BCEC expansion | Seaport

It's okay to be exploited by the private industry....but it's not okay to be exploited by the government?

I don't agree with some of the advantages provided to the unions, but as soon as they cease to exist, you anti-unionist will be paid less than you are paid now and devoid of many social benefits.
 
I cannot wrap my head around neighbors saying that hotels are not conducive to the vibrant community they want. Don't you think if you had the literally thousands of new people coming in every night that they would be more apt to go to restaurants and buy from neighborhood stores even MORE than an everyday resident. Hotels seem like an ideal use to complement more residents and a healthy neighborhood. I hope the state is able to successfully make this argument because boston needs a lot more hotels, and not just for the convention center.
 
Boston Herald said:
The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority made its first major move toward expanding the South Boston exhibit hall by drawing up plans to seize by eminent domain a privately owned D Street parcel for $33 million — and halt a long-anticipated housing project that was finally moving forward, the Herald has learned.

Instead of condos or apartments, the coveted 5.6 acres of land behind the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center would be built up with a pair of mid-priced hotels and multi-level parking garages, under expansion plans pitched last year.
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Oh, that sounds great. Exactly what the Seaport needs - to push out housing for the sake of ghetto hotels and multi-level parking garages.

How, again is eminent domain (seizure of an individual's property by the government to serve an urgent and clear governmental objective) justified here?

Menino is one corrupt quasi-tyrant. I hope the aggrieved parties here take the city to court. I can't see the city having any ground to stand on here.
 
Is that land owned by "an individual"? And what does Menino have to do with the Convention Center Authority? I thought that was a state agency.
 
itchy said:
Oh, that sounds great. Exactly what the Seaport needs - to push out housing for the sake of ghetto hotels and multi-level parking garages.

How, again is eminent domain (seizure of an individual's property by the government to serve an urgent and clear governmental objective) justified here?

Menino is one corrupt quasi-tyrant. I hope the aggrieved parties here take the city to court. I can't see the city having any ground to stand on here.
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BCEC is run by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA), authorized by the state and established by Chapter 190 of the Acts of 1982 and Chapter 152 of the Acts of 1997, so your criticism of Menino/Boston is waaaay off there.

Eminent domain for economic development is established caselaw under Kelo v. City of New London, and while I generally agree with you that such uses are a stretch under the definition of "public good", I highly doubt the Supreme Court will revisit this anytime soon in light of Chief Justice Robert's institutional deference and the fact that it was decided in 2005.
 
According to the Herald, the property was in the process of being sold from one developer to another developer.

Isn't there a limit on how long an approved and permitted property can sit undeveloped before it has to through the process again? If so, and if the property was near or at that limit, then the buyer's price may have been contingent on carrying over the permits and approvals.

This does not appear to be a contested taking, so maybe there are tax advantages to the REIT..
 
According to the Globe, it's a "friendly" eminent domain taking. AKA, both sides agree to the transfer, but they have to go through eminent domain taking procedures for some arcane legal reason. I mean, come on - notice a complete lack of uproar from the current property owner. This is hardly some big government power grab.
 
Hutchison said:
BCEC is run by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA), authorized by the state and established by Chapter 190 of the Acts of 1982 and Chapter 152 of the Acts of 1997, so your criticism of Menino/Boston is waaaay off there.

Eminent domain for economic development is established caselaw under Kelo v. City of New London, and while I generally agree with you that such uses are a stretch under the definition of "public good", I highly doubt the Supreme Court will revisit this anytime soon in light of Chief Justice Robert's institutional deference and the fact that it was decided in 2005.
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Criticism of the BRA is entirely relevant here.

1. The property owners have been capitalizing on BRA upzoning their parcels for years now. The value of the parcel includes the value of development rights, first upzoned by Cathartes, then upzoned for Intercontinental approvals. These approvals have been going on for 10 years, not just through the recession.

2. The entire BRA strategy for the Seaport to develop as a mixed-use urban neighborhood has been contingent on a simple premise. Instead of upzoning (e.g. adding value) to large tracts and requiring some residential development commensurate with new construction of office/hotel, the BRA has allowed property owners to secure new rights while phasing residential development into the infinite future. In doing so, the BRA has created pockets of (future) residential development where they have been pointing to for 15 years when asked "Where will the residents live?"

So, with the loss of this parcel, the BRA theory that you can land bank parcels for residential density and approve the rest for office/hotel falls apart.

What is surprising is that with the loss of Avalon Bay and this tract, the Seaport loses two very significant opportunities for residential development. Not a peep from the BRA. But when Google was considering the Seaport for office space, the BRA was moving mountains with offers of tax breaks, etc. to sweeten the pot.
 
