The state’s highest court has agreed to decide whether a waterfront perch at the tip of Boston’s Long Wharf can be run by a private business without legislative approval, a decision that could have implications for urban renewal efforts across Massachusetts.
The Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments Nov. 5 on Boston officials’ desire to expand and enclose a large, open-sided pavilion on the plaza at the end of Long Wharf and put a restaurant and tavern inside and add outdoor seating. Although the area is used by tourists and residents alike, city officials contend it is not a park, but private redevelopment land that can be used to further the city’s urban renewal goals — without lawmakers’ approval.
Comments
Legal and legislative issues aside, the BRA is showing complete cluelessness in their promotion of a restaurant there. That is a wonderful open area used by so many people. Keep it free, keep itopen and keep the nonsense a few blocks away at Quincy Market.
Restaurants are nonsense?
Boston doesn't lack for restaurants, it does lack for delightful public spaces equal to this one. / / / It's not 'the BRA' that's pushing this, it's individuals. Who are they, what are their names? Where do they get claim to their authority? More reporting please. The BRA already allowed the once public passageway through the bottom of the Mariott Hotel nearby to be enclosed and taken from the public domain, now they want to steal the pavillion. Shame!
A beautiful spot? Yes, when the homeless aren't urinating and sleeping there.
You must be one of those people who would deprive us all of park benches just to prevent a homeless person from sleeping on them -- as if being cruel to homeless people will make them shape up and go ...home. Here you want to deprive us of the whole park. Heaven help you if you are ever down on your luck; there but for the grace of god go any of us.
The BRA knowingly misleads the public by saying that the citizens' suit would apply the existing requirement for 2/3 legislative approval to all changes to urban renewal land uses. In fact, the suit seeks simply to retain that long-standing protection for parks, historic sites, and other qualified open spaces. Since that constitutional protection was created, no urban renewal agency has yet complained of "thwarted mission.” Attorney Matt Kiefer’s job is to enrich private developers, so it’s not surprising he would lend his name to this deception; and Long Wharf, a National Historic Landmark, would not be the first historic resource he would help destroy, having engineered the unlawful demolition of the Gaiety Theatre. The BRA, however, is a quasi-public authority, and also the city’s planning department; its job is to protect the public interest. But having become one of Boston’s biggest developers and landlords, the BRA has a conflicting interest: to profit from land it holds in public trust -- such as Long Wharf Park. But it hides its true motives behind the urban renewal “mission.” A BRA victory would turn every open space in the state's current -- or potential -- urban renewal project areas into a development land bank. We should be grateful to the citizens who are, at their own expense, truly acting to protect the public interest.