IN MID MARCH, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) announced a new " linkage " policy for controlling development, congestion, and traffic in the Longwood medical area. According to its terms, hospitals and colleges in the area may continue to build, but only if they agree to hire and train city residents for some of the jobs thus created. The BRA also announced that over the next 18 months, it will be drawing up a " master plan " for Longwood. As a business owner in the adjoining Fenway Park neighborhood, I’d like to suggest that we too become beneficiaries of such wise urban planning. But if the past is any guide, that’s not likely to happen because there’s only one neighbor who counts over here, and that’s the Red Sox.

For those who aren’t familiar with the location and character of Longwood, it’s a 200-acre area that begins near Fenway Park and goes all the way to the end of Brookline Avenue; it’s bounded roughly by Longwood Avenue to the east and Huntington Avenue to the west. People who live in Mission Hill, Audubon Circle, and the Fenway can walk to it, and it’s relatively close to downtown. According to city statistics, about 30,000 people work in the area. In other words, as Longwood residents and businesses already know, it’s densely developed with lots of traffic.

Despite the neighborhood’s density, however, a number of Longwood-area hospitals and colleges are looking to construct nearly three million square feet of new-building space. So, on the surface, the city’s proposal for linking future development to training and jobs for residents who can walk to work, thus minimizing automobile traffic, is a good and sensible approach to urban planning. Yet, there is an unpleasant odor of hypocrisy wafting over the BRA’s seemingly good civic intentions. Why? Because the same ostensibly prudent government body that devised the Longwood plan has been the driving force behind past and present unfettered moves to expand Fenway Park.

Take, for example, the ill-conceived neighborhood-damaging, land-grabbing project — dubbed by the former Red Sox ownership the " Field of Dreams " — that would build an additional 10,000 seats in Fenway Park, backed by taxpayers’ money. Neither the city nor the state has officially euthanized the project’s authorizing legislation and, with hundreds of millions of state and city funds still officially committed to it, it remains under active consideration by the Red Sox’ current owners.

The Fenway Park expansion plan was outrageous when first proposed. But given the city and state fiscal crises and the huge funding cuts being made to just about everything, including education and human services (notably for the mentally ill and elderly), it seems that taxpayer funds earmarked for the Red Sox should have been officially declared " off the table " long ago. One might even think that, by now, our hell-bent-on-trimming-waste governor, our legislators, or even the " People’s Mayor " of Boston would have wanted voters to know that if the new Red Sox owners want to expand the footprint of their stadium (or build a new one), they won’t be able to count on the public coffers for help. But mum is the word from all of the above.

That brings us back to the BRA, which has shown no particular concern for the residents of Fenway and surrounding neighborhoods as Opening Day approaches on April 11. After all, under the new ownership, the Red Sox have already expanded, building 660 very expensive new stadium seats over the past year. The result? More traffic congestion and increased game-day crowds. So why has the BRA not demanded the same job commitments from the Sox that it’s requiring of Longwood employers? The answer seems quite clear: when it comes to the Red Sox, the same rules just don’t apply.