Kelly's heel, continued

by Ben Geman

Tom Menino can't seem to get a clean shot when it comes to affordable-housing policy, even if it's a policy that most people agree on. Since April, the mayor has been trying to increase the fees, called linkage payments, that commercial developers must pay into city affordable-housing and jobs programs. Right now the city asks developers for $5 in housing linkage payments per square foot, and Menino wants that upped to just over $7.

First, the plan ran into trouble with city councilors. Though councilors and activists agree that the fees should be raised, some members sided with affordable-housing advocates who say developers should also have to speed up the rate at which they make the payments. Eventually, though, the councilors approved Menino's rate increase without changes in the payment schedule.

Then, after Menino's bill to up the linkage rates was aired before the legislature's joint Housing and Urban Development Committee as a home-rule petition, three state senators from Boston -- Marian Walsh, Robert Travaglini, and Dianne Wilkerson -- led a move to substitute legislation that would tie the linkage-payment increases to reform of the city's ambiguous development process. So far, they haven't had much luck in these dying days of the state legislative session, which closes July 31. But if they continue pushing, they'll keep the spotlight on an issue that should stay in the public domain: community benefits.

When developers build in the city, neighborhoods reap benefits two ways. One is through the city-mandated linkage payments that Menino is pushing to increase. The other is more ambiguous: "community benefits," which are concessions -- such as cash payments for housing and other needs -- to "impacted communities," or the neighborhoods most affected by the development.

These benefits are a nebulous enterprise -- negotiated in private, loosely regulated, and totally ad hoc. The issue has been hot at the city level since May, and the Globe has published several stories about the enormous rewards South Boston stands to reap from waterfront development -- and the closed, insider-driven process through which its community benefits are being negotiated.

The senators' legislation would raise the linkage rates, but it would also create a system to deal with linkage and community-benefits agreements, requiring (among other things) a clear definition of the term "impacted community" and public hearings on the benefit deals. It would also put the city's redevelopment authority in control of the process and bar other groups or pols from cutting the deals themselves.

The legislators' 11th-hour foray into the unpredictable City Hall/developers/neighborhood nexus irked Menino, who successfully lobbied House members to squash the measure in committee last week. "The basic principle here is that the city sent up a home-rule petition to simply increase linkage fees, and it should be respected and voted on as such," says one Menino aide, who adds that the senators' bill "deals with something else completely."

But as the Phoenix went to press, it appeared that the senators weren't ready to give up the fight. Wilkerson vowed that when the linkage bill hit the Senate floor, she and the others would again push their more sweeping replacement bill. The measure, she says, would add "predictability to the development process which does not exist." Although the legislation would theoretically apply to other Massachusetts cities with linkage programs, it is obviously aimed at Boston.

The Roxbury legislator -- who, along with the others, had tried and failed to meet with the mayor to discuss the issue in recent weeks -- also criticizes Menino for working to nix the plan. "I think it is an administration that can't accept the simple possibility that someone else might have a suggestion or recommendation that is simply about making the process run and work better," she says.

By the time this paper hits the streets, the Senate rebellion may have been put down already. Still, Walsh pledges to keep pushing the reforms after the legislative session ends.

In some ways, this is a simple power struggle: everybody knows that the development process is a messy issue, and that Menino bears responsibility. At this point the mayor probably isn't thrilled that someone else could get credit for cleaning it up.

Menino's people have said the administration is taking its own steps to tighten up the procedures. "I think that we will have something on the table fairly soon and I think it will touch a number of bases," says the Menino aide who criticized the senators' effort.

Indeed, the legislators' harsh words for Menino could point to a silver lining: Boston's development process is getting the kind of scrutiny that may result in better management, whether it comes from City Hall or Beacon Hill.

Ben Geman can be reached at bgeman[a]phx.com.

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