This is big Boston planning news...

...BRA Director of Planning Position on the block

This is not entirely unexpected, but it is big news: Kairos Shen, who has been a key BRA player and in many ways was the last mayor's urban planning and design muse, will be moving on from his position as the city's Chief Planner at month's end. Along with the active transportation director and chief of streets positions that the city is currently advertising, hiring a new chief planner would represent the final major move of the opening round of the new administration in charting a new direction on development, planning, and the use of public space in Boston. It was an open secret in Boston that the last mayor very tightly and personally controlled development decisions in this city for his entire 20 year administration, notwithstanding that he always tried to deny it when asked directly. He was, in effect, the real chief planner and decision-maker. Kairos was one of a group of fairly effective folks at the BRA who kept their heads mostly down and worked within that construct and so stayed around a long time.

The new mayor, Marty Walsh, shows many signs of not wanting to be that controlling, whether simply by inclination (he comes from the building trades and seems to have a generally pro-growth bent) or as a form of reaction to such a long period of tight control and a recognition that such a way of doing business is ultimately not optimal. This has the development community somewhat at sea -- after the last regime, it can seem like no one is in charge. This is admittedly a meaningful problem insofar as the zoning code in Boston is an unholy mess in which a main organizing principle is to force every project worth doing at almost every scale into the discretionary zoning relief process so that development decisions can be run from the Mayor's office and based on the Mayor's own political calculus. I am not exaggerating. It seems the Walsh administration really wants to get away from that and has been building the necessary predicate for about a year now by recognizing the unavoidable population trend (Boston is forecast to add 70,000 new residents in the next 15 years, which would put the city over 700,000 residents for the first time since the 1950s), developing a new housing plan that tries to accommodate that increase in population (53,000 new units of all stripes are needed), proposing new workforce housing growth zones along key transit corridors to target the residential market segment that has been lagging most significantly (the first time in the 15 years I've been following development in Boston that the words "growth" and "zone" have appeared next to each other), and then pushing, simultaneously, a new transportation master plan (Go Boston 2030) and a new citywide master plan (Imagine Boston). Unless all of this effort is to be wasted, this points to some fairly significant rezoning starting sometime in late 2016 that will presumably create new rules of the road that, one certainly hopes, will provide for much more of worth to be done as-of-right (could be a true form-based code or a hybrid, I'm personally not picky). Getting from here to there will be the hard part though ultimately well worth it. And whomever the Walsh Administration brings on as our chief planner will be a huge part of that.

P.S. We note that the interim director of planning, Tad Read, is a long-time friend of this blog's author and someone who has "gotten it" on the key issues of the day for some time. Tad's a great choice as the interim director and rates a real look for the permanent role.

Blog Post No. 2015-6.

This could turn out to be a very big day...

...for the cause of walkable urban places here in New England's central city

I'm sorry I missed the Mayor's speech about development issues before the Boston Chamber of Commerce this morning. Seriously. I had a conflict, but had I known what he was going to say, I would have been there. The news that he's finally made Brian Golden the actual, as opposed to just interim, director of the BRA is big enough, but then the Mayor went on to say the following:

Planners talk about “Smart Growth.” But it goes deeper. It’s about our identity. Our values. Our vision. We should show America there’s a better way to grow. A Boston way. Growth should enhance the best qualities of our city. Neighborhoods should reflect our historic tradition and our bold innovation. Our economy should be world-class and inclusive. New buildings should be creative, sustainable, and inspiring.

I want to share with you some new policy initiatives that illustrate how we are shaping our growth around these values.

We start by moving forward one of the key strategies in our Housing Plan: Growth Zones for transit-oriented workforce housing. Boston needs more housing. But there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Every neighborhood has its own character. In some places, density is not only appropriate – it is badly needed.

 It is needed to bring prices back within reach.

 It is needed to spur retail investment.

 It is needed to breathe new life into under-developed streets.

We’re starting with two transit corridors. One Growth Zone will run along the Red Line, on Dorchester Avenue between Broadway and Andrew stations in South Boston. Another will follow the Orange Line in Jamaica Plain, from Forest Hills to Jackson Square. The T stops in these great neighborhoods should be embedded in thriving, healthy, walkable communities. And they will be.

More zones will come. When other neighborhoods see the kind of vibrancy that smart density produces, the conversation about new housing across our city will change for the better.

