Image courtesy of Kohn Pederson Fox Assoc.
Nine former state environmental officials defended rezoning of a 42-acre section of Boston waterfront to allow a pair of large commercial developments.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is weighing whether to reinstate the city’s municipal harbor plan for the downtown waterfront.
In a filing, the former secretaries of energy and environmental affairs (EOEA) and former commissioners of the Department of Environmental Protection defended the DEP’s authority to approve the plan, which would enact zoning allowing The Chiofaro’s Co.’s proposed 600-foot-tall skyscraper on East India Row.
“The Appellees’ arguments ignore that the DEP retains substantial authority and discretion to review a proposed project with regard to the goals and objectives of the waterways regulations,” it states.
Former EOEA secretaries Matthew Beaton, Maeve Vallely Bartlett, Richard Sullivan, Ian Bowles and Robert Durand and former DEP Commissioners Laurie Burt, Arleen O’Donnell, Lauren Liss and Daniel Greenbaum signed the amicus curiae brief prepared by Sherin and Lodgen LLP.
Municipal harbor plans give Massachusetts communities the power to approve exceptions to state regulations limiting the size and height of waterfront buildings, in exchange for public benefits provided by developers.
Conservation Law Foundation and trustees of the Harbor Towers II condos challenged the state’s approval of the downtown harbor plan, arguing that it violated state environmental laws. In April 2021, a Suffolk Superior Court judge overturned the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s approval of the Boston downtown waterfront harbor plan, stating that that the agency overstepped its authority and the ruling should have been made by former Secretary of Environmental Affairs Beaton.
The Chiofaro Co. proposes an 865,000-square-foot skyscraper known as The Pinnacle at the harbor garage property on East India Row, while the owners of the James Hook Lobster and Co. are proposing a 275,000-square-foot hotel on their Atlantic Avenue property.
State regulations are designed to balance competing interests such as commercial fishing and recreation and give local officials flexibility to regulate uses, the former officials stated in the filing. Gloucester’s 2009 municipal harbor plan was designed to support its commercial fishing industry, whereas East Boston’s 2002 harbor plan had an emphasis on promoting water transportation.
