State Rep. Marty Walz is trying to make one final statement to local developers before she leaves, and that’s to keep new shadows out of Boston’s downtown public parks.
Walz, along with her colleague, Rep. Byron Rushing, has filed legislation at the State House that would preclude projects seeking a variance from local zoning to cast any new shadows in six parks in Boston and Cambridge.
The legislation is known colloquially as the “shadow bill.” It is touted as a way to preserve precious sunlight in the places designated for public enjoyment, especially in the coldest, darkest months. The law would apply to the Charles River Esplanade, Copley Square, the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, Back Bay Fens and Christopher Columbus Park in Boston. In Cambridge, only Magazine Beach Park would be affected.
Walz recently made headlines with her decision to leave the Legislature on Feb. 15 to become executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, but she insisted Rushing would be there to carry the shadow bill “over the finish line.”
The two have built their shadow bill from pre-existing legislation enacted in 1990 that similarly restricts shadows being cast on Boston Common by new development projects. The Common law was expanded to include the Public Garden in 1992.
Citing the existing legislation, Walz stressed that precedent for this type of measure already exists.
“New buildings can cast shadows on the parks if they’re built in accordance with Boston or Cambridge zoning as the zoning existed in 1990,” Walz told Banker & Tradesman. “The ‘sky-is-falling’ rhetoric from the bill’s opponents is both unfortunate and inaccurate. Those two [existing] laws have not stopped economic development near the Common and the Garden. There can be substantial amounts of new shadows cast on those parks … but not above and beyond the 1990 standard.”
Shadowy Future
But the bill is likely to face strong opposition from local business leaders and others that see the move as directly stymieing economic and real estate development along the “high spine” of skyscrapers leading from the Financial District through the Back Bay, which is considered by many to be an ideal corridor for such tall buildings.
Limiting the height of buildings around those public spaces would essentially suspend new development in perpetuity, according to critics. With the cost of land and construction in Downtown Boston so high, real estate developers that want to build new multifamily housing or office buildings would not be able to secure financing for such projects because they would not be allowed the density needed, according to critics.
“The shadow legislation would preclude almost any new development in that urban downtown core,” said Meg Mainzer-Cohen, executive director of the Back Bay Association, which advocates for the neighborhood’s businesses, be they in a Newbury Street walk-up or at the top of the Hancock Tower.
The legislation comes down to an issue of local control, she told Banker & Tradesman. Each Boston Redevelopment Authority Article 80 review process for new projects studies shadow impacts, and is “fairly restrictive” when it comes to shadows, Mainzer-Cohen opined.
“This bill basically says to Bostonians that the State House is going to make local decisions,” she added. “I don’t think the commonwealth is in a position to close the door on new development opportunities in its downtown capitol city in perpetuity. I’d be surprised if this bill went anywhere.”
The bill has languished since the duo first proposed it in 2011. The legislation was sent to the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture for review, but never made it out for a House or Senate vote.
That’s partly because the committee viewed it as a way to stop projects from being built that were already in the pipeline, like the 47-story Copley Place tower, according to Rep. Anne Gobi, of Spencer, who chaired the committee at the time.
“The way the bill was written, it was trying to go back and negate those things, which we could not do,” Gobi recalled in a recent interview. “I think the sponsor of the bill would definitely have to sit down with the people in the business community that were against it and try to figure something out that way. Not everything requires a piece of legislation.”
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