Rose Kennedy Greenway

http://www.mysouthend.com/index.php?ch=columnists&sc=city_streets&id=109059

This women is ruthless.

Sunlight to shine on Greenway Conservancy
by Shirley Kressel
contributing writer
Thursday Aug 12, 2010

Since the Central Artery project began, the Artery Business Committee (ABC), a lobby for local businesses, was planning to get control over the new open space atop the underground road. With coded mantras of "clean, green and safe," "excellence," and "first class," they exploited public fears of urban open spaces, and especially of impoverished "undesirables." At one of the meetings of Mayor Thomas Menino?s Artery Completion Task Force, I saw co-chair Dick Garver, of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, muse with ABC president Rick Dimino that "when you scratch the surface, it?s all about the homeless, isn?t it?"

As the park construction proceeded, the ABC created a private non-profit dubbed the "Greenway Conservancy" (GC), which promised to rescue the beleaguered taxpayers by managing the park funded solely by private philanthropy. But first, they wangled a four-year start-up period funded by seven million dollars from the collapsing Turnpike Authority and a million dollars from the Mayor. They got another two million dollars from the quasi-public MassDevelopment, arranged by Governor Deval Patrick when the by-then moribund Turnpike Authority could not meet their demand for ten million more; the MassDevelopment grant approval declares that "the Greenway project is consistent with ... the prevention of blight, economic dislocation, economic distress or unemployment, or the alleviation of the shortage of housing."

By the time the GC finally took on some actual work in February 2009, it had also managed to get itself a special law, negating its founding mission of using exclusively private funding and requiring the state to fund half of whatever budget it proposed. Their plans called for a budget of $11 million, apparently pegged to the maximum state commitment, $5.5 million a year, that they could push through the legislature.

The law also gave the GC a 99-year land lease for the park - tantamount to ownership. Fortunately, state officials granted an initial term of only five years, ending in February, 2014.

Now, the public must have access to information to evaluate the GC and, if appropriate, terminate the lease before that time. But the GC withholds detailed financial information, hiding behind its non-profit exemption from public record and open meeting laws -- even though it is funded heavily with public funds to manage public land. Executive Director Nancy Brennan says, "We are a private 501c3; our meetings and records are not public." But the GC?s enabling law, at Section 7, expressly requires annual reports, "detailing all revenues and expenditures of funds for the prior year, regardless of source." Ms. Brennan has insisted that, regardless, the Conservancy need only file the basic 501c3 disclosures required by the IRS, and no such annual report was filed for 2009.

The GC got their FY09 and FY10 state dole, $2.5 million and $3 million respectively, with no questions asked. This year, the GC requested $2.2 million. However, the GC?s legislatively specified funding source, the interest on the Central Artery and Statewide Road and Bridge Infrastructure Fund, was insufficient. It should have simply received less. But it received the full amount, in cash and in-kind services. This is a violation of the enabling law, and the contribution should be cut.

The good news, though, is that the state has finally conditioned its funding to leverage some long overdue demands, in a pointed letter of conditions:


The park must be open to all people at all times, consistent with state and city parks policy. The GC has been ejecting homeless people, its "welcoming to all" motto exposed as mere propaganda. MassDOT is finally requiring the GC to treat the Greenway as a public park and respect the rights of all users. It?s incredible that the GC received almost twenty million public dollars before our officials finally forced them to promise in writing to run this park as a democratic public space.


State money must be used only for horticulture and maintenance. The GC says that $2.4 million of its $5.2 million FY11 budget is for this use. The obvious questions then become: What is a reasonable maintenance cost for a ten-acre park (much of which is paved)? (Hint: NY?s Central Park runs on $30,000 an acre.) What is the other $2.8 million going for, if less than half is going for park maintenance? And most important: Why do we need a private Conservancy if the taxpayers are funding the park?s maintenance?


Publicly funded conservancy salaries must match those of equivalent state jobs. They are currently much higher. If the GC wants to keep paying more, they will have to make up the difference from other sources. These salaries will now all be public record; to date, the GC has revealed only the five top salaries required for 501c3 reporting (including Ms. Brennan?s $230,000 pay). MassDOT should also demand to see the Conservancy?s maintenance contracts with Work, Inc., the publicly subsidized non-profit for disabled people, to see how much the actual park work costs. Further, MassDOT should request documentation of volunteer maintenance work, which has further reduced the actual cost.


