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Report: Planning for city's future takes back seat to deal making at the BRA, and it has problems with that, too
By adamg on Thu, 07/16/2015 - 9:17am
The BRA today released the more detailed part of an outside consultant's look at its operations in a city experiencing a development boom and for fans of rational growth, it's not a pretty picture:
Boston today does less proactive planning than many of its North American peers, such as San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle and Vancouver, or leading global cities, including Singapore, Hong Kong, London and Berlin. Nearly all have a complete set of neighborhood plans, whereas Boston has plans only for select areas. Similarly, most large cities engage in comprehensive citywide planning or, at a minimum, set out a strategic planning vision and goals. For example, San Francisco, Seattle, and Singapore engage in detailed, comprehensive master planning that lasts over several years, while other cities like London engage in strategic high-level master planning in combination with detailed neighborhood plans.
While Boston has long-term plans for select important aspects of its future, such as transportation (“Go Boston 2030”), environment (“Greenovate”), and housing (“Housing a Changing City: Boston 2030”), it does not have a longer-term, strategic master plan that ties all of these elements together. Many stakeholders within and outside the BRA noted that Boston has not conducted citywide planning in many decades, and most expressed a desire for Boston to do more proactive planning and invest in a longer-term, citywide planning effort.
KPMG writes this might be due to multiple, sometimes conflicting goals:
The BRA currently pursues multiple missions, some of which are not clearly related to others. Stakeholders noted that this can be a challenge. The BRA performs activities related to planning, development, zoning, research, jobs and community service, and real estate management, for example. It performs only a portion of the city’s planning activities, however, and manages only a portion of the city’s real estate portfolio. It does not drive strategic economic development or facilitate zoning review, permitting, or inspections. Internal and external stakeholders broadly agree that the BRA’s core mission is, and should remain, to do proactive, longer-term planning and support and facilitate development projects.
With Boston in the middle of a building boom, the BRA has inconsistent guidelines for developers on required data for review - and that the authority sometimes rushes projects through the approval process, only to lead to further delays:
The BRA could require that developers submit project materials prior to a meeting rather than forcing Designers to review and provide guidance on designs only in real time during a meeting. Having more time to develop perspectives and outline questions and requests prior to a meeting could help design review staff make better use of meeting time and likely reduce the need for follow-up meetings.
In a statement, BRA Director Brian Golden said the report provides a good blueprint for the BRA, which he says will pay more attention to managing real-estate holdings and adding more staff to its planning department.
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Comments
Comprehensive Planning
What a novel concept.
Finally the rest of the city is getting to see the BRA for what Shirley Kressel and many others have been calling it for years. Apparently their charter is up for renewal this year - and without it they are a paper tiger. Please email your councilor and state legislator and ask them NOT to renew their charter until we figure out what to do with this bureaucratic nightmare. Any councilor running for office that supports the BRA should be out on his or her keester come January.
It's not hard
Most other cities in the country figured this out 100 years ago:
1. Make a master plan and neighborhood plans, gathering extensive input from members of the community on what they want their city and neighborhood to look like
2. Create zoning and development guidelines based on those plans
3. Review development proposals to ensure that they comply with the zoning and the plan
3a: Conduct more extensive reviews with community input when the developer requests variances from the established zoning and plans
Instead, we have planning and zoning that are nonexistent or meaningless, forcing developers and the BRA to facilitate a byzantine back-and-forth with the community, the developer, and agency staff for every. single. project.
This is not how you build things in an efficient, transparent democracy.
How is this democracy?
When you write about zoning and plans but don't mention public process for establishing both, only in allowing variances?
Reading Comprehension
Did you miss the part in #1:
gathering extensive input from members of the community on what they want their city and neighborhood to look like
Is that not the public process?
Does it go to a vote?
Gathering input is merely placating the public with the appearance that their input has value or might even be read or listened to. Tools like Surveymonkey or even local ballot questions are needed so people can be counted on what they want, making them harder to ignore. That won't happen because the process is meant to not be binding on what voters want. Its inherently un-democratic, including board members being appointed and not elected.