To borrow a phrase from Charlie Pierce -- Do you see what the Mayor did there? He laid out the the broad vision -- places that are creative, sustainable, and inspiring. He talked about a specific policy initiative: Growth Zones for transit-oriented workforce housing. Then he said the key words -- "In some places, density is not only appropriate -- it is badly needed." 

And then...he named two names:

• First, Dorchester Avenue between Broadway and Andrew stations on the Red Line, and, then, 
• Second, the Southwest Corridor between Forest Hills and Jackson Square stations.

 [Brief aside: Your humble blogspondent has previously given voice to the do-over needed on the Southwest Corridor here: Of the Bartlett Square Condos]

Now, the details of Growth Zones obviously need to be fleshed out and fought over and they can't be temporizing or putting off battles to another day or the next project, but I think we'll get to that pretty soon. The big news here is that there are now 2 corridors in existing neighborhoods -- not out in the Seaport/Innovation District, or the Allston Interchange or some other relatively clean slate -- where the City's highest elected official and the one who wields most of the power has said we want and need to see housing growth. We've all known for a long time that luxury condominiums downtown and on the waterfront are nice to look at and without question have improved the streetscape, but you really couldn't know that the tide was turning until the City actually put a stake in the ground and said more intense growth would happen in existing places with lower land costs and therefore a better shot at producing homes and apartments for people with incomes more in line with what most of us can afford. That day has now come.

From this day forward, the goal has been set. We know what the City's direction is. So now, we speak up for Growth Zones that actually promote growth and the right kind of development in the right places. And the Mayor indicated that "More zones will come." Let me be the first to highly recommend my own corner of the world, Roslindale Square, a.k.a., God's Country. The square has tightly woven existing urban fabric and a whole slew of one-story commercial buildings that were once two and three stories and can be again. We have fantastic bus transit service, perhaps the best in the entire region for an outlying location, by virtue of which we experience effectively headway service for the 1 mile trek to or from Forest Hills and the Orange Line terminus (and that stretch is flat enough that meaningful bike infrastructure would make the subway that much more accessible). We have a commuter rail stop on a line on which Saturday service will be restored at the end of this month. And we have an active main streets organization (the first urban main street in the US) that can help the BRA, our local electeds and the rest of the City government lead the conversation for a Growth Zone that will allow us to capitalize on this opportunity at this moment.

I repeat, the day has come, and we have the Mayor to thank for it.



The full text of the Mayor's prepared remarks can be found here.

Blog Post No. 2014-13

Boston Public Market moves one step closer to reality...

Time moves faster than most of us, your humble correspondent included, care to admit. So, it was way back in 2010 that RTUF first reported the news that the Boston Public Market folks had won the right to locate on the Greenway in the Haymarket Station/Central Artery Vent Stack/Parking Garage building at the corner of Hanover and Congress Streets. An ideal location, and one we hoped would build momentum and quickly result in something we've sorely missed in Boston for a long time (basically since Quincy Market died nearly 50 years ago): a true, appropriately sized public market to showcase local producers of foodstuffs of all kinds. Well, four years on, our friends at The Boston Globe reported today - BRA approves plans for public food market - that the project finally reached the point where they could secure approval from the BRA Board under the small project review process on Thursday. They now look to actually start construction this summer. It sounds like they still have something a funding gap to get the whole market up and running in a single phase, so they'll do a first phase now and then round out the space as funds come in. Hopefully within a year of this post, we'll be able to report on our first visit to this major new amenity:

Exterior proposed view (corner of Hanover & Congress streets) (credit: BPMA, Boston Globe)

Interior rendering (credit: BPMA, Boston Globe)

(Blog Post No. 2014-4)

Blog Post No. 2010-5: Whither the Greenway...

or getting the buildings to pay attention now that a park has shown up

Those who know me at all quickly learn that one of the things I enjoy doing in my spare time is running. I've been running with much the same group of guys (and occasionally gals) out of the West Roxbury YMCA for the better part of the last decade. We typically leave the Y at about 5:25 am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, year-round, year-in, year-out. One of the group's stalwarts is a hard-core conservative by the name of Frank Galvin. And one of Frank's stock-in-trade caricatures of me (decidedly a political and social liberal) is that I take all of my news directly from the Boston Globe. Not to prove Frank right, but....

