Boston Mayor Martin Walsh is touting a series of recent reforms designed to address criticisms of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) for past backroom dealing and slipshod accounting and asset management.
Since July, the BRA has reduced a backlog of uncollected payments for city-owned properties leased to private companies from $4.3 million to approximately $500,000. It has also enacted new policies requiring developers and their investors to divulge conflicts of interest at the outset of the permitting process.
Walsh and BRA Director Brian Golden, his recent pick to permanently head the agency, briefed reporters on the changes Tuesday.
The reforms are intended to make the city’s permitting processes more transparent and predictable after complaints that favored developers received special treatment under the 20-year reign of Walsh’s predecessor, the late Mayor Thomas Menino.
In one of the most widely-cited examples, the BRA granted a no-bid deal to the owners of the Boston Red Sox in September 2013 to close Yawkey Way on game days for a private food court. The team paid the city $7.3 million, but the BRA did not put out a request for proposals from other developers for the city-owned property. The final agreement with the Red Sox was finalized the same day it was approved by the BRA board of directors, Golden said.
"Technically, it was a public process. The deal was presented at a public meeting of the board, but there was no opportunity for the public to speak or to examine the document," Golden said.
Under a new policy, disposition of city parcels will require community meetings and a 10-day public comment period.
The reforms are taking place during a once-in-a-generation building boom in the city, with more than 14 million square feet of construction under way this year. Walsh said his intent is not to stall the permitting pipeline while reforming the agency.
"One of the fears when I got elected was we were going to stop development in the city of Boston," Walsh said. "We haven’t stopped it. We’ve kept it going and we’ll make more adjustments as we go forward."
Walsh also acknowledged the need for the BRA to revamp its 40-employee planning division to provide more guidance on citywide growth. The lack of a long-term strategy is reflected in a mishmash of architectural styles built in recent decades.
"You can look at the buildings in the photo and you can see which ones were built in the 1960s, the ‘70s and the ‘80s," he said, referring to skyline mural in a BRA conference room. "There’s not really a defining style in the city of Boston."
One of the next steps is an ongoing $420,000 study of the planning division’s role by consultants McKinsey & Co. Golden said his preference is to expand the division to do more master planning in-house rather than relying on outside consultants such as Utile Inc., which is updating the master plan for the Boston Marine Industrial Park.
More broadly, the planning division will have a role leading the first citywide master plan undertaken in 50 years. That effort will begin in 2015.
Golden also said the agency should consider adopting written guidelines for evaluating tax breaks for commercial development, such as the $2.5-million, 13-year agreement granted this month for software company LogMeIn’s expansion in Fort Point.
"We’re still trying to get our hands around a comprehensive array of criteria that we could tell the world when someone approaches us (for a tax incentive)," he said.