The GC must stop its profiteering through user fees for groups, including community organizations, wishing to hold events in the park. The GC has been running the Greenway as a rent-a-park, collecting thousands of dollars in user fees; but the fee schedule is not posted on their website. The chart below is from a document distributed at a board meeting. Per the new conditions, they can seek only "actual and reasonable cost recovery" for services they provide, and not for use of the park. And even that should be prohibited, as inconsistent with state policies.


The state will be providing maintenance services as part of its contribution, and in the future, state services will increasingly replace cash contributions. This is an excellent step; in this way, the state agency can gradually replace the GC as the custodian of the park.


The GC must comply with the state?s Open Meeting Law and Public Record Law when public funds are involved. We will learn what the GC classifies in the Horticulture and Maintenance category to qualify for state funding, and what it pays for these services. Once this is revealed, the state should put this contract out for competitive bids to get a true maintenance cost, and employ public union workers as it does for other state parks. This will save millions of taxpayer dollars - and create a more democratic public space.


MassDOT will require a full accounting of all sources and uses of revenue received from the use of the Greenway - which, as mentioned above, is what the enabling legislation required. The Executive Director, when pressed at a recent meeting to confirm that this legislative requirement will be fulfilled, answered that the reporting arrangements will now be negotiated with MassDOT -- implying that the GC is still unwilling to comply with its enabling law. MassDOT should firmly enforce all the legal reporting requirements as a matter of public accountability.

By leveraging its funding to ensure full public access to the park and to pry open the Greenway Conservancy?s books and meetings, MassDOT has finally begun the process of returning this park to the public domain, to the social and economic benefit of the taxpayers and citizens. State Representative Aaron Michlewitz should take the lead in filing legislation to take back our park.

In the August 12 print edition of the South End News, City Streets includes a table that shows sample fees for events at the GC.


Shirley Kressel is a landscape architect and urban designer, and one of the founders of the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods. She can be reached at Shirley.Kressel@verizon.net.
 
I agree with Kressel on this one. More sunlight on the Conservancy is called for.
 
172-2.jpg
This building looks like it;s being worked on?
175-2.jpg
 
Last edited:
With all the money being spent on the Greenway, the grass sure looks crappy. It looks like there's crabgrass and it looks a little "lumpy".

Sure, it's very green, but shouldn't it look like Fenway's outfield?
 
It's all the shadows. No plant life can grow anywhere near them.
 
Kressel has a fine point about increased transparency but she could have been more concise. All the grandstanding about maintaining access for the homeless, the "conspiracy" by ABC to take over the park, etc. really dilutes her main message. Then again, when you love to hear yourself talk . . .
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
Kressel has a fine point about increased transparency but she could have been more concise. All the grandstanding about maintaining access for the homeless, the "conspiracy" by ABC to take over the park, etc. really dilutes her main message. Then again, when you love to hear yourself talk . . .
Click to expand...

Yep, I stopped reading before she got to the point, I just couldn't handle the speculative moralizing. If the point was that the conservancy is corrupt, then she should start in with that.
 
Hyperbole about the homeless aside, I think Kressel's point is that parks run by public-private partnerships do not function entirely as public parks, and the scrubbing of parks as if they are a welcoming green for the park's abutters results in a park that may not be as successful as one run exclusively by the Boston parks department -- which often have a grittier feel.

It probably depends on the type of use. For example Post Office Square and the Public Garden are not for general recreation so no one complains if dog walkers or frisbee throwers are asked to leave by security hired by private conservancies. But people who I admire, for example Jerold Kayden of Harvard, suggest that quasi-private oversight of public spaces has negative consequences in terms of how the spaces are used.

The City of Boston's permitting of events is likely a lot more flexible than the permitting of events managed by the Greenway Conservancy, so I'd expect that the quality of events on the Greenway may be more polished and corporate, far less flavorful and community-driven than a truly public park. That's just a guess.
 
The Arnold Arboretum is another example of a quasi-public park, as it's technically owned by Harvard University.
 
^ Which means it's not "quasi"-public at all, and that the city (or any other) government has much less control over it.

These issues are much more pertinent where the local government has a real stake, because it's a public park (with the rights that implies) being run as a private facility by some private agency.
 
Per Wikipedia:

The Arboretum is privately endowed as a department of Harvard University. The land, however, was deeded to the City of Boston in 1882 and incorporated into the so-called "Emerald Necklace". Under the agreement with the City, Harvard University was given a thousand-year lease on the property, and the University, as trustee, is directly responsible for the development, maintenance, and operation of the Arboretum; the City retains responsibility for water fountains, benches, roads, boundaries, and policing.
Click to expand...
 
I am too lazy to go searching for the thread on this, but since the Greenway has detoured to the Arboretum, Harvard apparently completed its new building at the Arnold Arboretum last month.

