Boston College Master Plan

Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

Da Mayuh is getting feisty.

Mayor calls BC's $1b expansion plan an intrusion

Says concerns in Brighton ignored

By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | July 2, 2008


Escalating a simmering town-gown feud, Mayor Thomas M. Menino denounced Boston College's $1 billion expansion plan yesterday as an intrusion into the Brighton neighborhood and accused university leaders of arrogance in pursuing development goals with little regard for residents' concerns.

In a wide-ranging and sharply worded criticism of the plan, Menino said he squarely opposes BC's recently announced proposal to convert a high-rise apartment building about a third of a mile from the Jesuit university's main Chestnut Hill campus into a dormitory for 560 students.

Menino also restated his opposition to BC's plans to build new dorms on property it purchased from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and disputed the university's contention that it cannot house more students on its main campus.

"I want them to build on the campus they have right now, not buy up property and turn it into a dormitory," he said in an interview. "I think they can find the room and come up with a plan that will have the least impact on the neighborhood."

Menino's opposition to two central components of an expansion blueprint, which BC says is crucial to its future, deals a setback to its campaign to win the city's approval.

It also sharpens the gap between city officials and BC as the two sides begin to debate the details of the plan.

Menino criticized BC's approach in advancing the project, saying the school has not heeded doubts expressed by the neighborhood and the city.

"Confrontation doesn't work," he said. "I'm saying to them, 'Let's work together and stop pitting people against each other.' There has to be a balance between the interests of the city and the college."

Menino took particular exception to a recent effort by BC administrators to drum up support for the plan.

In a June 27 letter, president William P. Leahy urged alumni and BC employees who live in Boston to urge city officials to back the plan.

Menino said the lobbying effort was premature because the plan, filed with the city late last month, is in the early stages of review by the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
BC's plan needs approval of the BRA's five-member board, four of whom were appointed by Menino.

"My argument to them is, 'Listen to the neighbors,' " Menino said.

Jack Dunn, a BC spokesman, declined to respond directly to the mayor's criticisms, but said that university officials consulted with neighbors about the expansion plan for more than two years. Leahy's letter was sent in response to hundreds of calls supporting BC's campaign to house all its undergraduates, he said.

"Mayor Menino has a friend in Boston College, and our outreach is simply an attempt to demonstrate the widespread support for this master plan," he said.

BC announced last month that it planned to add housing for nearly 1,300 students over the next decade. To that end, the university recently agreed to pay $67 million for a 16-story apartment building at 2000 Commonwealth Ave.

The mayor's comments yesterday followed a story in Banker & Tradesman, a banking and real estate publication, saying Menino opposed the planned dormitory. The Boston Herald reported yesterday that Menino was irked by Leahy's letter to alumni.

If approved, the new housing would make BC the first university in Boston to provide dormitories for all undergraduates who seek it, BC officials say. Dunn said the Commonwealth Avenue dormitory is "the only way we can achieve that goal."

Menino said he remained confident that the city and BC can find common ground.

Many neighbors support BC's planned development on Commonwealth Avenue, saying that students will be better behaved in dormitories with college oversight than in off-campus housing. But neighbors generally prefer that dorms be located on campus.

"Everyone's in agreement that a solution that the neighborhood could support wholeheartedly would be to build all the housing on the main campus," said Michael Pahre of Brighton.
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http://www.boston.com/news/educatio...yor_calls_bcs_1b_expansion_plan_an_intrusion/

Mayor: BC off track with dorm plan
By Jay Fitzgerald
Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Mayor Thomas Menino yesterday blasted Boston College?s purchase of an off-campus apartment building in Brighton where the school plans to house hundreds of students.

Menino, who has been pushing colleges to build new dorms to get students out of residential neighborhoods, said he was disappointed by BC?s recent move to buy the 17-story apartment complex at 2000 Commonwealth Ave., about one-third of a mile from its main campus.

He noted that BC has claimed it could become the first college in the city to house all of its students on campus.

?Well, is 2000 Comm. Ave. on its campus?? he asked yesterday. ?That?s what they keep bragging about. But it?s not on the campus, is it? There?s a little inconsistency.?

The mayor stopped short of saying BC needs to back out of the apartment-building deal.

Asked if BC should abandon the apartments-to-dorm plan, Menino told the Herald, ?They?ve purchased it. . . . I?ll always work with BC.?

Menino is also upset that Boston College president William Leahy recently wrote to BC alumni, urging them to support the school?s 10-year master expansion plan and to lobby city officials to approve it.

?It?s a little presumptuous,? Menino said of the letter.

A spokesman for BC couldn?t be reached for comment yesterday. But BC has said in the past it hopes to work with the mayor on its building-expansion plans.

Some neighbors of Boston College have praised the university?s purchase of 2000 Commonwealth Ave., saying it will put students into a school-regulated dorm environment and get them out of nearby apartments.

But other neighbors have been critical of the move, saying BC has vowed to house students on its campus.

Menino said there are ?very diverse? neighborhood opinions on the matter and the city will consider them when reviewing BC?s master expansion plan.
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http://www.bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/view.bg?articleid=1104501
 
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Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

Let's hear it for Mayor Menino's leadership!!! Is it me, or did Tommy not demand that universities house more of their students on campus and yet in every instance where the universities have tried to accommodate that request Menino has sided with nimby neighborhood groups.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

Menino is also upset that Boston College president William Leahy recently wrote to BC alumni, urging them to support the school?s 10-year master expansion plan and to lobby city officials to approve it.

?It?s a little presumptuous,? Menino said of the letter.

What is up with Menino? It's ok for community groups and neighborhood associations to send out E mails to their groups asking them to E mail the Mayor's office addressing concerns they might have but it's not ok for BC to do the exact same thing? This is part of the democratic process and Menino is way out of line critisizing BC for doing what every neighborhood group has been doing for years.
The mayor pulled the same stunt with Suffolk over their plans to build a dorm where that registry building is. Menino asks the colleges and universities to BUILD MORE DORMS! The neighborhoods demand...BUILD MORE DORMS! When these same colleges and universities say, "OK, we'll build more dorms, they get slammed! "Not here! Still too close to us!" say the neighbors. "Not there, that land is our private santuary!" reply others. "Oh no, not there either, um..let's see, we'll, um, see that dorm when, um...the trees loose their leaves in the fall!"
I think BC should stick to their guns and build their damn dorms on the land that they OWN!
ps....not a BC or Suffolk alumnus here.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

Obviously, if the college had been smart, it would have said all students will live in "college-owned properties" not "on-campus".

I'm impressed that BC is going in that direction. We should cut them a break on this one.

The comment boards on several sites seem to back up the college, not the Mayor. Yay!
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

If anyone has a right to complain about this, it would be the soon-to-be-displaced residents of 2000 Commonwealth. Have they been heard from in this debate?
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

I suppose getting students out of neighborhoods has two purposes:

1. free up housing units for non students so theoretically rents/prices become more reasonable

2. remove students from neighborhoods for quality of life reasons. students in college controlled property have more oversight.

BC buying the apartment building on Comm. Ave. doesn't really advance the first reason as no housing supply is added, but rather some supply is removed from the neighborhood. However, it does address the second reason.

In a perfect world, I would have a slight preference to see BC add housing contigious or within their existing campus.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

In a perfect world, college students would be treated (and behave) like the adults they are and 'oversight' would not be needed.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

As I recall, the neighbors objected to new undergraduate dorms on the seminary property that BC acquired from the archdiocese, and objected to athletic fields on the same property because of noise and pollution, and objected to parking garages on the same property because of traffic congestion.

So if BC were to build all the new dorms on the original campus, I suppose they could do so by going high, with more complaints from neighbors about visual blight and loss of view, and moving some other proposed facilities, like a campus center or a student rec center, over to the seminary property, bringing yet more complaints.

Wonder which trustees might be paying a visit to the mayor?
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

The Brighton NIMBYs are just greedy, right now they have a virtually abandoned property next to them that serves as a maintained park that the college kids don't go to because there is nothing there.

Think of the horrors the proposed baseball and soccer fields would bring! a cheap night out for their kids to see some of the premier college baseball players in the country. All this after their kids come home from school where BC students volunteer in large numbers during the week. (BC has near top of the nation volunteer numbers for a college eerr university) Maybe after the game they could go out to dinner at some of the places in brighton that would not even be there if it weren't for all those annoying drunk college kids that keep them open.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

BC neighbors plot new push to corral dorms

By Andreae Downs
Globe Correspondent / July 6, 2008

Boston College's neighbors are taking a new tack to push their longstanding grievances against the school.

The effort involves about 50 Brighton residents who are dissatisfied with the way BC has responded to neighborhood and Boston Redevelopment Authority objections to its 10-year expansion plan.

After much heated discussion Monday about what they might be able to achieve, the group decided to start calling, writing, and e-mailing elected and appointed officials.

Their goal? To get BC to put as much student housing as possible on its old campus.

