In Boston, the path to new development often leads through negotiation, with a place at the table for different sides with different agendas. If community members end up believing that the outcome had been pre-arranged, or that results fail to match goals and commitments, developers can be frustrated by delays and mixed signals about mitigation and benefits. And community members themselves can be sharply divided.

Welcome to the shadowland between development process and reality, where conflict is governed by the city’s zoning code and sometimes prolonged in lawsuits. In parts of the city, former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh tried to reshape the process almost ten years ago, as part of his drive to boost housing production. And, before she was elected mayor, Michelle Wu outlined more sweeping recommendations for change in a 2019 report that also called for abolishing the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA).

Four years later, at Wu’s direction, the BPDA started work on reforms, including a revamp of Article 80, the section of the city’s zoning code that applies to projects with at least 20,000 square feet or 15 dwelling units. Last week, following surveys and talks with consultants and stakeholders, the BPDA looked for advice and reaction at two public meetings.

The Article 80 reform is part of Wu’s larger effort to overhaul zoning and repurpose the BPDA, the successor to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), the quasi-independent authority established in 1957. Under the ordinance Wu filed with the City Council in January, planning would become a core city function—with the accountability of a line department. The BRA’s focus on eliminating “blight” and “urban decay” would be replaced by a mission of “enacting affordability, equity, and resilience citywide.”

In her letter to the Council, Wu said the new agency would enable the city to “transition away from a reactive approach centered on responding to private development proposals, to instead planning proactively to the needs of Bostonians with coordinated citywide efforts for direct accountability, transparency, community engagement, and predictability.”

By the time the BPDA held its first public meeting on Article 80 reform, on February 28 at the Bolling Municipal Building in Roxbury, it had already heard calls for changes from neighborhood leaders and people from the development sector, as well as suggestions from people under-represented at community meetings about how to improve engagement.

As the meeting got underway, Devin Quirk, the BPDA’s deputy chief of Transformation and Development, told a gathering of 30-40 people, “You believe that we can do better in the way we manage planning and development in the City of Boston, and we believe that, too, and that’s what this process is all about. Generally, we can all agree that the way we do development in the City of Boston is not a predictable, linear process that is transparent and accountable to our community members and stakeholders, whether they’re in business, small businesses ,or development.”

It didn’t take long for some residents to shift the focus from process to desired outcomes: reparations, construction jobs for Boston residents, or holding the line against gentrification and displacement. That also shifted the focus from design of process to intentions of decision-makers.

“How do you do this kind of process if the vision of what we’re trying to do isn’t the starting point?” asked Jamaica Plain resident Weezy Weinstein. “And that statement of vision has to be more than one word, ‘equity.’”

Providing one example, she said, “If we want to have children in the city, we have to build family-sized units. You build all studios at once, no wonder the school [population] is getting smaller. But, if no one says that as part of the vision, then it gets fought over at the very tail end of a project discussion.”

Before officials invited comments, they summarized eleven “emerging themes and ideas” about how the Article 80 process could be improved. One possibility was to communicate the city’s intentions about development projects “early and often.” Among the other possibilities: to streamline review for projects aligned with city priorities—such as affordable housing, and to have a more predictable approach for determining mitigation and community benefits.

Yet another possibility was to reform the appointed “impact advisory groups” (IAGs) that identify a project’s impact and recommend mitigation measures. In the BPDA’s surveys, the “impact advisory groups” were criticized for spotty performance and sometimes not adequately representing the cross-section of their neighborhoods.

Adding to the criticism at the Roxbury meeting was Tarshia Green, a Dorchester resident and deputy director of Action for Equity, a regional advocacy group for jobs and preventing displacement.

“As someone who served on an advisory group before I tell you it’s a joke,” said Green. “You get a packet about a project. You meet never, only in the public meetings. You have no time to discuss with community or with each other about the projects. You get yelled at by people. And then if the project doesn’t happen, you don’t know. And if it does, you don’t know.”

One possible alternative mentioned by officials was a citywide advisory group that could be trained and paid. The reaction to the idea at both meetings was negative.

The president of the Garrison-Trotter Neighborhood Association in Roxbury, Louis Elisa, told officials that switching from a local group familiar with “small details” to a citywide body “is an issue of concern.” During the following night’s virtual meeting, officials heard a suggestion for IAG members to receive training, but Elisa said the city should engage with the community on how planning objectives fit.

“I’m hopeful you’ll begin to plan in the context of the people that you are planning for, because it’s not one size,” Elisa told officials. “What may work in Charlestown will not work in Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury.”

During the virtual meeting, the BPDA’s Deputy Director of Master Planning and Policy, Nupoor Monani, noted that the current Article 80 framework lacks standards for quality, whether to distinguish a project that’s adequate from one that’s exceptional, or even reduce time spent on getting to a rare “no” vote by the BPDA board. “We want to proactively set those standards,” she said, “and we want to set them in a way that is transparent, so that everyone understands what a grade A is as opposed to a B-plus.”

Local residents vetting proposals usually give attention to design and recommend changes, only to be puzzled sometimes by what results from the BPDA’s design review. Monani suggested that the disconnect could be bridged through better communication by the city. “We want to kind of be an active participant in the dialogue in these community meetings with the developer and the community, and not just sort of a mediator,” she said.

