Chiofaro needs to sue the pants off this idiotic city.
1. Chiofaro is not the owner of the Harbor Garage, Prudential is. So he has no property interest that would allow him to sue.
2. When Prudential bought the Harbor Garage (after an auction) from Sam Zell's Equity Office Properties Trust (Chicago) in 2007, the property was encumbered by an easement granted to the residents of HT. This easement gave the residents several hundred parking spaces in the garage for a period of 50 years. That easement expires in February 2022, and a state court recently ruled against the HT residents with respect to their claim that the easement ran to perpetuity.
3.) Existing Boston zoning and Chapter 91 severely restricts development of the Harbor Garage. For example, see several slides from this presentation of the Downtown Municipal Harbor Plan in 2013.
http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/23158cef-db38-4edd-8fa1-b8ae4baaa6e8
Until zoning relief is given (as would be allowed under an approved Municipal Harbor Plan) Prudential / Chiofaro can't build anything that even remotely resembles the Pinnacle.
4.) The miscues in the saga of this development, including by Prudential/Chiofaro, the Commonwealth, and the city of Boston, are many. The Commonwealth's lawyers failed to draft rulemaking that was consistent with the law of the Commonwealth with respect to approval of municipal harbor plans (not just the one for Downtown Boston). The city of Boston, under Marty Walsh, purposely slow-walked guidelines that were to be specific to this project, and which are to cover the interface between the public and The Pinnacle, the public realm surrounding the development site, and climate resiliency.
5.) I am not a Massachusetts lawyer, but I doubt very much that Prudential / Chiofaro have much of a case. It would be different if the Harbor Plan had been legally approved, and Prudential/Chiofaro had proceeded to spend significant sums relying on that approval.
6.) How many registered voters live in HT? How many members of archBoston are registered to vote in Boston.? The acting mayor, IMO, is pandering to the voters who live in HT.