Last week, the Boston Planning Department announced that it was no longer going to support the Parcel P3 development plan that was presented by HYM and My City At Peace team and supported by the community through the community evaluation process written into Article 50, Section 2 of Boston’s Zoning Code in 1990.

Last Monday’s announcement at a meeting of the Roxbury Strategic Masterplan Oversight Committee by the Planning Department that it intended to allow the Parcel P3 designation to HYM and My City At Peace partnership to expire at the end of the month was met with strong criticism from committee members and the community at large. Traditionally in development designations around the city and during the prior Parcel P3 designation, the developers wer provided multiple extensions to give them time to adjust their financial strategy to address market changes.

But unlike in the past, the Wu administration through Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) Director Kairos Shen, decided to scuttle the project that included a large retail space, a museum and community center for Embrace Boston, the nonprofit organization that honors the legacy and love of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. This development also includes 466 apartments and homes for sale at subsidized affordable housing rates. It also includes 600,000 square feet of lab space. The revenue from leasing the lab space is an integral component of the financing. All parties acknowledged that the current lab space leasing market does not present the stability necessary to secure the financing required for this plan to move forward at this time.

However with any major economic development project that has gone through multiple years of community input through the Roxbury oversight committee and the Roxbury Neighborhood Council it should not be the city’s sole discretion to cancel. This process required years of investment from the community partners, the developers and the community oversight organizations. It should be clear that the community oversight partners must be part of any decision to discontinue the support for development.

The developers who partnered with the city also deserve a chance to be treated like a true partner and be given at least one extension to retrofit their financing plan to attract another tenant from Boston’s growing local corporate market, such as the hospital research field, for example. Which I understand the developers have been negotiating to lock in a tenant from Boston’s medically rich community.

This decision, however, was not solely the city’s responsibility to de-designate. As cited above, the requirement for this oversight participation was written into Article 50, Section 2 of Boston’s Zoning Code in 1990. But candidly zoning code or no zoning code it should have been clear in light of all the City Council support for an extension that this decision was going to be met with anger based on the disrespect the community oversight groups and community are feeling based on the shortsighted way this incorrect dissection was rolled out.

The city touts the merit of its plans to develop a New Madison Park High School on the P3 site. However, the state’s invitation to apply for the first step of a potential funding process is no guarantee and even if they are successful at the end of the three- to four-year funding process they can only net $240 million, which is one-third of the total $720 million proposed budget for the school development. Though this may seem like a lot in light of the city’s project $100 million dollar plus taxpayer supported funding for the redevelopment of White Stadium to allow a professional soccer team to have a home in Boston’s Franklin Park seems shortsighted at best.

Is there no other location to place the new high school? Can you apply for the state funding with out a confirmed site? Can the school be rebuilt on its current location in sections? All these options should be fully reviewed with the oversight boards before they are so easily dismissed.

Also, announcing during the week of Martin Luther King’s birthday that you are going to walk away from such a long-standing community process and commitment without any real plan to create the economic development that the Roxbury community deserves and has been told by this administration that it is committed to, seems to be insulting to the community.

When you sit in the pulpit of the historic Twelfth Baptist Church during their Martin Luther King celebration as I did last year and as the mayor did this past week, you can’t help but feel the power and glory of a community that is determined not to continue to have its dreams of just economic development deferred in the Roxbury community. I understand partnership goes both ways. But the Roxbury oversight committee, the Roxbury Neighborhood Council and community at large have been great partners during this multiple year long process. For then to become damage collateral due to a real or perceived slight from another development partner will only damage the city’s current relationship with Boston’s Black community. Remember the HYM and My City At Peace team are not the city’s only development partners on this Parcel P3 designation. The whole Roxbury community is, and it is time the city acknowledges that and starts to treat the community with the respect it deserves.

Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner