The state last month resurrected an abandoned community planning process to redevelop the Lemuel Shattuck campus in Jamaica Plain, hosting the first official community meeting on the proposal in years. The aging hospital in Franklin Park, a grimy eyesore that serves prisoners and other vulnerable populations, is expected to close by 2027. Its 13-acre campus, which by law can only be used for public health purposes, offers a rare large-scale public redevelopment opportunity within the city of Boston.
Public health officials have long hoped to turn the campus into facilities for addiction treatment and supportive housing for homeless people — two things the state desperately needs. A previous, overly ambitious effort fell apart amid local opposition. Now, as the process starts back up, officials should consider the feedback of residents of Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury, all of which are close to the campus. But this time they shouldn’t let neighborhood opposition stop development of the site to meet those broader public needs.
The plan to tear down the hospital, which was built in 1954, was first discussed in earnest in 2018. After a needs assessment to figure out what should go on the site, the state put out a request for an operator to run a modest 75 to 100 shelter beds at the site.
Boston Medical Center instead appeared with a 370-page, $550 million project that would have expanded the campus and added hundreds of treatment beds and supportive housing units.
The plan would have been a massive boost to addiction treatment efforts in Greater Boston, but the size of it caught residents of the surrounding neighborhoods off guard. In 2023, though, the project collapsed as community outcry grew.
With community coalitions already well-established during the years of the BMC proposal, the state now faces an uphill battle to convince residents that the renewed process is truly a clean slate, with no favored proposal. At the first listening session on Feb. 23, three state employees struck a conciliatory tone with community members who voiced their concerns.
If there are ways to mitigate the neighborhood impact of new facilities, officials should consider them carefully. But some critics want the state to turn the land back into a park, and that’s unrealistic given the legal restriction on the land. Officials will need to remain firm on the need for some form of treatment and housing facilities on the site.
There is no perfect place for addiction treatment or supportive housing, and communities across the city and region have battled plans to locate such facilities near them. But the Shattuck site has many advantages. The parkland surrounding the campus will offer some relief from direct abutters who would be most impacted by construction or traffic.
With the right mix of services, the Shattuck site could turn into a modern facility addressing a huge regional need. It will always be only part of the solution. As the initial needs assessment for the campus calculated, the number of supported housing units needed to house all chronically homeless people, homeless families, and people with substance use disorder and mental health conditions in Eastern Massachusetts is nearly 4,400. That was more than five years ago, and the numbers may well be worse now.
There are also plenty of opportunities to mix residents’ desires with development proposals — like incorporating new green spaces that respect the surrounding park land or reopening a long-closed day-care center on the campus.
The Shattuck Campus is currently the best option Greater Boston has for housing and addiction services. Despite City Hall’s reassurances that rebuilding the bridge to Long Island is still a feasible plan, the endeavor would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and likely take decades. The Shattuck campus, which already provides services to vulnerable people, is a much more feasible option to expand capacity for regional recovery and treatment options, and the state shouldn’t miss this opportunity to redevelop the site.
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