Wish list

The city has spent the past year asking Boston neighborhoods what they want. Now, it must spend 1999 figuring out how to answer their concerns.

Cityscape by Sarah McNaught

Cheryl MacNeil has lived in West Roxbury her entire life. A part-time bank teller and mother of three rowdy yet adorable little boys, MacNeil has seen mom-and-pop stores come and go, schools get refurbished, and additional police begin patrolling the streets late at night after the bars close.

Now, as the tall brunette stands on the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and Washington Street waiting for the school bus to arrive, there's only one thing she wants for her town: "Pretty up the place, but don't crowd us out of our own neighborhood."

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MacNeil is not alone. In 1998, Boston's neighborhoods got their chance to vent. And 1999, according to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), is the year the city incorporates their concerns into its master plan for growth and development. For the past year, more than 1000 city residents and urban experts have shared their thoughts about what their neighborhoods need. More than 150 community meetings were held in Boston's 18 neighborhoods to discuss how to make the city a more appealing place to live, shop, and work. These community-planning meetings were hosted by Boston 400, the city's first comprehensive long-term planning initiative since 1965, which is slated to be completed by Boston's 400th anniversary in 2030. The issues discussed ranged from parks and historic sites to transportation and housing.

By early spring, Boston 400 is scheduled to release a report that assembles individual neighborhoods' concerns into a citywide agenda. >A sneak peek at the preliminary neighborhood reports reveals several common themes that cross lines of geography, race, and class. General upkeep, from controlling trash to introducing greenery, tops the list. Overdevelopment, including the expansion of existing institutions such as the New England Medical Center and Northeastern University, is a serious concern. So is the need to make better use of existing space, such as alleys, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings. And lack of housing stock for middle-income working families is a sore spot for residents who feel the city has focused for too long on the extremes -- affordable housing for the poor and posh digs for the wealthy.

Maintenance, one of the biggest issues citywide, has long been a bone of contention for Boston residents. The Boston Common tot lot, for instance, suffers from chipped paint, splintered wood, trash, and rubber flooring that is rigid from age. Unfortunately, other than the Myrtle Street and Phillips Street playgrounds (which are also in disrepair), Beacon Hill kids have nowhere else to go. Fortunately, however, problems of cleanliness and upkeep may be among the easiest to solve. Beacon Hill residents call for regular cleanup crews to pick up trash, empty overflowing receptacles, and repaint faded and chipped equipment.

"It seems that from Mission Hill to Brighton, every neighborhood is concerned with the general maintenance of such things as public parks and other open spaces," notes Charlie Euchner, project coordinator for the BRA. "One idea that has arisen from those concerns is the formation of a sort of `charm bracelet' of parks, complete with proper landscaping and manicured perimeters, so that each neighborhood has access to a well-kept green space."

Beacon Hill is not the only community that wants a fresh coat of paint. Allston and Brighton have long complained that high population density and transient college renters have left their streets dirty and their buildings rundown. Among their other concerns: the abandoned trolley tracks at the intersection of Comm Ave and Warren Street need to be removed, and the stretch of Comm Ave leading to Boston College is poorly landscaped and strewn with litter. Residents want the city to maintain that part of Comm Ave the same way it cares for the section between Kenmore Square and the Public Garden.

In the similarly crowded North End/Waterfront neighborhood, residents want the city to keep trash off the streets, remove dog waste, and clean up unkempt parks such as Cutillo Playground and Tunnel Park on Richmond Street. Some solutions have already been proposed and may be in effect as early as this spring. Boston 400 has suggested placing trash receptacles in the parks, enforcing loitering laws to keep the homeless out of playgrounds, and constructing a dog run behind the Steriti Skating Rink. "Sometimes the solution is very simple," says Euchner. "There are many issues that have arisen as the result of these reports that the city was simply unaware of."

