Parklands Under Assault – Update
By Chuck Anastas | July 24, 2024
In March, MCV’s blog, Parklands Under Assault, described the pressures exerted by the City of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on open space and recreational facilities in and around Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain.
We’re happy to report the city and state stepped up and kept their word on the Melnea Cass Recreation Facility and the “temporary” emergency housing cottages bordering Franklin Park.
As Gov. Maura Healey and Mayor Michelle Wu promised, the Melnea Cass Recreational Facility, after serving as a temporary shelter for immigrants, reverted to a recreational facility for the community at the end of May. The facility is now undergoing improvements, projected for completion by the beginning of the school year.
MCV thanks the Commissioner of the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), Brian Arrigo, for meeting the deadline. In the future, there will likely be more examples of public facilities temporarily converted to housing for immigrants or citizens displaced from floods and fires. Communities must trust that public land will remain so despite temporary emergency uses.
The Commonwealth is also closing the cottages on land abutting Franklin Park. The Commonwealth built emergency structures to house and provide additional services to homeless people living in tents on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Blvd. The state and city are working to find housing for the remaining cottage residents by the end of July.
On the other two sites discussed in the March Blog, the city continues to move forward with the deal with the Boston Unity Soccer Partnership, LLC, to renovate Franklin Park’s White Stadium for part-time professional soccer use. Meanwhile, a citizen suit claiming this land is protected by the Massachusetts Constitution’s Article 97 continues.
In a related development north of Boston in Everett, the New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and family are quietly lobbying the Legislature to remove harbor adjacent land designated by the state for marine/industrial uses to build a soccer stadium for their New England Revolution. Although it is not protected by Article 97, the land in Everett is a Designated Port Area protected for the men and women working in the fishing, shipping, and other water-dependent industries. Only the Legislature can remove this designation, and it seems it may do so.
Both of these new soccer stadium proposals beg the question: Why do our government leaders believe that giving up public land rights to professional sports stadiums makes long-term economic sense for the neighborhoods in and around these proposed developments? Giving up our public land rights is a form of subsidy, and professional sports team owners do not need public subsidies.
Finally, abutting Franklin Park, the Shattuck Hospital debacle continues under a veil of silence. After presenting a redevelopment of the facility on former parkland, the Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) accepted a development five times larger than originally proposed – a move since stayed by Gov. Healey but not yet rescinded. Since the March Blog, MCV received comments pointing out that the proposal accepted by DCAM was nearly ten times larger than initially proposed – our apology for the bad math.
Eliminating DCR’s $1.0 Billion Maintenance Backlog
The Healy-Driscoll Administration issued its second capital budget in late spring. The FY25 capital spending plan for DCR calls for $152 million in bonding for our parks and facilities, a $5 million increase over FY24, not enough to put even a nick in the $1.0 billion deferred maintenance backlog, accrued over more than a decade of chronic operational and capital underfunding. MCV has called for a $250 million capital expenditure each year for a decade to eliminate the backlog while allowing for continued level funding of existing capital improvements.
As you know, each year’s capital spending plan projects potential spending over five years. The Capital Investment Plan for 2025 – 2029 shows consistently flat capital investments in our parklands.
We laud the Administration’s commitment to growing DCR’s operations budget, especially this year given our uncertain state revenues, and for hiring a dedicated and skilled commissioner to make structural and cultural differences in the department. The next step in building a 21st-century park system is a commitment to capital spending commensurate with the need to protect and care for the vast open spaces and recreational facilities we have worked so hard to build.
Chuck Anastas
Massachusetts Conservation Voters