Photo: District 7 Councillor Miniard Culpepper addresses reporters during a Roxbury Neighborhood Council press conference. Looking on are RNC Chair Connie Forbes and RNC members Kate Phelps, Reggie Stewart and Angela Williams-Mitchell. Photo by Yawu Miller
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Back in 2003, Roxbury activists and elected officials were working on a master plan for vacant land in the neighborhood with Kairos Shen, who then was the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s director of planning.
The final deal between the BRA and Roxbury representatives outlined a detailed process through which large parcels of state-owned land would be developed, including fine details on how those decisions would be made and who would get to make them.
In the final draft of the plan, members of the community and the late Mayor Thomas Menino agreed that a Roxbury Strategic Master Plan Oversight Committee (RSMPOC) would have the power to select and approve projects and that the Roxbury Neighborhood Council (RNC) would have the power to nominate members to that committee.
Now, 23 years later, Shen is the head of the BRA — rebranded as the Boston Planning Department — and RNC members say another mayor is attempting to usurp power from their organization, bypassing the RNC’s nomination process to fill vacancies on the oversight committee.
“We hope the mayor will honor the community process in the master plan,” said RNC Chair Connie Forbes. “This is a neighborhood specific framework.”
In October, city officials posted an application form for community residents seeking to fill two vacancies on the oversight committee. Under the terms of the master plan, which was signed in 2004, neighborhood council members and officials elected to districts representing Roxbury have the sole power to decide who is nominated, while the mayor has the power to pick committee members from the list.
Forbes fired off a long, detailed and pointed letter dated Oct. 30 to Wu’s office noting that “Per the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan, it is unambiguous and clear that the RNC and Roxbury’s elected officials own the nomination process.”
The dust-up is the second this year involving Wu and the oversight committee. In January, the mayor announced that the city would allow the designation of a team slated to develop Parcel P3 on Columbus Avenue and would instead use the vacant land for the development of a new campus for Madison Park Technical Vocational High School.
While the city’s Planning Department has the power over a developer’s designation to build on a parcel, under the terms agreed to in the master plan, the city is required to hold a public process led by the oversight committee to determine, with community input ,what should be developed on the formerly state-owned land covered by the plan
A spokesperson for the mayor was asked for comment but did not respond in time for this story’s deadline.
District 7 City Councillor Miniard Culpepper said that Wu’s announcement effectively undermined years of community planning around Parcel P3, angering activists and elected officials.
“What’s developed in this community ought to be in the best interests of the community,” Culpepper told The Reporter. “Who knows better what’s in the interests of the community than the people who live here?”
The councillor sent a letter on Oct. 29 requesting that the city suspend its search for new committee members and called on it to provide a written explanation for “the legal basis for any determination that the master plan’s nomination procedures are optional.
“The residents of Roxbury have spent decades advocating for meaningful participation in decisions that shape their neighborhood,” Culpepper wrote. “The city must respect the community planning structures established through that advocacy rather than diminish their authority.”
Forbes and members of the RNC met with city officials on Oct. 27 and 29 in an attempt to iron out their differences and assert their authority over the nomination process. Forbes said that city officials told RNC members that the city’s Legal Department determined that the terms of the 2004 agreement between Roxbury activists and elected officials and Menino was not legally binding.
“They also argued that, because the mayor is elected citywide, she qualifies as a Roxbury elected official for nomination purposes,” Forbes wrote to Wu in her Oct. 30 letter.
She noted that the language in the master plan is clearly meant to signify officials elected to represent districts that include Roxbury, not citywide officials. The mayor’s role, choosing from the list provided by the RNC, is distinct, she argues.
“The Plan’s language clearly distinguishes the respective responsibilities,” she wrote in the letter.
Forbes’ letter also asked Wu 14 questions, including whether her administration recognizes the RNC’s role as outlined in Article 50 of the Boston Redevelopment Authority zoning code in reviewing and making recommendations on development projects. The RNC was not notified or consulted in Wu’s decision to move Madison Park to Parcel P3.
Forbes also asked Wu whether her administration believes it cannot, or if it has simply elected not to follow the master plan’s governance frameworks.
“The City and the people of Roxbury built the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan through partnership,” she wrote. “The RNC remains ready to honor its part of that partnership. We ask the administration to state, clearly and on record, whether it intends to do the same.”
Nearly two weeks after Forbes emailed the letter to Wu, she has yet to receive a response to her queries.
Copyright © 2026 Boston Neighborhood News, Inc. This content may not be re-published or re-used without written permission.
