June 22 - 29, 2000
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Waterworld
So just what is an "impacted community," anyway? Plus, why Kelly and Lynch are willing to bargain on the South Boston Waterfront linkage deal, and the one at-large councilor with courage.
by Ben Geman
City-Council President James Kelly has claimed over and over that South Boston deserves the bulk of the benefits paid by waterfront developers because South Boston will bear the brunt of the headaches -- such as increased housing costs -- as the area is built up.
Southie's claim on the long-underused waterfront as part and parcel of "the town," at least when it comes to reaping concessions from developers, has raised an overdue question: how should the now-ubiquitous phrase "impacted community" be defined?
The increased traffic, smog, and gentrification caused by new development does not follow neighborhood lines -- the real-estate boom in the South End, for example, has certainly put pressure on Lower Roxbury. And just because a development is located in one neighborhood doesn't mean other neighborhoods won't be affected. For example, though the convention center will probably affect South Boston the most, with increased traffic and other such changes, it's also less than one mile from Chinatown at Harrison Avenue and Beach Street; that intersection is closer to the convention-center site than some parts of South Boston itself. The convention center is also not that far from the North End -- less than 1.5 miles from the Paul Revere statue.
As the development boom continues, City Hall and the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) need a more coherent method of drawing these boundaries. Menino knows this -- he told the Phoenix that he's recently started working with his staff on how to codify the concept. "There is no definition of impacted community," Menino says. "It is one of the things that we are looking at internally." Menino cautions that the discussions are "preliminary," and that he's not yet sure what form any policy would take.
Preliminary or not, the discussions about what defines an "impacted community" are a sign that something good may come of the blowout over Southie development benefits. With more development slated for the waterfront, the Fenway, the Back Bay, and other parts of the city, it would behoove the mayor to have a coherent policy in place sooner rather than later. "There's no guidelines," says State Representative Byron Rushing, who's fought his share of battles over issues of community involvement with development. "[Right now] it depends how people perceive the interested parties and how people use their clout. The more organized a community is, the chances are they are going to be able to define themselves as the impacted area, and the community that is not organized probably will not."
Plainly, that kind of power dynamic is not good planning policy -- something City Hall should have considered a long time ago. And Rushing has some ideas about rectifying the situation. In a recent interview, he laid out a starting point for such a discussion. Why not, he said, draw a dot in the middle of a development site and create a circle around that dot -- the radius would depend on the size of the development. Any area inside the circle could be considered an "impacted community." Of course, natural boundaries would distort the circle -- development in the Bay Back, for example, shouldn't mean that mitigation money would be spent on the other side of the Charles River.
If Rushing's idea had been applied to the convention center, the notion that South Boston is the only community affected by the development would have been exposed as a lie. With the convention center as its ground zero, Rushing's circle would have hit the South End, Chinatown, Roxbury, North Dorchester, and the North End.
The willingness of South Boston's Jimmy Kelly and State Senator Stephen Lynch to soften their stance on waterfront-development benefits could be read as a successful power play by Mayor Tom Menino.But don't be fooled. Menino's recent tough and testy stance notwithstanding, the Southie pols' sudden willingness to play ball isn't about mayoral muscle.
No, something else has Kelly and Lynch coming to the table to recast the lopsided "memorandum of understanding" that directs at least half the linkage payments from waterfront development toward Southie and empowers a trust set up largely by neighborhood politicians to steer millions more in ill-defined "community benefits" their way. (The deal, cut to ensure city-council approval of the convention-center plans in 1998, has had City Hall at near crisis ever since the Boston Globe's extensive coverage last month embarrassed the mayor into stepping in.)
One possible reason is that the two aren't as comfy with the deal's legal standing as they pretend. Indeed, perhaps Lynch and Kelly realize they're better off giving something up now in political negotiations than letting the whole thing degenerate into a messy lawsuit that would expose the memorandum as unlawful. The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, for example, has threatened a lawsuit over the arrangement. Menino's fifth-floor office, uncomfortable as it's probably been for the two, may still be a more hospitable place to work out a new agreement than a courtroom would be. Kelly himself has said he doesn't want to see this bog down in court. By revisiting the issue with Menino, it's true they may have to yield some of the benefits they originally negotiated -- which were clearly an astonishingly good deal for South Boston, or at least the South Boston that's wired into the political establishment. But even after reopening the agreement, they still may end up with a deal that's pretty darn good.
