Arthur Jemison, who took over as Mayor Michelle Wu’s chief of planning in May, recently sat down with the Dorchester Reporter to talk about his first six months on the job, moving back to the Ashmont-Adams area and other matters. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: What made you go back to Dorchester? Boston has a lot of neighborhoods.
A: I have very fond memories of living in the neighborhood. They're probably the kind of memories that many Dorchester residents old and new have: Barbecues, street hockey, iced coffee. I wanted to come back to the neighborhood because it's where my family and I've had great times. One of my mentors, the closest person to me, was Vince Droser, who passed away in 2011. He lived in the neighborhood, and my family and his family are close. I aspired to live in a neighborhood not that much different and not that far from his. He and his wife, Nancy really had a network and a family there. So, I'm back in my mentor's neighborhood.

How did you and Mr. Droser meet?
I had one of my first jobs working for Vince. He was at the Boston Housing Authority as the chief operating officer, and I was sort of the special assistant. And we worked on a number of projects, such as the old section of West Broadway, on D Street in Southie. At the time that I joined the Housing Authority, they were being threatened with receivership, more HUD oversight. And the idea was, we need to show operational improvements in our properties across the city. So Vince was obviously responsible for that and I got to watch him work with people to improve operations. And we were successful in convincing HUD that we didn't need more oversight, and then we could actually get through our operations. That was a really interesting adventure.

Working at a housing authority, you have to think about the whole city. But you also have to recognize neighborhoods and how different they are and to think about some of the most vulnerable families in the whole city all at once. It was really a great experience, watching Vince control and nudge and push and debate and argue with property managers all around the city about what they needed to do to get their properties in better shape.

And again, you're talking to people who don't have a lot of cash resources to manage their property. So it was just fun learning from a real experienced professional. He had just recently been the chief operating officer of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

We covered the launch of Plan: Mattapan and I just wondered where you think it goes now. And, given first reactions, how do you feel about it?
I'm pleased with the first reactions. I think the next test is to turn the comments into a completed draft that people can see. And then to bring that draft to the BPDA board. Probably also, in the final package that goes to the board, have it also contain the recommendations that are going to go to the people who are going to write zoning for it. I always like to highlight when people are able to have really constructive civil conversations, even when there's things that people disagree on. It's such an important part of how we're going to get stronger. At any rate, so I've been pleased with what I've been hearing.

One of the things that has been talked about most was creating units in garages, ADUs [accessory dwelling units] 3.0 they're calling it. What do you think of that proposal? In places like Mattapan, there are garages and backyards big enough.
I'm very bullish about ADUs. Here's why: One of the challenges right now is to find ways to densify and add new dwelling units and do it in a way that the people can get great comfort from. Often people talk about what they call form-based codes and form-based zoning where you say, we're going to upzone something, but it's going to be shaped exactly like things you're accustomed to. There's a phrase that planners sometimes use called gentle density. It's a way to obtain more density and more housing units in the city without building something that's going to rise out behind someone's house in a way that blocks someone else's view or has a whole lot of other planning or zoning issues attending it. That's the first thing I like.

Second thing is: Mattapan is – particularly because of the housing stock, based on the size of a lot — well suited to have these accessory dwelling units. If we're able to allow ADUs as of right, meaning you don't have to file a complicated ZBA case in order to get it to happen, it will mean that owners can use that right to potentially build these accessory dwelling units, and maybe house a grandmother or house a family member on their own, on site, to provide that gentle density.

The critical thing about it is that there's this value that could potentially be generated there, value to their house. Something that I'm investigating [with housing chief Sheila Dillon] is the idea of having one of our down-payment or home loan programs be expanded to allow people to finance the development of these ADUs.

There are multi-generational families who settled in Mattapan and we can say to a family, you know, you might be able to build out an ADU in your backyard, replacing your shed with a new housing unit and you might be able to have a multi-generational family live on this property. And if we're able to create a loan program that supports that, and importantly, get some of the suite of professionals you need to build an ADU, create a program that gives you access to kind of approved lists of those folks, I think you might have a chance to actually increase the value of Mattapan residents' properties.

Mattapan is home to many of the black homeowners in Boston. I think it's very much what we're about in terms of trying to increase people's access to growth in the value of their stake in the city. Because not everyone's been able to participate in that same way.

Owner-occupied or non-owner occupied for this program?
It would be my intent for that to be owner-occupied. Let me make sure I'm understanding what you're saying. So, I own a house, right? We build an ADU. I send my grandmother or my sister or somebody to live there, or I lease it. If you mean me staying the owner and occupying the building, yeah. I think that's important. And I do know this is an actual issue that we've been studying as well, which is that, whereas maybe 10 years ago, Mattapan may have been more owner-occupied single family; now there's been a lot more investor interest in in Mattapan, maybe than there was before. It’s something that we're definitely attentive to and we want to make sure that we're creating criteria, assuming we're allowed to, we will really target those homeowners.

