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Allston Civic Association President Anthony D'Isidoro chats with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu before a ceremony creating an independent planning department/Banker & Tradesman Staff Photo by Steve Adams
As you read this, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is signing an ordinance to largely replace the Boston Planning & Development Agency with a new Boston Planning Department. Boston City Councilors OK’d the move last week, but state legislators still need to act on a separate home rule petition to complete the process.
We’ll have more details in tomorrow’s newsletter, but in the meantime, a Banker & Tradesman editorial from February summarized what’s changing, and what’s not changing under the new system (in short, not too much, as far as the Article 80 development review process goes).
The ceremony is being held at The Last Tenement in the old West End (below, Wu and Allston Civic Association President Anthony D’Isidoro talk while waiting for the event to start).
It’s a fitting choice given the mayor’s belief the BPDA never truly left behind the undemocratic sins that led to the West End’s demolition in the early 1950s – the same reasons she fought hard to bring its planners and development-review bureaucracy formally under city control.
What else is on tap today?
- Lab Rents Under Pressure: Asking rents for life science space in Greater Boston have declined 10 percent from 2022’s peak and landlords are likely to offer further concessions amid a recent uptick in sublease space.
- Larry Lucchino Dies: The former Boston Red Sox and Worcester Red Sox owner who used ballparks to help reshape Boston’s Fenway and Baltimore’s Camden neighborhoods, and kick off Worcester’s renaissance, was 78.
- Safra, JPMorgan’s New Brances: The bank tied to the new leaseholders for Boston’s Quincy Market retail complex has filed to open its first location in Boston, among the applications by banks to open new branches last month.
- T Hiring Warning: The addition of hundreds of new bus drivers, repair workers and subway operators is bringing back service levels at the MBTA, but a new report argues T leaders can’t “take progress for granted.”
Show me the data!
Here’s how many single-family homes have been sold each recent month.
What did I miss?
Here’s what you might have missed in Sunday’s newsletter. Not a B&T subscriber? Fix that here.
- The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority has a chance to make a dent in several problems problem by rethinking what it does with its 6.5 acres of empty D Street and E Street lots.
- Municipalities throughout New England have long struggled to create opportunities to help alleviate the region’s severe housing crisis, without realizing potential solutions may already be within their control.
- A recent renovation project by Vantage Builders updated the lobby, clinical space and offices of Lutronic’s Billerica headquarters.
