A large part of our political delegation weighed in forcefully last week on the UMass Boston dorm debate and the result is likely to be dramatic and positive for all parties involved.

For the last 18 months, UMass Boston's proposal to build the first-ever student dorms on Columbia Point has been shrouded in controversy and contentiousness. This has happened, in large part, because there has not been a rational and reliable framework in place to scrutinize and deliberate the UMass proposal.

The result has been a vacuum of authority and leadership on both sides of the divide which has led to an impasse. There has been precious little give-and-take about the pros and cons of dormitories and far more rhetoric promoting one side's view over the other.

The "process", if it may be called that, is broken. And there is ample blame to go around: UMass Boston's administration has failed to provide a clear roadmap for engaging the community properly. The civic community was left to devise its own "process" and that effort has at times taken on the tone of a crusade against dorms, rather than a fair and balanced consideration of the issue. Meanwhile, our political leaders have largely avoided any constructive role in bringing the two sides to the same table.

The central problem moving forward is that UMass Boston, as a state entity, is not subject to the kind of regulatory oversight that private developers in Boston face when they build a large project. For instance, when Shaw's Supermarkets brought plans for a new store in Lower Mills to the table, they were obliged to go through a so-called "Article 80" review, supervised by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The process allowed for careful scrutiny of the plans and its impacts, thoughtful community input and, then, appropriate mitigation. It is sometimes tedious and imperfect, but the BRA oversight brings order and civility to debates that may otherwise become chaotic and unproductive.

Those last two words pretty well describe the state of the UMass dorm proposal of this week. And it is why the thoughtful suggestion of Councillors Michael Flaherty and Maura Hennigan that UMass submit itself voluntarily to an Article 80 process is welcome.

In recent years this newspaper has repeatedly called for a thorough master planning process on Columbia Point to bring some order and expectation of what UMass has in mind there, not only for dormitories, but for other expansion plans. There are still pressing questions about the re-use of the Calf Pasture Pump Station, for instance, that have not been adequately addressed by UMass. The BRA is the appropriate agency to conduct such a process on Columbia Point and the current dormitory proposal is the proper place to begin.

Thirty years ago, when UMass first arrived on Columbia Point, it did so in the wake of a lengthy and comprehensive community process that engaged the whole of Dorchester in a discussion of how the university would impact this neighborhood and what that meant for our collective future. Today, a similarly comprehensive study and conversation, supervised by impartial and professional urban planners, is urgently needed on UMass's Dorchester campus and in the surrounding community. We hope that UMass Boston- and its critics- will agree that it is now time for such a process, managed by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, to begin in earnest.

Ed Forry