In its plan filed last month with the BRA, the university would house 560 students at a high-rise apartment building at 2000 Commonwealth Ave. that it recently purchased.

Dorm accommodations for another 220 undergrads would be added to the college's traditional Chestnut Hill campus, between Commonwealth Avenue and Beacon Street in Brighton. Another 500 dorm beds are proposed for the "Brighton Campus" - what BC calls the former Boston Archdiocese land north of Commonwealth Avenue. School officials also agreed to prohibit BC students from renting one- or two-family homes in the neighborhoods once all the dorms are built.

Roughly the same group of residents, who have organized as the BC Neighbors Forum, had turned out last winter to lobby against dorms proposed for the Brighton Campus, which is now mostly open space, and asked that all students be housed on campus. Comments to the BRA on the initial project outlines, submitted in January and February, were almost unanimous in these points.

The group includes longtime residents who have successfully fought past university expansions, run for elected office, and are or have been active in well-regarded neighborhood groups like the Brighton Allston Improvement Association and Brighton Historical Society.

Homeowners just south of the Brighton Campus, on such streets as Lane Park and Radnor Road, estimated that about 40 percent of the properties are rented out to students.

"I have not had one weekend of uninterrupted sleep," said Karen Marshall, who lives on Lane Park. "I'm about ready to go. Another five years of this and we're all gone."

Others said they were also sleep-deprived, but said it was time to work out a deal with the university. They suggested that the neighborhood champion some student accommodation, either at 2000 Commonwealth Ave. or on the Brighton Campus, in order to make sure BC students would be moving out of their area.

"We have to convince the BRA. How? By just saying no?" asked Sandy Furman, another Lane Park resident. "It may sound good, but I don't think it will work."

But more residents, including Furman's wife, Fran Gustman, opposed any compromises, which divide neighbors based on how close they live to the proposed student housing. They urged that the neighborhood take a stand against both off-campus housing and Brighton Campus dorms.

"BC is stonewalling," said Elsa Lieberman, of Kirkwood Road. "If we give in, we might as well lay down and let them roll on over us."

Calls to Boston College officials seeking a comment were not returned. In the past, BC representatives have said high-rise dorms on its Chestnut Hill campus, the option preferred by neighbors, made for a poor student experience, and the school had determined that spreading out dorms was a better option.

Residents pointed to the 19-story Commonwealth Avenue building, and asked why that was feasible while a five- or six-story dormitory on campus was not.

Neighbors also examined Mayor Thomas Menino's reported comments about the unacceptability of building on the Brighton Campus, leaving students in the neighborhoods and making 2000 Commonwealth Ave. into student housing.

"The mayor has demonstrated that he's still the mayor of neighborhoods," said Theresa Hynes, a local activist. "Let's be hopeful. We are a strong neighborhood."

Calls to the mayor's office seeking a comment were not returned last week.
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link
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

After much heated discussion Monday about what they might be able to achieve, the group decided to start calling, writing, and e-mailing elected and appointed officials.
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hmmm...like bc asked some alumni to do, which in turn sparked outrage!

The Nimbys have all the momentum now. They can't legally force BC to house all students on campus though (can they?). What are the chances that brighton dorms get turned down and BC refuses to go higher leaving maybe 10% (give or take a few points) off campus? I would love that.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

The bottom line here is that the NIMBYs will vehemently oppose anything BC does or attempts to do. The mayor and BC leadership have to realize that by now. This is just another example of how "town-and-gown" relations grow so toxic... the neighbors lose all rationality and present the college with impossible challenges: "you can't keep doing what you're doing, but we won't let you do anything else."

Frankly, BC needs to just bring in the bulldozers in the middle of the night and build whatever they're going to build on their own property. Waiting for the neighborhood to accept it means sitting on their hands and never get anything done.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

With an admitted BC bias (because I currently go there), I have never heard of colleges (not just BC but BU, NU, Tufts, etc.) get such a little amount of respect from the neighboring public, who at BC enjoy a beautifully maintained and under utilized park that is the seminary. There are so many restrictions place on the school that other schools don't deal with (i.e. limited tailgating at football games, which GT in the middle of Atlanta doesn't deal with).

They just like to have all the good with out giving back an inch. I live in a horribly maintained apt about 2 miles from campus with a ridiculous rent. BC should be allowed to accomodate its students on its campus. It would be better for both parties. And everyone can sleep soundly.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

In Allston, the community vigorously opposes the greater density and mid-rise height that would result from relocating the Charlesview apartments and building additional new housing as part of the Charlesview relocation (in conjunction with Harvard's expansion in Allston).

