Boston’s residency requirement for city employees dates back to 1994, when the rental and for-sale housing markets were dramatically different from today.
How tough is Boston’s housing market? Tough enough that Arthur Jemison, the city’s planning and development chief, is taking a scalpel to make some badly needed changes to a decades-old hiring policy.
The Boston Planning & Development Agency has been on the front line in the battle to build more affordable housing for years now.
But the BPDA has been understaffed for some time, which has made it difficult for the agency to handle the volume of planning necessary for a city in the midst of an historic building boom.
Enter Arthur Jemison, who took over the agency’s reins this spring as both BPDA director and Boston’s first ever chief planner, having compiled an impressive record at the BPDA, as a top HUD official and at big planning and development jobs in Detroit and Washington, D.C.
Jemison immediately got to work filling the BPDA’s thinned-out ranks. In fact, he was asking for help finding qualified candidates back in May, before he had even officially started his new job, in a chat with developers and other real estate types at the Parkman House.
Last week, Jemison and the BPDA took another big step.
The agency’s board voted last Thursday to give new BPDA hires a grace period of six months before having to find an apartment or home in Boston to meet the residency requirements for city employees.
We are talking about a policy put into place back in 1994 – when the late great Thomas M. Menino was in his second year on the job so that’s a big deal.
And, needless to say, we are in a different universe than the early 1990s when it comes to housing costs, with rents and prices having reached back-breaking levels.
“While identifying qualified candidates is always a challenge, it has been particularly difficult over the last year,” wrote Michael Kerr, the agency’s human resources chief.
How Many Never Applied?
For his part, Jemison said he hasn’t lost anyone outright to the residency requirement.
But he also says he doesn’t know how many potential candidates never applied, particularly planners in other cities, for whom the logistics of having to find a place in Boston in a matter of two or three weeks was a nonstarter.
Jemison also knows something himself about relocating, having made the move back to Boston from Washington, D.C., where he was a top federal housing official.
“It will help us get access to a wider group of people,” Jemison said. “Getting a place in Boston is not the same as it was years ago.”
That said, Jemison has been successful in recruiting new talent. Since he took over at the BPDA last spring, the agency has filled a good chunk of its 66 open positions, leaving about 27 still open.
Among the most recent new hires has been a planner to study converting downtown office buildings into apartments and condominiums amid the shift to remote work.
Scott Van Voorhis
The extra brainpower also can’t hurt as the BPDA gets ready to roll out much-anticipated new zoning for downtown Boston, with a report expected to be released in a matter of weeks.
Meanwhile, in another sign the BPDA is picking up the pace as it steadily fills open positions, the agency last week also gave a green light to a plan for redeveloping the Western Avenue corridor in Allston-Brighton. The new zoning, which had been in the works for at least two years, has the potential to spur development of millions of square feet in new labs, apartments and other development.
The agency is also looking at pay and other benefits as it competes for talent in a tight labor market.
“I think just like any other employer, we are trying to create a package that appeals to people,” Jemison said.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
