“Given that every resident contributed to the billions of dollars it took to clean up the harbor, we think it’s important that everyone have access to the use of and enjoyment of it,” CLF president Brad Campbell said.
Campbell says CLF is championing this cause because of its role as a watchdog of state waterfront regulations, a responsibility that includes designated port areas. He says CLF has become more involved lately because these industrial parcels, and the jobs they support, are under greater threat amid the heat of the real estate market.
CLF took back Boston Harbor from polluters.
“This plan unlawfully puts the interests of developers ahead of the public’s rights on the waterfront,” said CLF President Bradley Campbell. “Approval of this plan not only violates decades-old laws governing the waterfront, but also sets a dangerous precedent by signaling to developers that they can buy their way out of rules that have balanced public and private development interests for years. The state must stop disregarding the public’s rights when it comes to waterfront development.”
In the face of rapid and irreversible development activity on the waterfront, it’s reassuring that CLF and other advocates are again manning the barricades to ensure a clean harbor’s benefits are enjoyed by all.
“Both the public at large and the appeal of Boston’s waterfront come out ahead when waterfront plans include ample public spaces and impose reasonable limits to height and density, as current law requires,” said Bradley Campbell, president of Conservation Law Foundation. “In this plan, the city allowed the dictates of developers to trump the rules, and the state in turn blessed the city’s approach with tortured reasoning, justifications, and trade-offs that were never even part of the public process. CLF will ask the courts to declare this plan unlawful, and end the pattern and practice of shortchanging the public trust.”
The “private benefits your decision confers on a few private developers dwarf any public benefits being provided,” wrote Heather Miller and Peter Shelley, attorneys for the group. “Critically and fatally to your decision, nowhere do you even articulate exactly how this project primarily serves a public purpose.”
A wave of luxury development threatens to wall off the experience of Boston Harbor from the people who paid to clean it up, just as the waterfront was once literally walled off behind the city’s Central Artery expressway. CLF Senior Counsel Peter Shelley remembers the original campaign to clean up the Boston Harbor, and continues to work on current issues of equity and fairness.
In this special issue of Conservation Matters, we want to take you behind the scenes of our work, to give you a glimpse into how we break down challenges and take advantage of opportunities to create a healthy, thriving New England – not just for today, but for generations to come.
… Under a settlement with the Conservation Law Foundation, Cronin agreed to increase the width of a planned portion of the Boston Harborwalk, and build and maintain a public dock at least as big as the nearby Pier 4. The South Boston company will also establish a fund for a new public waterfront park and… Continue reading Cronin, conservation group settle on Seaport development