In Brighton, the community is pushing for greater density and more height, in contrast to the more horizontal and dispersed campus that BC proposed.

Maybe Harvard and BC can swap land.

BC has not done the best job of explaining what it is doing. The 2000 Commonwealth Ave purchase could obviate the need for BC to build new undergraduate residence halls with 500 beds on the Brighton campus. The Lake St. neighbors strenuously object to these new dorms. But this result does not seem to have been presented right from the start.

IMO, there is space on the main campus for additional new residence halls, and even new residence halls on the Brighton campus could be re-sited to be on Comm Ave across from the cemetery. Either way, BC could house all its undergrads on the main campus or on the Brighton street-side of Comm Ave.

But to have all the undergraduates living on the main campus would require that BC move even more athletic fields and a large recreation center onto the Brighton campus. And neighbors are already objecting to having playing fields in Brighton: too much fan noise; too many lights at night; alleged pollution from rain runoff; too much traffic from spectators; too many students using that part of the campus; etc.

Simply, the Brighton community cannot have it have both ways.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

If BC had to pay taxes like I do and follow zoning like I have to then I would agree with the last few posts. Seeing that they don't have to do either then I respectfully disagree.

Purchasing an apartment building off campus and calling it a dorm was not what the actual taxpayers had in mind and just serves to poke the hive. They seem to take the I'm rich I can do what I want attitude that has poisoned Harvard's relationship with its neighbors. Purchasing land that their Catholic neighbors feel was stolen from them doesn't help either.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

I have a feeling BC may use the 2000 Comm ave building as leverage in their negotiations. Mumbles does not want that land taken off the property tax roles and, they will say okay we will sell it or keep it as taxable land and not put students in it but we get to put dorms on Brighton.

BC does not have more space for dorms on the main campus. In the plans I believe there is already added dorms on the main campus. That is in addition to the over 1000 living on Newton campus 2 miles away. Added the approx. 2 thousands students that live off campus on the main campus would be way to much. 500 on brighton is not bad, and the property is big enough that if the dorms are centrally located then it would be nearly impossible to hear the kids that "stay up too late and talk too loud."
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

^^

I agree with you to an extent, but I think BC's purchase of that apartment building was in response to the neighbors' demands that students be housed in BC property. All things being equal, BC would never have taken that course.

I just feel as though the neighbors don't want students anywhere (and it isn't the same neighbors at each location). No one seemingly wants these horrible, poorly-behaved delinquents infesting their streets, even when, as others have pointed out, they enjoy a wide range of benefits and open space. Like the Harvard project in Roslindale, you can't enjoy the park at the school's expense and then whine when they choose to utilize the land.

Does BC pay property tax or have zoning? No, they don't. If anything, that should serve to further remove them from public oversight, not give them a grater obligation to the will of the mob. I can certainly see where it's reasonable that without the automatic oversight of zoning regulations the school should have a greater willingness to seek feedback in other ways, but they're doing that already by going through this review process and attempting to meet the impossible requirements of the neighbors. In a negotiation, both parties have to be willing to compromise, and I see no willingness to compromise here.
 
Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

^^^
BC, as do other colleges and universities, makes payments to the city in lieu of taxes. These payments cover property used by the college or university for university purposes.

If 2000 Commonwealth remained as a commercial venture under BC ownership, BC would pay property taxes on it.

Last year, MIT paid Cambridge $1.9 million in lieu of tax payments, $7.1 million in fees and licenses, and $25.3 million in real estate taxes.

Several years ago, Harvard bought part of the old Watertown Arsenal. Here is the deal Harvard reached with Watertown:
Last August, Harvard initiated its commitment to providing guaranteed revenue through the University's $3.8 million prepayment of fiscal year 2002 estimated real property taxes to the town. Beginning in fiscal year 2003, the $3.8 million base payment will grow at a rate of 3 percent per year through fiscal year 2054. For its part, Harvard receives certainty in knowing that future conversions of the property to academic, research, and support uses ordinarily associated with a university campus will be allowed "as of right."
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http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/09.26/03-watertown.html

Colleges and universities are subject to zoning, building codes, etc.
 
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Re: Boston College Master Plan debut

Colleges and universities are absolutely NOT subject to zoning codes. While any building they construct is subject to city review, it cannot be legally challenged on the basis of variances granted. Any property owned by a university is included under the umbrella of the institutional masterplan, which is bullet proof to existing zoning codes and legal challenge.
 
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