Attempts to redevelop properties such as the Harbor Garage site at Boston’s Central Wharf have fanned the debate over private property rights versus public access to the shoreline.
If only all development debates were this easy.
Travel company Education First wants to begin the next phase of its East Cambridge campus with a new 300,000-square-foot student housing and office building. That drew the recent attention of the Conservation Law Foundation, which raised red flags to regulators in May about the extent of EF’s mitigation plans. Less than a week later, EF agreed to contribute $500,000 to a trust fund for upkeep of the nearby North Point Park.
CLF threw its support behind the project, and the state’s top environmental official signed off on the plans.
“It wasn’t like (EF’s) arms were getting twisted,” CLF Senior Counsel Peter Shelley said. “They were really trying to figure out how to integrate these public benefits into their private interest of having an expanded campus. It’s the kind of public-private outcome that everyone’s trying to accomplish.”
Arm-twisting remains the name of the game in Boston, however, as developers grapple with abutters and watchdogs over a series of high-profile waterfront proposals.
The projects, developers say, would generate untold millions in economic benefits while upgrading prime sites currently occupied by barrooms, a seafood pound, a 1970s-era parking garage and rotting harbor pilings.
While each proposal faces unique regulatory and legal issues, all are fanning the debate over private ownership rights versus public access to the shoreline. Such luxury lodgings, high-rent office space and trendy restaurants will be enjoyed by a privileged few, opponents say, flaunting centuries-old legal doctrine that preserves the shore as a public trust.
“We feel pretty strongly these parcel-by-parcel approaches are taking big bites out of the waterfront,” said Kathy Abbott, CEO of nonprofit advocacy group Boston Harbor Now.
DEP Ruling A Setback To Hotel Developer
At Lewis Wharf in the North End, a recent ruling by the state Department of Environmental Protection dealt a blow to developer JW Capital’s plans for a 277-room hotel extending into Boston Harbor.
Environmentalists and neighborhood opponents say Lewis Wharf owner Philip DeNormandie forfeited the right to build on the proposed footprint by allowing sections of the pile field to fall into disrepair. A DEP opinion released this month said the poor condition of the area could require a “reduced footprint” for the project.
“What is being proposed is going to have to be significantly redesigned,” said Jill Valdes Horwood, director of waterfront policy for Boston Harbor Now. “The meat and potatoes of that project was building on those pile fields. That is going to have to be back on the mainland.”
John Moriarty, president of Winchester-based John Moriarty & Assoc. which would be the project’s construction manager, said the project team is reviewing the ruling and its options.
Aquarium Seeks ‘Survivability’ And Financial Help
State Chapter 91 regulations adopted in 1990 limit the height and density of waterfront developments. But communities can approve taller and denser projects if they put together a municipal harbor plan that requires developers to improve public access to the shoreline as a tradeoff.
That’s the game plan for Boston-based Chiofaro Cos. and the owners of the James Hook & Co. seafood pound, two downtown properties eyed for major redevelopment projects.
Chiofaro’s original plans for 1.3 million square feet of offices, luxury residences and hotel rooms on the site of his 8-story garage on East India Row have run into stiff opposition from residents of the Harbor Towers condo towers and environmental watchdogs.
But the New England Aquarium has emerged as the most vocal and potentially influential party as state Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton prepares to rule on Boston’s downtown waterfront municipal harbor plan, clearing the way for Chiofaro to begin local permitting.
As a water-dependent use, the aquarium enjoys special protections from the effects of the Chiofaro project, said Maliz Beams, the aquarium’s interim CEO.
The draft municipal harbor plan requires Chiofaro to come to an agreement “to protect and promote” the aquarium. The two sides have been in negotiations throughout the year but haven’t reached an agreement, Beams said.
“We’re focusing on survivability through the three-year construction period of a billion-dollar effort on our doorstep,” Beams said.
Approximately 30 percent of the aquarium’s 1.3 million annual visitors park at the existing harbor garage, and the aquarium relies on visitor revenues for $35 million out of its $45 million in annual revenues, CFO/COO Eric Krauss said.
“We need proximity to parking during construction and post-construction given our audience, which is the mother with the two kids in the stroller,” Krauss said.
The draft plan already includes a $5 million contribution by Chiofaro Cos. to the “Blueway,” a long-range plan to relocate the Aquarium’s IMAX theater and open up a 1,000-foot-long promenade to the harbor’s edge.
Chiofaro did not respond to a request for comment on the status of negotiations.
Lawsuit Challenges Condo Tower
CLF has filed a legal challenge of developer Cronin Group’s plans for a 22-story condo tower on the site of its Whiskey Priest and Atlantic Beer Garden pubs on Seaport Boulevard.
The state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs approved the project last year despite no provisions for public facilities that promote water-dependent activities or passive recreation, as required by the property’s Chapter 91 license dating back to 2000, the lawsuit states.
Cronin Group’s attorneys are expected to file their response by June 28.
Boston Harbor Now’s Abbott said the ongoing Boston 2030 master plan – the city’s first comprehensive study in 50 years – offers an opportunity to take a big-picture look at coastal development impacts. That could include a comprehensive set of guidelines for coastal development – rather than separate harbor plans for different parts of the shoreline – and a pooled mitigation fund to pay for public improvements and resiliency, Abbott said.
“What’s been happening for a while now is the public has been responding to proposals from the private sector,” she said. “We’d like to create a vision together. The mayor has started planning in a way we haven’t seen in a while and that’s something we want to build on.”
