Boston Mayor Marty Walsh speaks at a 2016 event touting the city's Imagine Boston 2030 planning initiative. Photo courtesy of the city of Boston.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Boston Planning & Development Agency Director Brian Golden defended the agency and their reform efforts in the wake of attacks and calls for the agency’s dismantlement by at-large City Councilor Michelle Wu, widely speculated as a potential 2021 challenger to Walsh.

Wu’s accusations were contained in a 72-page proposal, released Monday, that accuses the BPDA of failing to ensure development met the city’s needs for affordable housing and efficient mass transit, specifically calling out 12 luxury multifamily buildings brought to market before 2017 and the lack of neighborhood-wide transportation planning embedded within the development process. The report also criticized the BPDA for not incorporating more rigorous climate change planning in its approvals process, specifically noting recent building in the Seaport District. Wu proposed that the BPDA be dismantled and its parts incorporated into several new and existing city agencies. The agency’s core planning and permitting functions would be reconstituted in a Planning Department similar to one possessed by most Massachusetts municipalities.

Wu said she thinks the agency should be conducting a democratically-driven citywide master plan and rezoning process as a way to enable more as-of-right development supported and not opposed by residents of the city’s neighborhoods.

Walsh said his administration has thoroughly overhauled the agency since his election in 2013.

“I immediately ordered an outside review of the Boston Redevelopment Authority [after his 2014 inauguration] and put in place significant reforms to bring transparency, integrity and accountability to our development and planning processes across the city,” he said in a statement provided to Banker & Tradesman. “We launched Boston’s first citywide plan in 50 years that, through the input of more than 15,000 residents, now serves as a framework to preserve and enhance our city. And it’s through Imagine Boston 2030 that the now-Boston Planning & Development Agency is running an unprecedented number of planning studies citywide where the community is our most important partner. Today, we have an agency that, for the first time, uses community engagement to guide growth that is inclusive and respects the history of each of our unique neighborhoods.”

A BPDA spokesperson touted the 2017 Imagine Boston 2030 process in an email to Banker & Tradesman. That planning exercise engaged around 15,000 residents during its development, and while it was not converted to zoning it “is being actively implemented through neighborhood planning studies and strategic plans that guide the City’s work everyday in housing, transportation, climate resiliency, and more,” the spokesperson wrote, adding that the agency has tried to significantly broaden its community engagement activities and has hired a team of four specialists focused on the task.

In a statement, Golden touted changes made since 2014, and accused Wu of ignoring the realities of planning processes.

“Under Mayor Walsh, the Boston Planning & Development Agency transformed from an agency stuck in the past to a vehicle for community engagement to guide inclusive growth that respects the history of each of Boston’s unique neighborhoods. Linking our planning and development review departments allows the city’s planners and development review staff the opportunity to work hand in hand, helping to ensure that new development fits within the context of a neighborhood and is responsive to the needs of the community,” he said. “While there is still more work to do, I am proud of the progress that has been made to not only improve the development and planning process within the agency, but modernize outdated operational functions internally and externally. Proposing to abolish the BPDA ignores the reality of the present day community-based planning agency, and discredits the hard working staff who are in our neighborhoods every single day engaging residents on how we prepare for Boston’s future.”