There may also be personal reasons for each to avoid hunkering down. Lynch, a former ironworker and attorney who's quickly built a stellar political résumé, clearly hopes he's not through climbing yet. Many see him eventually gunning for Massachusetts Senate president, running for Congress when US Representative Joe Moakley retires, or even throwing his hat into the mayoral ring. He can play to Southie's parochial sentiments without consequence in state-senate elections, but that kind of politicking doesn't go over well off Broadway. And finally, when you do a politically stupid thing like threatening to block construction of a convention center, which is just what Lynch (a/k/a Mr. Labor) did, you're going to piss off the unions. Maybe it's not too late for him to fix the damage he did there.
On the Kelly front, it's possible that his city-council presidency means more to him than he lets on. Fence-sitting Kelly backers such as Allston-Brighton's Brian Honan could jump ship during the next election for council president. Certain councilors to Kelly's left -- Honan, Jamaica Plain's Maura Hennigan -- back Kelly because they figure, "Hey, he doesn't mess with what I want to do, and he gives me committee assignments." But Kelly's stance on the South Boston Waterfront concessions comes at the expense of other neighborhoods, and this places him in greater jeopardy.
And then there's Menino. He's looked weak during this mess, but he's still, um, the mayor of Boston. And that counts for something.
At-large city councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen has concocted a novel way to sidestep the politically treacherous discussion surrounding South Boston Waterfront development benefits. It can be accurately summarized as "When the going gets tough, the councilors get absurd."
Last week, Davis-Mullen expressed her anger at the Menino administration and the BRA for backing off from the two-year-old deal that directs most of the linkage benefits to South Boston. "The fact remains that the BRA and the administration signed off on an agreement," she fumed last week during council discussion of two linkage resolutions. "I just can't get past that." Proceeding to rail against the lack of planning at City Hall -- which, to be fair, is valid criticism -- she added, "If this body really wants to do something dramatic, we should dissolve the BRA." (On Monday, Davis-Mullen said the resolution calling for that step would not be introduced this week, but she insisted that it was not an "idle threat.")
It's useful to look at what structures should be in place for planning and guiding development, and it's true that the BRA often isn't quite up to the task. In fact, former mayor Kevin White told Globe columnist Steve Bailey last week that the whole waterfront-development mess might have been avoided if City Hall employed a strong planning office. Still, is abolishing the BRA the answer? At a time when Davis-Mullen is flirting with a run for higher office (see "Peggy Davis-Mullen for Secretary of State?", This Just In, June 16), that kind of shooting from the hip could just marginalize her.
Says one former city councilor, "The maxim in this business is you don't say or do anything unless it helps you, and I am hard-pressed to find any benefit she is going to get from filing that order." But on the bright side for Davis-Mullen, he adds, the order may have gotten lost in the "high anxiety" of the last meeting. "I don't think anybody took it seriously," he says. Exactly.
Of course, it's not as if Davis-Mullen is alone in her poor performance on the waterfront issue. At-large councilor Michael Flaherty, in an especially tight spot as he juggles his strong Southie base and other city needs, has opted to say little (see "Man in the Middle," This Just In, June 16). Last week, he agreed with a resolution offered by several other councilors that essentially affirms elements of the linkage deal, including the idea that linkage dollars should flow through the Neighborhood Housing Trust. But Flaherty has declined to take a strong stand or be particularly outspoken throughout the flare-up.
His at-large colleague Francis "Mickey" Roache has been more verbose, but hardly any more inspiring. In a lengthy, meandering, and slightly confusing statement at last week's meeting, Roache bashed the Menino administration for laying the groundwork for the current jam to begin with -- true, but obvious. Asked point-blank whether he thought the deal was fair, Roache said, "I'll continue to say the mayor has to put together a clearly articulated policy on linkage so we are never in this situation again."
"You keep asking, but I'm not really going to touch that one," he told the Phoenix.
Says one city councilor of Roache's and Davis-Mullen's performance: "It doesn't really resonate. People hear that and say, 'Yeah, okay.' Mickey gets up and talks crazy. Fine. No problem. Forget it."
Of the at-large councilors -- who have to answer to voter-rich Southie and court a citywide base -- only Stephen Murphy has taken anything resembling a real stand. Murphy says that the windfall in "community benefits" for South Boston has made him rethink his previous position that it's appropriate for the neighborhood to get at least half the waterfront linkage dollars.
"I am hoping, Mr. President [Kelly] . . . that you and your colleagues, who I consider all my friends and hopefully still are after this is over, will sit down and look at that 51 percent of the linkage and revisit it, and revisit it downwards," said Murphy last week, "so that linkage money can be spread out across the city, because I think that's the fairest thing that we can do."
Hardly fighting words. But among the at-large set these days, that's what passes for courage and reason.
Ben Geman can be reached at bgeman[a]phx.com.
