Beacon HiLl is ideal terrain for town-gown battles. Foot-loose students from Suffolk University and no-nonsense homeowners are pressed tightly together. The university needs elbow room but receives little quarter from the historic preservationists who pop up from behind every bush or the Beacon Hill Civic Association — the Special Forces of Boston’s community groups.
Yet peace reigns on Beacon Hill while the fight over institutional development intensifies in other parts of the city, including neighborhoods bordered by Harvard and Northeastern universities. So how did Suffolk, which didn’t open an office of community relations until 2006, become such a symbol of contentment?
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And there's a similar issue in the Back Bay, where Fisher College is attempting to expand, increasing its student body and converting more properties into dormitories. They even talk of the residential block of Beacon between Arlington and Berkeley as "our campus." It remains to be seen whether the leaders of Fisher College will have the good sense that the leaders of Suffolk displayed.
Very easy to give in to every demand: hire a hack and pay him insane $$$$, create big office and just roll over! Just don't tell all the truth and let the neighbors be none the wiser.
you obviously give Beacon Hill no credit.....if Suffolk renegs on their agreement, they will be sorry
Mr. Harmon doesn't address the tax revenue loss as Suffolk and every other university in the city expands by buying taxable properties and turning them into nontaxable properties, shifting the costs of city services to residents and businesses. Boston theaters used to be businesses but now they belong to Emerson. Commonwealth Avenue and Bay Road had businesses and apartment buildings, now all BU. Universities pay a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) but it's a small fraction of the loss to the city.
Mr. Harmon also didn't mention Boston College and its plans to build two stadiums and a 500-car parking garage on the former archdiocese property, which is in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The neighbors did everything they could to stop parts of the $1.6 Billion development (stadiums and garage) but these things sailed through the Boston Redevelopment Authority and Zoning Commission.
We know who counts in Boston and it's not the people. It's the institutions buying million-dollar properties and most neighbors don't have an inkling that they are the ones are paying for those properties in the long run while the institutions rack up government and industry payments.