To go back through your history, about working for BHA and the oversight angle there, and then when you went to Detroit, it was after its bankruptcy. What are some of the lessons you learned in those jobs that you're bringing to this job?
I've been in a lot of sort of change management intensive jobs, where there's a concern that we're not serving, public servants aren't maximizing their service to the public. I think that the key thing is it starts with a sense of urgency about what we're doing and knowing that there's a person on the other end of the service you're giving, who has quite a sense of urgency about receiving the benefit that you're trying to give them and you've got to be able to match the urgency of their need, with the pace of what we're doing.

Another thing is again, remembering that the focus is on the people and their future is the outcome of your work not, you know, “I did this.” It's not really the groundbreaking, it's not really the topping-off, it's the moving-in, right? That's when the unit starts to be a benefit to someone. So, centering the people in the development work that you do. I would say, honestly, that we (at the BHA) would get very focused on the numbers, and the economics and the permit list, and the schedule, the things that developers use to do their work. I knew about it, obviously from school and my first job, but really, using those things as the way you deliver that service to people. So I guess I would say, perhaps I'm focusing on what I've learned from Vince more.

Certainly, those first three things are central to the work I've done here in Boston, in D.C., in Detroit. One other thing that's important is that part of centering people means you have to build trust with them. If there's one thing I want people to feel about the way this agency changes is that people feel institutionally like they can extend more trust, the trust that exists between the city through its development and planning operation and citizens. The things you can do when that trust exists are greater than the things you can do when it's not there. And it's one of the reasons I'm particularly pleased about the Mattapan plan because, you know, depending on what generation you're in, you may remember the city and the agencies in the city in a way that doesn't suggest trust should be extended.

The question of trust seems to be kind of a through line of Mayor Wu's appointments with you, with Police Commissioner Michael Cox, and with BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper. Is that societal in terms of just a decline in trust in institutions over the last couple of decades? Is it Boston specific? Situation specific?
Unfortunately, you're right about it being a societal problem. But I also think there is a unique version of it with this agency. I think there are people who imagine this agency would act in one way and believe it acted a different way. Obviously, the West End is something that people critique the agency historically for. But just creating the relationship with the communities is crucial, because due to the kind of decisions we have to make together in the coming years, they're just going to require that trust. Now, trust gets earned, and so we're focused on doing that. But I think the more experiences people have with us when we say something, and we deliver on the things we say, or acknowledge where there are shortages and gaps as part of it, that's how you build trust.

We want to ask about the Morrissey corridor, and also Dorchester Bay City. Those are two big projects. What's your sense of how that process is going?
On Dorchester Bay City, I've had a chance to sort of be exposed at length to the proposal or the proposer. I've had a chance to talk to people like Dot Not For Sale and other advocates, the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, and heard a lot of different perspectives. I also spent a lot of time with the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

There's a lot of common interest there, in having new development support a wide range of things, everything from the university to life sciences, and residential to affordability components. I hear, and the council members, and the local electeds hear a huge amount of interest in ‘let's do something.’ Now the thing they want to do, each of them has a slightly different vision, but I don't see them as being so far apart that consensus can't be built. I'm really interested in finding ways to bring people together around that. We can come together around the things that people are talking about.

On Morrissey, I would say it is in some ways very exciting in that there's a lot of opportunity for it to be transformed. I'm excited that we're just begun a process of looking at Morrissey with the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. I think there's great opportunities on Morrissey to create a more urban boulevard there. From Kosciuszko Circle, to that segment next to Malibu Beach, the commercial district after Freeport Street, all the way down to Neponset Circle. There's a lot of great stuff happening there.

Getting back to your settling back in Dorchester: The Ashmont area condo that you moved into earlier this month, what’s the style of it? Three-decker?
It's a floor of a triple decker.

We're going to have to add in brackets the term “three-decker” because that's in our style guide for that kind of housing. The newsroom twitches when we hear Mayor Wu use the term triple-decker. That term basically came about because they were trying to rebrand three deckers.
To me, triple feels like more, versus three. You're not getting a single, you’re not getting a double, you’re getting a triple. (Laughs.) I recently saw “The Departed” again, which I think is a flawed movie but there's some writing in there that's absolutely brilliant, though.

[Editor’s note: In one scene from that movie, Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen are speaking with Leonardo DiCaprio and Wahlberg, who grew up in Dorchester before becoming an actor, mocks DiCaprio’s family as made up of “three decker men at best.”]

I always thought that was, like, what a localized putdown. He's a triple-decker [three-decker] man at best. He's able to live in his grandma's basement or whatever, that's what he's saying. If you're a student of Boston and the way people talk and the lexicon, it's like, “Yep, wow.” Again, some other time, we could go to my favorite Boston movies. “Friends of Eddie Coyle,” of course. And I think it feels very dated now, but I feel the original “Thomas Crown Affair,” and the version of Boston you see there, is fascinating, because it’s sort of when all things that the Boston Redevelopment Authority wanted to build were opening. You can see them for the first time, like the Prudential and City Hall Plaza.