You Elect The Mayor
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Representational+democracy
Fancy talk, there
I don't know why you think you can parade your fancy "legal definitions" about "means of governance" in here, BlackKat. The man said we're going to do a SurveyMonkey or a binding ballot question for each of the hundreds of zoning proposals the BRA handles every year, and by god, we're going to do a SurveyMonkey for every zoning proposal! (We'll pay for it by harvesting the organs of bicyclists, natch)
Why would you allow the
Why would you allow the public to vote on zoning? All that comes out of that is NIMBYism and nothing ever being zoned or built. Direct democracy has its limits, which is why we live in a democratic republic.
It is not easy
Nope. The past 100 years have been atrocious as far as city planning and development has been. Or have you forgotten the whole "let's bulldoze everything and build giant towers surrounded by parking lots" era? How about redlining, blockbusting, and 'slum clearance'? Or the whole reason everyone is sour at the BRA in the first place?
Just about every American city quite nearly destroyed themselves in the past 100 years. Population levels dropped as people fled. Racial tensions exploded. Thousands of neighborhoods were completely gutted.
This field of 'modern city planning' was invented from the prejudices of a few rich elitists at the beginning of the 20th century. They didn't know or care what the consequences of their actions would be. Then we followed their prescriptions and hollowed out most American cities, with only a few places managing to escape the destruction. And since then, we've been trying to figure out how to 'fix' this so-called 'science' of modern city planning so that it isn't harmful and might actually be beneficial instead.
In theory it sounds nice. In practice, it usually meant that a few rich (likely white) landowners got together and produced a 'plan' that excluded everyone not like themselves. That's how we ended up with extensive districts of 1, 2, or 3-family restricted zones. The only homes that could be constructed in these zones are so expensive that only the wealthiest can afford them -- nowadays it's investors mainly.
Even more ridiculously, these plans and zones were established on top of existing neighborhoods that already had buildings that were then deemed to be non-conforming under the new rules. In most parts of Boston, you could not build what already exists, under the current zoning code. It's all grandfathered. Nearly all of the city fabric that makes Boston a great place to live is currently illegal to build under the current zoning code. That should tell you how 'representative' that code truly is.
Who gets to make these plans and zoning codes? Is it just the people who have time and money enough to show up at meetings, over and over again, for months or years? That pretty much excludes anyone who works for a living, or anyone unconnected with politics. It also excludes the future residents, and it sets up a situation where a few existing residents, who are politically connected, can create plans that enrich themselves at the expense of future residents.
There is also a philosophical question here pertaining to private property: to what extent do other members of the public have the right to tell someone how to develop their own private property? Safety issues are one thing, but beyond safety, how far does this extend? What is the meaning of private property when neighbors can tell you what to do with it? How big a front yard? How big a rear yard? How many parking spaces? How tall a building? How many housing units? Etc.
It wasn't until the Euclid v Ambler (1926) Supreme Court decision that so much meddling in private affairs was tolerated by the courts. And that decision contained within it the idea that people who live in apartment buildings are somehow inferior to people who live in freestanding separate homes. Is that an attitude appropriate for a city? I don't think so.
So let's have planning, but let's not have hubris. City planning has a horrible history in this country. It's supremely important that we learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat them. It's also really important to ensure that any plans that are made are actually fair and beneficial for the city as a whole, and not just for a few entitled residents.
This is not an easy thing to do, and it is definitely not something that has been mastered by any other city in this country.
Great overview
Btw, the official term for slum clearance was "urban renewal". Examples include the west end, Scollay Square, and parts of the south end closest to where the rail yards used to be (Prudential and Mass Pike areas).
Many of those ambitious housing projects for the poor didn't work out so well either. Well intentioned, but became crime and drug ghettos.