BldgfrontMay2010.JPG


The above picture is May, 2010. (The full size picture is huge!)
 
Just got back from the Greenway. Completely dead on a day like this.

The North End had some activity but overall the Greenway is a BUST.
 
North End should have a huge amount of activity today since this is the middle of the Fishermen's Feast.
 
The city feels relatively dead in general this weekend. A lot of people are out of town.
 
Boston Globe - August 17, 2010
City calling for Greenway-specific zoning rules
Goals are lively parks, careful development

By Casey Ross, Globe Staff | August 17, 2010

Boston officials are scheduled tonight to consider new zoning guidelines that would determine the size and shape of the skyline along the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

The proposed rules would establish a framework for redevelopment in a central swath of the city, where officials want to prevent new building projects from forming a barrier between the Greenway and nearby Boston Harbor ? and casting shadows that they say would leave the area cold and unwelcoming.

In reviewing property around the Greenway, city officials concluded that developers could build as much as 3 million square feet of stores, residences, hotels, and offices in coming years.

Such development, they said, would have to complement surrounding city blocks as well as enliven the Greenway parks from the North End to Chinatown.

?The Greenway, first and foremost, is supposed to be a park, and a park that is a resource for the entire city,?? said Kairos Shen, chief planner for the Boston Redevelopment Authority. ?It also bears the responsibility of connecting the downtown to the harbor, so the Greenway has to be activated to generate life and activity.??

But how that latter goal is to be accomplished remains a source of heated debate.

Developer Donald Chiofaro has said the proposed rules would prevent him from building on the site of the Harbor Garage, where he has proposed two towers reaching 625 feet in height.

The proposed Greenway rules would limit buildings there to 200 feet, however.

?Two hundred feet is synonymous with the status quo,?? said Ted Oatis, Chiofaro?s partner. ?I?m hoping that the BRA board will follow a course of further consideration and seek a solution that would allow for constructive development.??

Chiofaro?s company is the development partner for the garage?s owner, Prudential Real Estate. Chiofaro has been locked in a dispute with Mayor Thomas M. Menino over redevelopment of the garage site.

He said City Hall is stifling imaginative redevelopment; the mayor said Chiofaro is trying to maximize profits at the expense of the Greenway?s aesthetics.

The BRA board will take up the proposed rules tonight, but officials said they are uncertain if members will vote on whether to approve them.

The board?s agenda includes consideration of several other development projects elsewhere in the city, including a proposed Liberty Mutual office tower in the Back Bay and a proposed hotel in the South End.

As part of a continuing effort to pressure City Hall, Chiofaro?s firm said it conducted an opinion poll that showed a majority of Boston voters support his proposed building plan, especially considering the jobs and tax revenues it would bring.

City Hall was not swayed.

?I don?t think anyone needs a poll to inform us that we want more jobs and development,?? said the mayor?s spokeswoman, Dot Joyce.

?Mayor Menino is elected to ensure they are good developments, not just buildings that make the rich richer and that leave out-of-scale projects on our waterfront for our future generations.??

More is at stake than Chiofaro?s plan, however. The proposed rules would shape development of 19 properties along the edge of the Greenway.

Some developers said the were pleased by the guidelines, noting they would allow for large buildings at select locations.

At the Government Center garage, for example, the city would permit construction of a complex of 400 to 600 feet, or roughly 40 to 60 stories.

?We?re just trying to focus on how these rules would be incorporated into a potential project here,?? said Thomas O?Brien, a former BRA director who is representing the owners of the garage site.

?I think the plan does a good job of preserving access to the Greenway while also enlivening it,?? he said.

Developer Ronald Druker, who owns buildings at the southern end of the Greenway near Chinatown, said the proposed new rules are reasonable.

The city?s plan would allow buildings between 80 and 175 feet in the area.

?That?s fine, as far as we?re concerned,?? he said. ?It?s been a thoughtful process.??

If adopted, the rules would guide developers considering new building proposals near the Greenway and allow city officials to push for changes if the plans exceed the prescribed limits.

But Shen said the ultimate goal is to write them into the city?s zoning code, which would give the city a stronger legal basis to reject projects that don?t comply.

City officials are planning to schedule additional public hearings in the next several months to begin the process of incorporating the proposed Greenway rules into the zoning code.

Casey Ross can be reached at cross@globe.com.
Click to expand...
 
^^

If the BRA does not develop this site into something interesting then from the Harbor Garage to South Station I don't see ever working. Nobody hangs out past the water fountains. I could actually see homeless people in the future claiming these spots on the Greenway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top