In an interview with Boston Public Library on Friday, Mayor Marty Walsh responded to a caller who protested an event at City Hall Tuesday, pushing for more affordable housing in a section of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury that is subject to rezoning.
“The Boston Redevelopment Authority announced it’s new name, but I’m worried about how that won’t change how they work with communities, historically,” the caller said during Walsh’s monthly Ask The Mayor segment on BPR. “...They’re planning thousands of expensive units, and even the affordable units are too expensive for most residents. You say we should talk and not protest, but you promised to come to an open meeting and now you won’t come.”
City officials are canvassing the Washington Street corridor at Egleston Square, in a planning mission entitled the ‘growth zone.’ According to Walsh, a large component of this zone would be dedicated to moderate to low-income housing. “I’m willing to have a meeting, but I’m not willing to get yelled at, to be quite honest with you,” Walsh said. “We’ve had some meetings in Jamaica Plain where we’ve had city hall employees going out there, explaining to the community what the planning process will be, and they’ve been yelled at, they’ve been sworn at, they’ve been disrespected, and that’s a disrespect towards the entire community in Jamaica Plain that wants to move forward.”
The Boston Planning and Development Agency (or BPDA), formerly the Boston Redevelopment Authority, changed its name on Tuesday, during a City Hall launch of the planning agency’s new changes. “When we talk about changing the Boston Planning and Development agency, ....we’re going to be going out to the community, we’re planning a development ....talking about how we can make the process of talking about development more open and inclusive so people feel like their voices are being heard and people feel that their say is actually being heard,” Walsh said. “We’re making complete changes there, and we’re changing the structure of the meetings, and I think that I appreciate protesting and I appreciate demonstrating, but I also ask for the respect of having conversations about how we move forward together. That’s what’s not happening now.”
The BRA was created in 1959 in an effort to remake Boston’s landscape, and began to gain a reputation to abuse throughout the 1960’s. “The BRA’s power was abused against the will of the people,” Walsh said. “We have to focus more on planning, we focus on development today, but we have to look at planning and how development affects an area. We’re really taking a look, when a development is being built now, in a city, we want to really look at the planning around that neighborhood to see how the infrastructure works.”
To hear Mayor Marty Walsh’s full interview with Boston Public Radio, click on the audio player above.