One problem the city already knew about is the Melnea Cass Rink in Jamaica Plain; residents have been complaining for years about its overall structural disrepair, from a cracked foundation to a leaky roof and broken windows. Euchner says that the rink's interior has already been rebuilt for in-line skating and that the city will either complete more-extensive repairs or tear it down and construct a new rink for the neighborhood.

Although poor maintenance can undermine the aesthetic value of Boston's neighborhoods, excessive development threatens them on a larger scale. Many communities worry that new construction, as well as the expansion of existing institutions, may not only degrade their neighborhoods' appearance but also squeeze residents out.

Chinatown residents have asked Boston 400 to pay close attention over the next year to the design of Millennium Place, the $400 million mixed-use complex going up between Washington and Tremont Streets, and to the possible expansion of the New England Medical Center. Residents are also concerned about a resurgence of adult-entertainment establishments in the Combat Zone on Washington Street.

On the other side of the city, in Brighton, Boston 400's report reflects growing concerns that the expansion of Boston College could threaten the community's well-kept open spaces. And in the Fenway area, development of the Landmark Center, in the old Sears building near Audubon Circle, has residents worried about congestion and concerned over the balance between institutional development and housing construction.

One way to avoid overdevelopment, residents believe, is to make better use of existing buildings, open lots, and even rooftops. Chinatown residents, for instance, want to make sure they get the most out of the building that housed the Don Bosco Preparatory School before it closed in 1998. There are plans to use the school building as a hotel and a YMCA; Boston 400 has suggested that the city negotiate an agreement with the new tenants that would give the community access to the building's facilities, including its pool and possibly its library (Chinatown has no public library). And residents suggest that instead of allowing teenagers to hang out on the rooftop terrace of the neighborhood's Josiah Quincy School, Boston 400 should work toward turning the terrace into a park for tenants of nearby Quincy Towers, home to many elderly residents.

In the South End, many residents are wondering what the BRA plans to do with the historic Alexandra Hotel on the corner of Washington Street and Mass Ave, which has remained vacant for years. In the neighborhood report, Boston 400 suggests the possibility of offering incentives that will encourage property owners to develop privately held land or buildings such as the Alexandra.

In Dorchester, residents report that hundreds of vacant properties leave their neighborhood grossly underdeveloped. "We are concerned that our neighborhood is broken up into disjointed little blocks because after every row of stores is a vacant lot separating pedestrians from other commercial or recreational areas," says Leo Styles, a long-time Savin Hill activist. By developing these properties, he says, the city would also be "combating the growing problem of poor upkeep," since empty lots attract trash, loiterers, and crime.

Planners caution, however, that all development must be compatible with high-volume traffic and fit into the goals of pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use development. According to the Boston 400 report, developers must be required to develop on a small scale that enhances or at least preserves the character of the neighborhood.

Indeed, businesses aren't all residents would like to see built in underdeveloped areas. The demand for middle-income housing stock continues to rise. At a time when luxury apartments are going up all over the city, Bostonians agree that the construction of affordable housing for the poor is a first step. But the people who are neither rich nor poor remain underserved.

In the Back Bay, for example, students have to a large extent replaced middle-income families. Residents call on Boston 400 to ensure that housing remains available for those moderate-income residents. Possible solutions include working with schools to address the issue of student housing and writing zoning laws that preserve affordable units in basements or over shops.

Another neighborhood facing a shortage of middle-income housing is Mission Hill, where residents complain that Heath Street is overrun with vacant lots and abandoned buildings. But in this case, the solution is already in the works. In April 1998, the federal government issued a $90 million grant for redevelopment of housing in Mission Hill.

Whether it's housing, development, or general cleanup, city residents have made it clear what they want changed by 2030. In an effort to move forward with these concerns, Boston 400 has established eight focus groups that are working on putting together its list of citywide tasks.

"We spent 1998 organizing what the [neighborhoods'] concerns are," says Euchner. "Now we can spend 1999 figuring out a plan for these issues and presenting them to the city so that the city receives more than just a laundry list of unconnected concerns. Once that is done, we can move forward with implementing some of the solutions."

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.