Good point on hearings where those who attend poorly represent the public. Its why I hate them as being a bad way to get public input in the Internet age. My experience has been the same where motorists are vastly underrepresented while minority modes like bicycling vastly over-represented in turn-outs. Its why ballot questions or even online surveys need more use than antiquated processes.
Oh look, Markk managed to
Oh look, Markk managed to work "The War on Cars" into a post. Who would have thought?
Lol, motorists are vastly
Lol, motorists are vastly underrepresented? After mentioning urban renewal? Really? Urban renewal and the slum clearances/gutting in Boston were at their base for motorists and putting in huge new highways crisscrossing the city. The idea was to make driving in and out paramount, so everyone could live in the 'burbs, drive into the scary city to work in office towers/parks, and then get out when it was time to go home. The entire idea of urban renewal in Boston (and NYC) was 100% car-centric - and it failed miserably.
That was 40 years ago
Today its all anti-car and "vibrant" neighborhoods. I was talking about the public meetings where bicyclists outnumber motorists even though on the road in most of the country its 95 in cars or motorized buses for every 1 cyclist, who are also outnumbered by pedestrians. A few cities are the exception to the state-wide and national ratio.
The consequence of underrepresented motorists at hearings are new anti-car policies like GreenDOT and Boston MPO project evaluation formulas that prioritize net reductions in road transportation outside of highways.
Making driving paramount is also green. Cars, trucks, and buses having to give priority to cyclists and pedestrians just adds more CO2 from the added stopping, waiting, and starting off again. Meanwhile, cyclists and pedestrians having to wait their turn adds no CO2. Better yet, more overpasses and underpasses would allow more simultaneous travel with less stopping and CO2 production.
> Boston MPO project
> Boston MPO project evaluation formulas that prioritize net reductions in road transportation outside of highways
I have been to many meetings and have never seen MPO project a decrease in number of cars on a road.
The last 50+ years were
The last 50+ years were dedicated to widening roads for cars and narrowing them for pedestrians, all while ignoring bicyclists altogether. If reclaiming some space for pedestrians and bicyclists is anti-car, then so be it. It's about time our streets actually served everyone safely.
And I can guarantee to you that MassDOT and the MPO aren't using any formulas that predict fewer cars. In nearly every project and public meeting I've been to recently, the project engineers always say "we are projecting X amount of traffic growth" and try to fit in more lanes and more space for cars wherever they can. When the right of way is limited (basically most city streets), they usually can't actually do this, especially since their guidelines require them to actually accommodate bicyclists now, but they sure do try.
And yes if you look at most roads across the whole country, the vast majority of vehicles are cars. In cities, this is not always the case. But more importantly, people on foot and on bike SHOULD be overrepresented because they are the most vulnerable. What you are suggesting is called tyranny of the majority, and it is what we want. By your logic, people in wheelchairs should have practically no representation at all at public meetings because there are so few of them. Why spend all that money on ramps and crosswalks when most people are in cars?
Liar - sidewalks have been widened!
Got any actual examples where sidewalks have been narrowed? The only sidewalks I think of like that are so enormous and wasteful that they are used as dining areas, parks, formerly parking lots (ie Comm Ave across from BU), or current parking for hubway and other bikes.
Many projects in greater Boston from the 1980's-2000's have widened sidewalks! Look at Lexington center, Arlington center, Melrose center, Needham center, and especially Central Square Cambridge. Mass Ave in East Arlington lost a travel lane to put in bike lanes because narrowing the sidewalk buffer for a mile on the 99' wide ROW would have been too expensive, even though that's where the space should have come from.
The last bicycling boom peaked about 1973 and faded by the late 1970s. that's about when the sidewalk widening boom started, taking away roadway width and leaving no excess for cyclists when the most recent cycling boom started in the early 2000s - this in many places throughout Cambridge.
The MPO needs to update its traffic growth predictions because its gone up over 2%, not 0.5% or 1%. Meanwhile, Cambridge showed a big drop in cycling, matching other cities around the country.