In urban planning and development as in geometry, one piece of data is a point, two constitute a vector or a trend, and three create a plane or pattern. Ladies and gentlemen, the Boston Globe is clearly trying to show us a pattern about development on the Greenway and one current development proposal in particular:

First, Joan Vennochi's regular opinion piece on Sunday ("Shadow on the Greenway") highlighted recently-released information on likely guidelines for future development along the Greenway and posited that the Mayor's conventional wisdom-based reputation for micro-managing development was muddying the waters on those guidelines. Vennochi pointed particularly to the increasingly public dispute over developer Don Chiofaro's proposal for relatively tall buildings to replace the Harbor Garage site near the New England Aquarium as an example of the downside of the Mayor's attention to this kind of detail.

Second, Paul McMorrow, usually of Banker & Tradesman, had an opinion piece in Monday's Globe about the Greenway. Entitled "Something Beautiful," McMorrow's piece raises the entirely reasonable concern that the battle for restoring Boston's waterfront/downtown urban fabric may still be lost, even after spending close to $15 Billion and topping off the submerged facility with plenty of green, if the parkland is not provided with good, strong, "active edges" on the facing streets. McMorrow then goes on to focus on the Harbor Garage and 3 other Grenway-adjacent public garages and the difficulty of redeveloping those cash flow-generating structures without a big upside in terms of height and intensity of use. McMorrow's piece ends with a plea for public-private partnership on these sites that will lead, he hopes, to creative solutions.

Third, and finally, this morning's column from Brian McGrory -- "First, build compromise" -- returns yet again to the theme of the Harbor Garage with a full-on he-said/he-said write-up over the personal dimension of the relationship between the Mayor and Don Chiofaro. McGrory closes with his own solution: if Chiofaro's tallest building is proposed at 625 feet and the new height guidelines are showing a 200-foot height limit, then the parties should just split the difference and agree to a height limit of 410 feet (right in the middle) so we can all move on.

Did you notice the pattern too?

Now, don't get me wrong. This is juicy stuff for those of us who follow urban design and development issues closely. And the issues at stake -- height, density, shadows, the future of the Greenway as a central element in Boston's downtown justifying the very substantial public investment -- are real. The Greenway absolutely needs to be more than just greenspace that people drive by and don't really use. That would be tragic and a massive wasted opportunity for the City. It would also be a mistake to permit new buildings to shadow the Greenway to such an extent that the parkland really became inhospitable and unused.

But we shouldn't miss the street-and-sidewalk level for the tall buildings here, either. However the height issues are resolved for the Harbor Garage site and all of the other sites adjacent and near to the Greenway within the study area, let's don't lose sight of the urbanistcally complete (dare I say it?) form-based approach that the BRA and their consultants are taking on the overall Greenway District Planning Study. I encourage everyone to look at the full series of presentations (link here) and see how much more is being considered and weighed through that process. There's more going on than building heights. From this blogger's viewpoint, whatever your opinion about building height and shadows, the new development scenarios are taking the right approach at the level of the street and the sidewalk: the intent is to fill in edges and activate key frontages with retail and other uses that are likely to have the greatest impact on activity on the Greenway, without resorting to mega-projects and super-blocks. One look at the reality today, however, shows that this is going to be a lengthy effort requiring an abundance of patience.

When the former elevated Central Artery was built, some of the existing buildings directly adjacent to the highway were literally cut in half and all buildings were forced to turn away. Subsequent buildings largely followed this pattern. Now that the viaduct is gone and has been replaced by the Greenway, it will still take time to reorient the buildings and open them up to what is now a real amenity. To some extent, this process is already underway. When the sun was shining late last week, I snapped a few photos of some examples of this gathering phenomenon, arranged in order from OK to better to really working well:

The photos:

On the left, the landward side of the Marriott Long Whart hotel, where Tia's has put outdoor seating on the Greenway side and a couple of tourist-service storefronts provide some life.

In the middle, at the foot of State Street, an old mercantile building's blank facade has been punched through with windows and balconies. Note the still-blank facade of the lower building.

On the right, new storefronts and streetscape in the block between Hanover and Salem streets, blessed with a location directly adjacent to the North End.

This blog has a clear preference for the small, incremental changes to the urban fabric that repair it piece by piece. While the public debate over height on the Greenway is resolved, here's hoping that these building-by-building improvements continue. And let's also hope that the final guidelines for the Greenway and ultimately any new zoning regulations will find ways to encourage these kinds of changes too. As they occur, RTUF will be cheering them on.

RTUF Follow-up (Posted April 11, 2010): Dan Wasserman, the Boston Globe's excellent editorial cartoonist, makes light of the back-and-forth regarding the Harbor Garage proposal and the Greenway in this morning's editorial page: "Greenway showdown."