Profile of Boston's Chief Planner; discusses towers and Dainty Dot

as far as linkage fees go and appeasing neighbors, nothing unique about boston there.
could this article have covered anything besides some authorities' architectural tastes? he is the chief planner - housing production? land use policy? relationship with transportation planners? and he is the chief of redevelopment at the same time (is the BRA the only big city agency in the country that puts planning and redevelopment under the same arm?) - site assembly? disposition? redevelopment priorities?
i learned 0 about the BRA. very uninformative.
 
Any time when one puts clowns in charge, like at the BRA , don't be surprised when a circus ensues.
 
Sidewalks, while I agree that it would be "political suicide" to work with neighborhood leaders prior to running a large project past the BRA, I know for a fact that this is common practice on smaller projects. On the vast majority of these, the mayor has no agenda and in the unlikely event that he forms one, his view (and the BRAs) is likely to echo that of the neighborhood leaders whose views the developers are keen to solicit. None of this is destined for the papers, and it's understood on both sides that there are no promises made prior to formal review. As a practical matter, it's difficult to ensure reaching the correct audience at the BRA if you have dreams but no P&S in hand. Again, smaller projects only.

The BRA's involvement in 212 Stuart goes beyond simple massing to stripping architectural detail. Frankly it is embarrassing that Mr. Shen and his colleagues are fussing with this, given the city's track record of rubber-stamping banal or awful designs on far more prominent projects. And it does appear that a stripped-down modernism is the prevailing BRA orthodoxy, which I take to be a reaction to the Hotel Commonwealth debacle. The red pen seems to be sketching out grim precast blocks that look like scaled-down versions of the dreck that is being built at the Seaport. The article is far too kind.
 
AHA! So this is the villain who signed off on One Charles! Why did he delete the mobile of the 25 foot aluminum flies circling the roof top?
BTW, has human life ever been detected on one of those Atelier balconies?
 
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