Peter Forman
President and CEO, South Shore Chamber of Commerce
Age: 62
Industry experience: 16 years
Expanding job and housing opportunities south of Boston are top goals for the Quincy-based South Shore Chamber of Commerce. The 1,200-member business group, which represents 25 communities, is supporting communities’ attempts to diversify their housing stock and revitalize aging office parks and retail properties with new uses including housing. Chamber President and CEO Peter Forman joined the organization in 2005 following stints in the public sector as a state representative, Plymouth County sheriff and official in the administrations of former Govs. Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift.
Q: How big of an opportunity for housing production on the South Shore will the new transit-oriented development legislation create?
A: The chamber has been pursuing a housing production agenda for several years as part of our economic strategy, and in order to lower the average age on the South Shore, keep the talent pool we have in place and attract new talent, we have to change the housing mix.
It isn’t just the cost. We’ve had too many decades of promoting simply the detached single-family housing, and we think we need a more diverse housing stock: condos, apartments and more compact neighborhoods. The first stop on those was transit-oriented developments, because we had reopened the Old Colony railroad. Quincy has been leading the way.
We face other challenges here though. Even though we have land, there may be water or wastewater capacity issues once you get out of the MWRA zone, and we’re seeing developers including multifamily away from transit stops. We’ve seen a lot of development around the Hingham Shipyard and smaller projects and proposals in Scituate and Cohasset, and there are more proposals coming up around the Kingston Old Colony station.
Q: What other chamber initiatives are focusing on encouraging smart growth?
A: We have a big project with Metropolitan Area Planning Council right now that’s looking at a stretch of Route 3 between Hanover and Weymouth on both sides. We think there could be more development, but it’s limited by water and wastewater capacity. We’re doing a study of the potential buildout of this area, and that should help us get to some solution on the utilities. What they are modeling through six specific sites is what might go in given the general zoning and some active proposals, modeling the economic benefits to the towns, and then we’ll generalize and think about this whole corridor along Route 3 and imagine what we could do if we get together any number of towns and resolve some of the water and wastewater issues. That will leverage higher development, all within a fairly compact area.
Q: Does the study incorporate Union Point?
A: It is not one of the specific sites, but one of the big obstacles to Union Point is their own water and wastewater solution. They have to front the infrastructure costs. One of the challenges is how you build out a system that will support a development for 25 years, but you have to pay for it upfront. Another key area is the Plymouth-Kingston line between Cordage Park and the Kingston MBTA station, the Independence Mall and Colony Place, which is becoming a mixed-use zone. That also is a fairly compact area. And in Weymouth Landing, we’ve been working on that area for over 10 years and we’ve seen upwards of 500 units being added or planned for that area.
Q: What’s on the chamber’s wish list for the next legislative session?
A: The housing choice initiatives and TOD zoning was all helpful. We’re engaged with transportation issues and were looking at transportation in the region just when the T cuts were announced, and that’s pulled us back into focusing on the MBTA and Boston commuting issues.
We’re going to have a lot of discussions around reopening and assistance to small businesses. We expect a lot of new regulations and proposals around business issues: Unemployment insurance funds have to be replenished and that will affect a lot of businesses as they get back up on their feet. The family leave law could affect a lot of businesses trying to get back on their feet.
We expect there will be a lot of issues in towns in revitalizing empty retail spaces. We think that includes mixed uses and using housing as a strategy to reinvent and anchor areas that are losing a lot of retail space, whether that’s Main Street or malls.
Q: What’s the chamber’s current membership and your goals for enhancing member services?
A: Our membership is around 1,200. Obviously, we’ve cut back on the in-person events and shifted our programming to virtual. Some of that involves shifting member services more to a focus on startups and new businesses, and how businesses can pivot.
Q: What are some of the chamber’s next major initiatives?
A: Placemaking and the cultural economy: How do you make lots of small but interesting places around the South Shore that people want to visit, and how to incorporate the cultural economy into that. That’s probably our biggest new initiative: thinking about how we can help towns and physical spaces with economic activity.
Forman’s Five Books Finally Read During the COVID Slowdown:
- “The Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant” by Elizabeth Samet
- “President Without a Part: The Life of John Tyler” by Christopher Leahy
- “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” by Matthew Desmond
- “Warmly Inscribed: The New England Forger and Other Book Tales” by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone
- “It Was All a Lie” by Stuart Stevens
