Photo by James Sanna | Banker & Tradesman Staff

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu took another step forward in her plan to bring the city’s planning and development arm more firmly under the control of elected officials.

The mayor filed an ordinance with the Boston City Council Monday that would create a new city Planning Department to take over planning, development review, real estate management and urban design from the BPDA. The proposed law creates mechanisms to preserve BPDA workers’ retirement plans and exemption to city residency requirements for long-serving workers or workers whose union contracts included an exemption.

In order to keep the organizational move cost-neutral, the ordinance would have the BPDA – designed to be self-funded from leases and other payments made on city-owned, redeveloped land – transfer money to the city to fund the new Planning Department. The ordinance also says the city and the BPDA will create a process to transfer ownership of BPDA-owned land to the city.

Under the ordinance, the BPDA’s board will continue to review and approve development proposals as a regular planning board might, subject to recommendations from the new Planning Department, but it does not change the Article 80 process under which developments are reviewed. Wu had appointed a task force of developers and neighborhood activists to hammer out a new process that she’s promised will be more streamlined that the current one, which can leave developments under review for many months or even multiple years. That task force has not yet reported recommendations.

Combined with a home rule petition Wu filed with the state legislature last year to dissolve the BPDA’s two component parts, the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the city’s Economic Development and Industrial Corp., and merge them into a single entity with new urban renewal powers geared towards climate change and housing affordability instead of combating “blight” and “decadence,” the ordinance would go some way towards the mayor’s campaign trail pledge to “abolish” the BPDA. Legislators on the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business have until Feb. 7 to vote on the home rule petition, otherwise Wu will have to refile it next year.

Wu testified on that home rule petition before state legislators last month, saying it and the larger BPDA reorganization were necessary to create “a modern, transparent, and predictable system that’s accountable to our residents and communities that development is supposed to serve.”

The changes will also give city councilors direct control over the new Planning Department’s budget, likely increasing their influence over development review and zoning changes.

The City Council will take up the mayor’s proposal for the first time Wednesday.