Golden readies for departure
Ex-state rep is longest-serving chief of Hub planning agency
Boston Planning & Development Agency chief Brian Golden is departing at the end of the month, the agency announced.
Golden has led the longcontroversial planning agency — which, when he started, was known as the evenmore-controversial Boston Redevelopment Authority, or BRA — through a series of modernization efforts as building boomed under his and Mayor Marty Walsh’s tenures.
“I will always be rooting for the work this agency and its professionals do for the people of Boston,” Golden said in Thursday afternoon’s board meeting, calling the “great job” an “honor and a privilege.”
Golden, a former state rep from Allston-Brighton and an Army veteran, led the department for eight years, including nearly all of Walsh’s time in office — and the longest tenure in the development agency’s history.
In Thursday’s meeting, the various board members and BPDA staff heaped praise on Golden. BPDA Board Chair Priscilla Rojas told him, “We will each individually miss your leadership.”
And member Carol Downs said his will be viewed as a “successful” time at the agency, during which it “went from being a 20th century organization to being a 21st century organization.”
It’s no secret that Mayor Michelle Wu has a different vision for the BPDA than Walsh’s and Golden’s. A few years ago when she was a city councilor, her office released a manifesto about abolishing the agency, which critics like her say still leaves much to be desired in terms of transparency and community engagement.
Wu on Thursday said in a statement, “His leadership has boosted economic development throughout our city, encouraging businesses and developers to
invest in the City of Boston. I wish him the best in the future.”
Critics still do say the agency has a long way to go on these fronts. Golden’s departure prompted a group of North Enders frustrated at the process around a proposed hotel on Cross Street
to fire off a statement saying they hope “the leadership change would reverse a process that favored a developer with plans that are incongruous with neighborhood interests.”
It’s not entirely clear quite how abolish-y Wu is planning to get — actually junking
the BPDA likely would require state approval — but she already has created a new “chief of planning” position that would in effect be her office’s oversight role looking at the quasi-independent BPDA. The administration is in the process of hiring for that spot.
Golden has remained head of the BPDA through the first few months of her tenure, but will leave at the end of April.
Golden was appointed executive director/secretary by former Mayor Thomas Menino in 2009, and then permanent director by Walsh in 2014.
The BPDA touts that over that time the city’s approved a total of “approximately 49 million square feet of residential development, as well as 32 million square feet of commercial, institutional, life science, hotel, retail, and industrial development. These projects represent approximately $43 billion of investment.”
Golden’s tenure also saw a rebrand of the agency from the BRA, which had a longstanding bad reputation for plowing away Boston neighborhoods like the West End for urban renewal, to the BPDA.
In Thursday’s meeting, the various board members and BPDA staff heaped praise on Golden. BPDA Board Chair Priscilla Rojas told him, ‘We will each individually miss your leadership.’