Sicilian, I honestly think Boston is on the cusp of overbuilding residential, without having a lot more jobs coming to the city. And at the moment, I see a lot more residential, including universities building dorms to house 'off-campus' students, than I do employers filling the papers with Help Wanted ads.
 
I'm sure demand has waned as a result of the economy, but I'd like to see the numbers.

Certainly an increase in housing supply improves affordability, which probably has a net positive effect on the available workforce (as well as the existing one, considering renters are a strong bloc in Southie).

I can say that property values in the Seaport have been either stable or increasing during the recession, an indicator of reasonable demand. Maybe John Keith can weigh in on that.

As for me, I'm a fan of long-term planning. If property owners are enjoying the fruits of public works, public investment and upzoning, approvals should be consistent with the stated goal of a mixed-use urban neighborhood.

The current situation, not a single residential unit ever built on any vacant Seaport / Fort Point tract under BRA zoning control (e.g. excluding existing buildings and demolitions), is not workable.
 
I don't know if a city with the highest cost of living in the country outside of the NYC metro area could ever come even remotely close to overbuilding residential. Not that there's any research on "build x to reduce prices by y," at least not that I've seen, but I'd have to guess that you'd need a massive regional effort to get the needle to budge downward even a tick. We've got a lot of residential building in the pipeline currently for Boston, but is it enough to make a dent in the market? Tough to say, but it's hardly a huge number of units on a regional scale.
 
underground said:
I don't know if a city with the highest cost of living in the country outside of the NYC metro area could ever come even remotely close to overbuilding residential. Not that there's any research on "build x to reduce prices by y," at least not that I've seen, but I'd have to guess that you'd need a massive regional effort to get the needle to budge downward even a tick. We've got a lot of residential building in the pipeline currently for Boston, but is it enough to make a dent in the market? Tough to say, but it's hardly a huge number of units on a regional scale.
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Ya, I think you just want to stablize on the growth so not as to grow into having the entire city be a luxury condo village. There needs to be a focus on building up more density and large affordable buildings for families, especially in places like Allston, JP and the non-core neighborhoods. I mean Beacon hill is going to always be expensive because they aren't building many more neighborhoods like that.

We are very far from overbuild, and I think there is truly a generational shift for people looking to live in the cities over the suburbs. This will make downtown more expensive, but is also why we need to regionally promote density, amenities, and transit build out in places like Assembly Sq., North Point and other areas that people see as viable alternatives. This will help alleviate price pressure more than any single seaport building.
 
Development of 10,000 units of housing of any type (including luxury condo) on the waterfront would significantly improve affordability of housing throughout South Boston.

Those aren't my words, they were produced from a BRA study in the mid 1990's leading up to the multi-year Seaport master planning effort.

I've heard from reliable sources that demand exists for 35,000 units of housing in Boston. One can't look at empty units in a condo and suggest there isn't demand -- realtors have told me that unit owners in Fort Point, for example, are uncompromising on price so units sit longer.
 
underground said:
I don't know if a city with the highest cost of living in the country outside of the NYC metro area could ever come even remotely close to overbuilding residential. Not that there's any research on "build x to reduce prices by y," at least not that I've seen, but I'd have to guess that you'd need a massive regional effort to get the needle to budge downward even a tick. We've got a lot of residential building in the pipeline currently for Boston, but is it enough to make a dent in the market? Tough to say, but it's hardly a huge number of units on a regional scale.
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It's true that price is determined by supply & demand but only if the participants are following that rule.

For example, pretend you are the monopoly and you spend $300,000 per house. You construct 200 of them and the offer price of each is $400,000. However, only 50% are sold. There are still demand but they can only pay $200,000. There are, however, investors who can buy the last 50% at $350,000. What do you do? You take the cut and sell the remaining to investors who will sit on it until the value of the houses rise because you don't want to take a loss.

As a result, prices are kept "artificially" high while at the same time supply does not meet demand.

In other words, Boston has a lot of housing in the pipeline but the large majority of them are expensive condos which only a few can afford and a good portion, my guess, are bought as investments. These prices are kept high thanks to speculation. Builders know that there is demand for housing (which is true). Builders also know that the location calls for higher prices (which is true). What they don't understand is that most people cannot afford to pay for the houses. Prices will drop of course but the developers have a minimum amount (probably just above breakeven) that they are unwilling to go past.

You can build all the expensive condos you want but if nobody can afford it, then it wouldn't make a difference.
 
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