During the same meeting, Monani said that the BPDA intended to have draft recommendations for Article 80 reform “toward the end of May.” But she also said there would be more public meetings.

“You know, we’re doing this for the first time in 30 years,” she said at the Roxbury meeting. “We want to make sure we absolutely get it right, so we are not beholden to the timelines here. These are purely ambitious, and we are open to adjusting them as needed to get the best product.”

Along with the BPDA ordinance and Article 80 reform, Wu is also trying to update zoning to allow for development with more density near main streets and transit service, under the “Squares + Streets” initiative. Officials stress the new zoning would be within range of what has long been allowed with variances, which are granted through a process that includes neighborhood input. But that would also require a trade-off: the familiar limits of locally based leverage, exerted mainly by neighborhood groups, for the less familiar possibility of more collaborative planning by the city, possibly with more inclusive engagement of the neighborhood.

During the virtual meeting, Angie Peguero, director of Resident and Community Engagement with the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, reminded officials that a reform process does not hit pause on development.

“The community is concerned with how fast everything is moving,” she said. “And, although the change is happening as it is moving, development is still happening, and there’s no clear transparency of what’s going to change with what’s happening now versus this plan that’s going [into effect] in five or ten years. We’re not adjusting to now, I guess, is what the community’s feeling.”

Monani replied that planning processes in the past have taken “a very long time,” with market and regulatory clocks not always in sync. “The directive we have from the mayor is to do more and be nimble,” she said. “I think the previous iterations of this agency haven’t necessarily done that. And that’s what our planning staff is trying to do now through initiatives like “Squares + Streets.” She went on to say that the city wants to make timelines more “realistic and predictable.”

Wu’s proposed reforms also follow a coupling of more permissive zoning with gains for affordable housing and construction jobs that goes back to 1983, with adoption of the “linkage” policy for large downtown projects. The reforms also come after targeted efforts to recalibrate zoning on a neighborhood scale by her predecessors. That happened along Boylston Street in the Fenway under Thomas Menino and, on a wider scale throughout the city, by Walsh. In his citywide housing goals, Boston2030, where Walsh targeted zoning adjustments, and higher contributions for affordability required in his inclusionary development program, the nexus between density and affordability was reaffirmed.

Above, Mayor Martin Walsh announced a neighborhood-wide planning process for the Washington Street Corridor in JP/Roxbury, which would eventually be known as “Plan JP/Rox” in April, 2015. Chris Lovett photo

In October of 2014, during Walsh’s first year as mayor, he made zoning relief part of a plan to add 53,000 units of housing in Boston by 2030. Less than three months later, he announced plans to boost housing development on locations near rapid transit lines in South Boston and Jamaica Plain.

The city followed up by creating a master plan for development in areas straddling the Orange Line between Forest Hills and Jackson Square. “Plan JP/Rox” called for clear, predictable standards to “inform future development proposals.” There would also be updated base zoning, a new “density bonus” in “eligible, strategic areas” where developers were encouraged to create affordable units averaging 50 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI)—at the time, as much as $39,400 a year for a household of two.

Before the formulation of the plan started, in July of 2015, regulatory expectations were already on the rise and developers were already on the move. In October 2014, one day after Walsh released his first Boston2030 plan, a team of local developers bought three parcels near Egleston Square that would later be transformed into 3200 Washington Street, a six-story complex with 73 housing units.

Even before August of 2015, when the project was approved by the BPDA, there were protests calling for the units to be more affordable. The plan approved had 12 on-site units affordable for between 65 and 100 percent of the AMI—well above incomes for the surrounding neighborhood, and half of those units were studios or single-bedroom. A realtor supporting the plan filed a letter hailing improvements of an area she called an “eye sore (sic),” but developers themselves were already touting a “vibrant” area enhanced by diversity.

The protests would continue, even to March of 2017, when Plan JP/Rox was approved by the BPDA Board. By then, the original developers had already bought another property on Washington Street. In September 2016, before even starting construction at 3200 Washington street, they sold the parcels for the project –acquired for $3 million in 2014 – for $6.2 million.

Though Plan JP/Rox would spur more affordable units at other locations, the disappointment in the Egleston Square neighborhood resurfaced at the BPDA’s Article 80 meeting in Roxbury, in comments by Marie Turley, a neighborhood activist from Jamaica Plain. She acknowledged the gain for affordability on Washington Street in another project, developed by Pine Street Inn and The Community Builders, but she lamented a street increasingly defined by taller buildings hugging the sidewalk and a loss of tree cover. She also took issue with the heavy representation from the development sector on Wu’s steering committee to advise on Article 80.

“You know,” she told officials, “if you really want us to trust that it’s fair, it’s equitable, and we’re heard, and it’s not about developers and displacement, then you really have to refocus.”

Also talking about trust, in the virtual meeting, was a long-time activist and expert on urban design and transportation, Kenneth Kruckemeyer, who asked for attention to how projects proceed and how decisions are made.

“I wanted to reinforce the fact that, unless there is transparency in the decision-making process as well as in the work that you’re doing about the development process,” said Kruckemeyer, “then your efforts to create trust between the neighbors and the city will go unrealized, because it seems to me that that trust is essential and it relies upon transparency.”

Monani credited him with an “excellent challenge.” She ended the meeting by telling him, “I don’t think any of us believe that we comprehensively have trust in our communities, and it’s what we are here to build.”