BC Task Force Meeting: Tuesday 9/18 at 6:30 pm

BC Task Force Meeting

Tuesday, September 18, 2007
6:30-8:30 pm

Brighton Marine Health Center
77 Warren Street, 3rd floor
Brighton MA 02135

Agenda:

1. ISD Briefing- Overcrowding
   
2. Bishop Peterson Hall and Library- Renovations
   
3. Diseased/Dead Trees- Brighton Campus

For more information, contact:
John FitzGerald
Project Manager
Boston Redevelopment Authority
617-918-4267
John.Fitzgerald.bra@cityofboston.gov


Brown and Dying Trees

For more information on the dead and dying trees in the Brighton Campus (former St. John's Seminary property), see my previous post.

Late last week, I was informed that BC people (looking more like outside contractors than internal employees of their Urban Ecology Institute) were tagging some of the trees on the property. Upon visiting, I found the dying pine trees in question along Comm Ave to have pink tags on them; healthier trees were untagged. I also heard that there were other colored tags used elsewhere on the property: what I found were blue tags on apparently healthy trees (at least to my uninformed eyes) in the interior of the property, trees of all different kinds. But there were lots of trees without tags. And there was one metal lamppost with two colored tags, neither blue nor pink; I hope they don't try to saw it down.


Bishop Peterson Hall and Library: Renovations

These are buildings part of the final $65 million sale of property by the St. John's Seminary (controlled by the Archdiocese of Boston) to Boston College. See previous post for information on what buildings these are, and another previous post for BC's intended use for the buildings as of June 2007.

It is unclear the extent to which Boston College can occupy these buildings for institutional purpose prior to approval of some kind of Institutional Master Plan (or IMP amendment), let alone renovate them. In 2006, BC got an IMPA approved which provided for renovations and institutional use of other buildings within the Brighton Campus that had been purchased up until 2006, but that IMPA (in conjunction with the prior IMP) did not cover these new buildings (Bishop Peterson Hall and the Library).

At the task force meeting, BC and the BRA will presumably be explaining what approvals they may or may not need in order to proceed with these renovations and occupation of the buildings for institutional use. It is possible that it will involve an IMPA that they would want to fast-track for approval prior to dealing with the 10-year IMP, or that they will roll the renovations into the IMP itself... or that someone can figure out how they'll avoid the IMPA/IMP route altogether.