Being legal doesn’t make development right
I suppose you could say Joanne McDevitt sandbagged Marty Walsh yesterday.
When the mayor rolled up to the crest of East Broadway in Southie yesterday morning to celebrate the $1.5 million restoration of Medal of Honor Park, he certainly wasn’t expecting to get an impassioned earful on how developers are in a frenzy to cover the neighborhood with condos.
But that’s what he got, from Joanne McDevitt, who’s been a crusader for the neighborhood she was raised in.
Joanne and her brother, Dr. Robert Morris, who established “The Friends of Medal of Honor Park,” were acknowledged for their civic efforts, but they passed on the coffee and doughnuts.
What consumed them was not a feel-good moment. It was the condo grab on the opposite side of East Broadway, where a string of 16 stately brick bow-fronts line the block between M and N streets. They are about 150 years old and among the hottest pieces of Southie’s overheated real estate.
Joanne and her brother managed to persuade Marty to cross the street and follow them into a service alley behind one of those gracious Victorian townhouses.
The mayor took in the sight of a four-story brick structure, connected on both sides and completely hollowed out … gutted from top to bottom. This had nothing to do with fire, but everything to do with money.
McDevitt told Walsh the developer who bought the building intended to push the rear wall out some 40 feet into the alley to maximize the space and profit.
She also told him that the neighbors on both sides of the house have put up with a kind of manmade earthquake for the past couple of months.
The mayor just stood there for a moment, taking in the sight of the empty brick shell sandwiched between two occupied homes, as a back hoe clawed into the ground.
Walsh turned to an aide. “John,” he said, “how do they let him come out all this way?”
The mayor was told that under the existing zoning rules and regulations what was taking place was legal. All the necessary permits were granted.
McDevitt told Walsh that a group of irate neighbors who lived in the adjacent buildings were poised to challenge the regulations in the hope of halting what was taking place in front of him.
“But if it’s legal,” Walsh told McDevitt, “just because somebody doesn’t like it, I don’t know if you can stop it.”
“Has ‘ Dig Safe’ been contacted?” Joanne asked the mayor.
Walsh asked one of the workers if Dig Safe had been notified. The kid didn’t seem to know what the mayor was talking about. Walsh had the digging stopped and told the kid to have his boss call him at City Hall.
“Just because what they’re doing here is legal doesn’t mean it’s right,” Joanne said, “and we’ll fight to stop this. If this project is allowed to set a precedent, then the historic nature of all these buildings will be altered and what you’ll end up with is nothing more than high-priced tenements.”
Yesterday afternoon, the developer, Patrick Mahoney, said what you’d expect. He was looking to maximize the return of his investment. He acknowledged that the project will be disruptive, but then the current rules as written allow him to be disruptive.
But those rules won’t stop Joanne McDevitt.