Leaders of the Columbia Savin Hill Civic Association (CSHCA) are questioning how city officials are planning to dispense a quarter of a million dollars in mitigation payments from a developer who won approvals to build two high-rise residential buildings on Morrissey Boulevard.
The $250,000 payment from Copper Mill, the development team for the 35-75 Morrissey Blvd. project, was approved by the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) board last Thursday (Feb. 12).
Civic leaders from CSHCA say those funds were intended to be put toward projects along Dorchester Avenue in their immediate area, but the language approved by the BPDA board says the funds could be allocated to programs “including, but not limited to, the Dorchester Avenue commercial corridor in the Columbia/Savin Hill neighborhood of Dorchester.”
The funds will be held by the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development and Inclusion for use by the Commercial Acquisition Assistance Program, which helps business owners purchase or lease properties.
“Mitigation funds are supposed to support communities impacted by developments on adjacent communities,” said Bill Walczak, president of CSHCA. “In the document passed by the BPDA, it extended the area to include all of Dorchester, and for buying commercial spaces. I hope I’m wrong, but it sounds to me that they already know where it’s going, and it won’t be to Columbia-Savin Hill.”
Walczak said the civic leaders have been hoping the funds would be used to extend the Fields Corner Main Street program farther up Dorchester Avenue into Columbia-Savin Hill. And business owners have long asked that key vacant lots in the neighborhood be purchased for public parking as is the case in Codman Square and Fields Corner.
Don Walsh, chair of the CSHCA’s Community Benefits Committee, said there should be more local control on how those funds are allocated.
“It’s supposed to go to mitigate adverse impacts of planned developments on a local community,” he said. “That’s what it is. Now we find out they will take the $250,000 and extend it to all of Dorchester. Dorchester is huge. Lower Mills has nothing to do with Columbia-Savin Hill. We’re going to oppose it, but how, and who do we talk to?”
On a similar front, Walsh said they continue to wrangle with the BPDA over a $750,000 donation promised by Copper Mill specifically to CSHCA – which would like to use it for hiring an executive director and to initiate a community-based comprehensive planning effort with the city and state.
The donation has been in limbo for several years, and he said right now they are working with Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation as a fiscal sponsor, but the BPDA has put itself “in the middle.
“Stay tuned; we certainly haven’t given up,” Walsh said. “To the best of my knowledge, we’re still saying, “Give us the full $750,000.’”
