE communicated to the District in a letter on January 17, 2024, there were elements of the plan that were expected but not included. The Plan does not include future student enrollment projections, which is a vital component to inform future large-scale renovations, mergers, and closures. Additionally, the Plan lacks specific information on an overall timeline by which rightsizing the District will be complete as well as the size and number of buildings needed in the future state.
These shortcomings appear to still be present in BPS long-term facilities plan based on the presentation and testimony from BPS & City Hall officials at the two recent MSBA hearings.
BPS Capital Planning Chief Delavern Stanislaus told the School Committee last week that if Madison Park was not invited to the MSBA’s Core Program this year, the district would reconsider paying for the project out of pocket in 2026. What does the district expect will be different in 2026 vs 2025?
At Monday’s hearing, Chief Stanislaus repeated what she told the School Committee without adding any additional information - Councilor Mejia is Speaker 4, Chief Stanislaus is Speaker 8, and this starts at the 1:28:16 mark in the transcript:
Mejia: And just for the record, it is fair to say that if the project is not approved, right, in this go round. I guess what I'm trying to get at is if Madison Park doesn't go into this program year, and if it's rejected in 2025, then it moves to another year. Right? So there is a slight possibility that if we get rejected, we're gonna have to reapply for the following year, and that's gonna extend the timeline.
Stanislaus: That would have to be a decision that's made collectively with the Mayor and the Superintendent as they have both committed to Madison Park on moving the project forward and having and having conversations about the internal capital budget and what we might have to make some change in what is prioritizing the capital budget currently, etcetera.
Besides Madison Park, what is BPS plan to build substantially new schools? Does the district believe it will be able to continue to submit projects to the MSBA’s Core Program while MPHS is on-going, will the district pay for projects itself, or is the district planning to do no other new school construction for the duration of the MPHS project?
Chief Stanislaus answered versions of this question throughout Monday’s hearing:
Talked about the two schools that were accepted into MSBA’s “Core Program” in 2023 and 2024 several times;
Chief Stanislaus told the Council that BPS & City Hall were - she is Speaker 8 & starts at the 32:53 mark in the transcript: “Taking a year of a year approach on what schools are moving forward in the capital budget;”
Told the Council, “we plan to submit more projects [to MSBA] year over year to continue our work of delivering new buildings” she is Speaker 8 & starts at the 1:27:49 mark in the transcript.
During Monday’s hearing the district’s current long-term facilities plan was mentioned several times by BPS and City Hall officials, but none of those mentions included a description of how it had determined priorities or guided decision-making.
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Do you know the impetus for Councilor Coletta Zapata's proposed ZBA changes? Unless I am misreading her intent it appears that her measure will limit variances and empower neighborhood groups and abutters who seek to oppose new housing.