At-large Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu, whose name has been mooted as a likely 2021 challenger to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, said the mayor’s planned review of the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals in the wake of a corruption case isn’t sufficient.

Walsh has asked an outside law firm to examine the rules and regulations in place that dictate how the ZBA conducts business on behalf of the residents of Boston, and those with matters before the board.

In an interview on WBUR’s Radio Boston program on Thursday, Wu said the city needs to identify the board member whose vote former Boston Planning & Development Agency official John M. Lynch told federal prosecutors he influenced in exchange for a $50,000 bribe in 2017.

The vote, a permit extension, allowed the as-yet-unidentified developer to reap an additional $500,000 in profit on the project’s sale, prosecutors said.

“The integrity of the entire board is in question,” Wu said. “I think we need some quick information. Who was involved?”

The ZBA members should be questioned individually to identify who knew Lynch, Wu said, and the board member who acceded to Lynch’s lobbying should recuse themselves from all future votes.

Later in the interview, Wu called for larger changes in the city’s development policies.

“If all our larger development policy is happening at this board of appeals level, case by case, special approval by special approval, it leads to a system that’s not transparent,” she told host Chris Citorik. “We need to focus on planning. … We have some ideas and some general aspirations but usually those planning exercises are not incorporated back into the zoning code.”

Wu promised to release ideas for how to reform the city’s system in the weeks to come.

Wu Pans Walsh’s Review of Boston ZBA

by Banker & Tradesman time to read: 1 min
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