BLDUP
Update
08/29/21
Boston Mayor Calls For Removal of Downtown Boston Municipal Harbor Plan
Boston acting mayor Kim Janey has called on the Baker Administration to scrap the Boston Municipal Harbor Plan, the set of development rules that dictates waterfront usage in the city. "Climate resiliency and equity must be the driving practice of development," the Mayor said in a publicly broadcasted press release, suggesting any new waterfront usage plan will be made with a sense of urgency. Boston City Councilor Lydia Edwards encouraged the move, calling for more action to be taken on the issue of climate change in the City.
An essential piece in the City of Boston's Climate Ready toolkit, the Municipal Harbor Plan was an important guideline used in shaping waterfront development in the City in a way that proactively mitigates the effects of climate change. “Climate-ready Boston looks at the whole 40+ miles of waterfront and they’ve zoomed in on individual neighborhoods," Rob Caridad, Principal of The Chiofaro Company, told BLDUP in April. "We have taken our lead and participated in the process by incorporating these resiliency toolkits out of the downtown report,” Caridad said. “We want what we ultimately build to be compatible with what our neighbors are thinking, and compatible with the climate-ready plan. What is the role we can play? The benefit of the project is that it can be a catalyst, but it’s also important that it's integrated.”
The removal of the Boston Municipal Harbor Plan would cast both approved and under-construction developments, as well as long-since completed projects, into doubt, with the introduction of the Harbor Plan having taken nearly 4 years initially.
In April, Superior Court Judge Brian Davis threw out Boston's Municipal Harbor Plan that set rules for new development on 42 acres of the downtown waterfront, affecting plans for The Pinnacle at Central Wharf. In response, the Baker Administration began re-approving 17 municipal harbor plans throughout Massachusetts in an attempt to mitigate disastrous future legal challenges for coastal management.