Meanwhile the MPO has removed travel lanes on Nonantum Road, Mass Ave Arlington, the BU bridge, Longfellow Bridge, slip lane removals everywhere, and lane narrowing so drivers can't get around turning drivers.
Excellent synopsis!
Matthew, you're helping me keep a slender hope alive for the UHub comments section! Thank you!
Do you publish anywhere? I enjoy your perspective & appreciate the clarity of your writing!
In case Matthew doesn't see
In case Matthew doesn't see the question, I'll drop in a link: http://walkingbostonian.blogspot.com
Agreed, but we can still do better
Your comment is a good antidote to my snark/hubris.
It's certainly not "easy" to have good planning, especially living as we do in a country and world that aligns moneyed interests against everyday people. But, with the goal of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, a more proactive approach to planning would be more fair and equitable than the hodge podge we have now.
It's difficult to attract a representative segment of the community to a handful of planning meetings about a comprehensive or neighborhood plan or zoning. It's even more difficult to get those same busy, working-class people to attend the deluge of project-by-project meetings where the real decisions happen under our current system. Our system no longer allows for large-scale neighborhood clearance, but it enables and encourages thousands of smaller decisions that make our neighborhoods more expensive, exclusive, and inequitable.
And yes, most of the great buildings we love in Boston are illegal under current zoning code. So why don't we change the code? The Euclid ruling and subsequent cases enabled the government to regulate the use of real property when such regulations (zoning) are done according to a comprehensive plan and do not violate equal protection by arbitrarily giving some property owners more development options than others (spot zoning). Boston's land use regime makes a mockery of that by focusing on project-level reviews that are subject to the whim and influence of politicians and the well-heeled people who can actually attend the dozens of meetings involved.
Do we, as a country, know how to fix all that is wrong with planning? We do not. But Boston's current land use system exacerbates the intractable problems, fails to address the issues we do know how to deal with, and sprinkles the whole thing with a few hefty shakes of corruption and solipsism.
Are You Kidding?
If the Olympics come to Boston one of the exhibition sports could be "Complaining and NIMBY-ism." And, Boston will take the gold.
People in Boston love public process and "input." If you think there's going to be a plan established and that's it, you haven't been here very long.
I'm leery
of any organization that's holding up San Francisco as a paragon of urban planning to be aspired to.
San Francisco's transit infrastructure is dozens of years behind, such that key areas of the city and suburbs are barely accessible via tangled, meandering mass transit lines with infrequent, unreliable headways. Uber and Lyft grew in San Francisco, because the existing infrastructure was so shoddy, and most large corporations run their own commuter buses, because the infrastructure is so unreliable. Huge swaths of San Francisco are only accessible by car, yet San Francisco is narrowing streets and cutting parking spaces. There is a new subway artery being built between the high-density areas of the city and the commuter train to San Jose, but still that's years shy of completion.
Meanwhile, San Francisco and the entire Bay Area have decided to handle the shortage of hundreds of thousands of housing units by attempting to ban construction entirely (the Mission) or heavily limit it with onerous restrictions, or tying it up in ridiculous litigation (the suburb of Menlo Park), because "if we don't build housing, people will just go back to where they came from. Let's pray for an earthquake and a crash of the global economy instead!" There's still absurd height limits in the Bay Area: most housing in or near San Francisco is 2-4 stories, and prime spots in San Francisco are 1-stories and vacant lots.
On top of that, the Bay Area is pretty clueless as to what to do with supplying the influx of new people they can acommodate with water: the reserviors were at 10% capacity, two years into a nasty drought, before there were even voluntary bans on watering lawns.
The suggestion to copy San Francisco is a suggestion to self-destruct.
You ain't kidding...
I drove by the Uber office in Potrero Hill yesterday and the line had to have been twenty deep!
Discussions on SF development
http://district5diary.blogspot.com/ and http://hoodline.com/ among others.
Ya' but can Singapore
Throw a parade like Mahty Walsh can?!
They have better food,
They have better food, corsets, whores, fireworks, banks, and a bigger port than us.