To the Editor:
The commentary from Saranya Sathananthan and Mike Prokosch in the May 30 edition of The Reporter nailed critical issues with the City’s Squares + Street (S+S) initiative that is being planned and implemented by the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA). Despite admirable goals to produce more housing, and reduce car use, the processes have been severely lacking and community concerns are not being heard.

The editorial authors ask: “What could go wrong?” Here we detail that “what” with hopes that learning what has happened in Roslindale will inform the Dorchester community as it begins it S+S rezoning.

Despite unresolved problems and the lack of true community engagement in Roslindale, the BPDA is plowing ahead with its schedule with important decisions to be made in July and August. Members of the Roslindale Coalition and residents in our neighborhood associations have offered to partner with the BPDA to reach our Latinx, Black, and immigrant groups in representative numbers. We also would like to help devise useful anti-displacement and parking strategies.

As mentioned in The Reporter column, we’ve also noticed a disturbing skew in our neighbors’ participation. As of May 24, according to the BPDA, whites make up 47.4 percent of our Roslindale community and yet account for 86 percent of the participation in S+S. Latinx, who make up 24.5 percent, have participation at 6 percent; Blacks are 19.5 and have participation at 4 percent, according to the same BPDA review.

Dorchester activists have offered to partner on strategies to engage the hard-to-reach. We have worked with the BPDA to enhance its outreach efforts by holding a Latinx business walk and by providing written feedback from Latinx, immigrant, and Black business owners.

For all that, the BPDA has yet to be full partners in strategizing ways to engage the hard-to-reach. The agency seems to recognize this serious problem of a lack of representation, and yet, as of May 28, the BPDA had ended its office hours in the Roslindale community and ended its physical presence in the community-at-large as of June 1.

Starting at its January 2024 small S+S meeting, the BPDA leadership has pronounced their commitment to preventing and mitigating small business displacement. Still, officials have yet to devise policies and practices. The solutions presented so far have been meek and ineffective.
One program (SPACE) has expired, and another (Legacy) had around 1,500 applicants in 2024 for 30 awards city-wide. The Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion’s Main Streets programs, a third solution, is a black box in terms of funding and there seem to be no programs aimed toward mitigating business displacement.

Roslindale small business owners have repeatedly told the BPDA and the Transportation Department (BTD) that parking is an issue for their customers, and that taller, denser residential buildings without parking will negatively affect their bottom line. This concern has been validated by the BTD.

A BTD-led survey found that 90 percent of business owners say their customers come by car. Another BTD study found that during some parts of the business day, few if any parking spaces can be found in Roslindale’s core commercial district. The S+S Small Business Focus Group members spoke repeatedly of losing customers as parking availability tightens in the Square, as did business owners’ whose feedback was provided to the BPDA. However, no adjustments have been made to the previously devised parking plan.

Dorchester should be wary of methods used in S+S community activities and events. As noted in our local Bulletin newspaper, the BPDA in-person presentations contain too many slides containing dense figures and graphs presented in rapid succession. Opportunities to respond are highly structured, with open-ended feedback and discussion curtailed. More recently, the BPDA has been relying on a software application to collect feedback in the “visioning” phase.  Although this seems like a reasonable alternative, the applications have been essentially unreadable if accessed from a smartphone. Moreover, the software requires considerable computer savvy and time to be used from tablets and computers. The BPDA has denied a request for another in-person visioning workshop.

The agency is no doubt learning from the errors it is making in Roslindale, and we hope that future neighborhoods benefit. However, Roslindale should not be left with the products of a deeply flawed endeavor.

We ask the BPDA to extend its outreach over the next few months, and we offer to partner on this. We encourage the BPDA to assure that our Roslindale residents truly understand what could happen so that our residents can provide meaningful feedback. Toward that end, some workshops should be reformatted and repeated to enhance understanding. Once effective engagement is accomplished and providing feedback is eased, final zoning decisions could be made in October or later.

Doing so will enhance trust that the BPDA is acting in Roslindale residents’ best interests.

Laurie Radwin
Coordinator, Roslindale Coalition