Earlier this month, several organizations, including The Boston Harbor Association, were invited by a philanthropic foundation to come and discuss the long term future of Boston’s waterfront. The conversation was rich and deep, with the speakers flagging some discernible trends which may shape the waterfront in the immediate future.
Dense development is the norm: new development along the waterfront is dense, as is already evident along the Downtown and South Boston waterfronts. Vacant land and surface parking lots are fast being replaced by tall buildings and/or buildings with significant massing. Regulatory review of individual buildings does not capture the overall change in landscape along the waterfront, nor the cumulative impacts upon transportation and other infrastructure. As noted by one participant, when South Boston’s waterfront is fully built out, one will no longer be able to see Boston Harbor from the Innovation District except through narrow view corridors.
Boston is very attractive to foreign investors: In recent months, foreign investors have been quietly scouting out waterfront properties in the Greater Boston area. Boston is viewed by many in the international community as a very livable city with numerous amenities. Compared to other waterfront cities, Boston is considered very affordable by these investors.
One aspect of this global interest is that a number of these potential investors come from countries and cultures where civic engagement is not encouraged. Many of these non-institutional investors, who live halfway around the world, will in all likelihood not be as generous or as involved in the Boston community as are existing local property owners.
Gentrification Is Happening
Residential and commercial gentrification of the waterfront is rapidly occurring: Where affordable housing and public housing once constituted a significant portion of waterfront residences, today the overwhelming majority of waterfront residences being built are luxury units and are some of the most expensive in all of Boston. The city’s attempts to incorporate 15-20 percent affordable units as part of waterfront residential projects have not materialized as anticipated, with some neighborhoods preferring the affordable components to be located off-site in more traditional parts of their community.
For many decades, warehouses, fish processing, and maritime industrial facilities, which needed waterside access were the dominant commercial uses along the waterfront. High rise commercial buildings with class A office tenants, high-end condominiums, and other uses have largely replaced the more traditional commercial and maritime water-dependent businesses which need access to the water to operate.
Gentrification may be occurring in other ways: UMass-Boston was established by the state Legislature in 1964 to offer an affordable university education to metropolitan Boston residents. Located on the Dorchester waterfront since 1974, it provides quality education for commuting urban students, many of whom are the first in their family to attend a four-year college. Implementation of the university’s 25-year Master Plan is well underway, with new science facilities, academic buildings, and dorms to be constructed to reach a broader audience. Given the tuition costs at private colleges and universities, these improvements make UMass-Boston a very attractive alternative for middle and upper middle class families. Whether there will be impacts to lower income urban students which the university was originally intended to serve and to its immediate abutting neighborhood is not yet clear.
Publicly held lands may be the remaining alternative for public buildings and uses: Given the scarce amounts of remaining waterfront land, it will be increasingly difficult to site new or expanded public buildings near these growing waterfront neighborhoods. Police and fire stations, libraries, religious institutions, health care facilities, schools, and cultural institutions will be hard-pressed to locate near expanding waterfront communities, unless state and city agencies work together to dedicate land for some of these much needed facilities. The Massachusetts Port Authority and the Boston Redevelopment Authority are but two of a number of public agencies with land on or near the waterfront, and which are or will shortly be undertaking strategic planning processes.
As the Walsh Administration takes office next month, it will no doubt want to consider the implications of these and other changes as it plans for a robust and resilient waterfront that is welcoming to all.
Vivien Li is president of the Boston Harbor Association, vli@tbha.org
