CITY STREETS
by Shirley Kressel
South End News, MA
Sept 27 2007
Parcel 13 is a designated Greenway park parcel, a small but important
parcel located near Columbus Waterfront Park and Faneuil Hall
marketplace, adjoining the site of the proposed Boston Museum. Like
all the others, its concept and design should be determined through
a full public process to maximize public benefit. It should be built,
programmed and maintained in the public’s interest by an entity fully
accountable to the public.
Toward this end, there can be no pre-conceived outcomes, no abridged
processes and no curtailment of opportunity to come up with the best
possible design for the park.
In consultation with Gov. Deval Patrick, who has promised to support
genuine civic engagement and democratic public process, Environmental
Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles wrote to the Turnpike Authority on June 8,
confirming the mandate for a true public process for the Greenway:
"Parcel redevelopment is subject to the CA/T Project joint development,
or tripartite, process established in the Project’s mitigation
requirements under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act MEPA
and the Federal Highway Administration Record of Decision.
This process arises not only from the language of the various
documents, but also from an established practice interpreting that
language. The process was designed to achieve broadest possible
consensus on the ultimate uses of the public open spaces created by
the Project. See Central Artery/Tunnel Joint Development Protocol
for Surface Parcels, June 6, 2003."
However, after a remarkably responsive, inclusive public process for
the creation of the Greenway thus far, the process for Parcel 13, the
last of the parks, has been privatized for a special-interest group
offering to pay the cost of construction of their preferred design.
The Turnpike, Mayor Tom Menino and the Boston Redevelopment Authority
are going through the motions of a sham two-meeting "process,"
orchestrated to legitimize a pre-determined design promoted the
Armenian Heritage Foundation, which has offered the Turnpike money
for allowing them to appropriate the park as a genocide memorial site.
The first meeting, on Sept. 19, purportedly to set design guidelines,
was a by-invitation neighborhood gathering packed with memorial
supporters, who openly used the guideline-setting exercise to further
their goal. The second meeting, scheduled for Thurs., Sept. 27, is
planned simply as a forum for the Foundation to explain how their
design meets their criteria.
At the meeting, the Turnpike outright refused to carry out the most
important part of the public process whereby the other park parcels
were designed: the competitive designer selection process. For those
parks, disinterested professionals were selected to work with the
public in creating the best possible designs for each parcel. That is
the heart of the public process, the key to the successful outcomes
on those parks.
This charade of a process for Parcel 13 violates the letter and spirit
of the CA/T agreements, and of the Administration’s letter.
The Turnpike and the Administration must remedy this embarrassing
subversion of "civic engagement." It is a betrayal of the public
trust – a fragile trust the Governor promised to restore as an
antidote to citizens’ loss of confidence in their government. Indeed,
neighborhood people who oppose this use of the parcel did not bother
to attend a meeting wasted on a "done deal." The broader public was
not even included.
It is shameful – and inexplicable – that the Turnpike Authority,
which managed $15 billion for the road project, designed and built
the entire Greenway according to a genuine and successful public
process, and committed a contribution of $10 million to the Greenway
Conservancy (a private group of donors chartered to give, not take,
funding!) cannot find the trivial sum involved in designing and
building a 16,000 square foot (one-third of an acre) park.
We should halt the Authority’s sale of our public realm, and demand
that a legitimate public process be provided for design of this
park parcel.
I have requested, on behalf of the public that has been locked out of
this unauthorized disposition of their parkland, that the Commonwealth
and the Turnpike Authority, the City of Boston, and the community Task
Force conduct a public process on Parcel 13 equal to that conducted
for all the other parks.
Regardless of the group, regardless of their proposed use (with full
appreciation for the worthiness of an Armenian genocide memorial),
and regardless of the Turnpike’s constrained budget (of which Parcel
13 would be an insignificant speck), the agency is obligated to
inform all interested parties – as it has done in the past – that
the "common ground" we have all awaited for over a decade is not for
sale, not now and not in the future. No Greenway parcel should be a
proprietary installation.
The Turnpike Authority should make a firm public commitment that:
~U There will be a park on Parcel 13.
~U It will be of a quality and character consistent with the other
Greenway parcels.
~U It will be designed through the same standard process that
produced the other parks ~U Guidelines set by a broad public process
~U Competitive designer selection process ~U Public participation in
design finalization ~U It will be funded, controlled and maintained
as an integral part of the Greenway, and its design and use, like
those of the other parks, will be able to evolve in response to future
changes in public open space needs and in the surrounding context.
All interested members of the public should attend the meeting on
Sept. 27 at 6 p.m. at the Nazarro Center, in the North End, to request
that an open, competitive designer selection process be carried out,
and that the people receive the best park, not the only one private
money will buy.