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Image courtesy of city of Boston
Nearly 5 acres of parking lots near the MBTA’s Community College station could be redeveloped for housing and other benefits, Mayor Michelle Wu announced.
An audit identified 1,200 vacant and underutilized municipal properties that can be offered to developers, Wu said during a press conference at Bunker Hill Community College.
The Bunker Hill Community College parking lots will be an early focus of the disposition process with a series of community meetings beginning this summer.
“We have a need for more housing. We need more green space, we need a chance to connect directly with public transportation,” Wu said, saying the initiative would use “public land for public good.”
The Boston Planning & Development Agency’s PLAN: Charlestown study will guide the process, which Wu said will “accelerate and streamline” approval to address the city’s housing affordability crisis. The study focuses on the future of the industrial corridor along Rutherford Avenue, which has attracted a series of large-scale development proposals in the past two years.
The land audit released today identifies several high-priority sites which have the potential for large-scale development, including:
- The Boston Water and Sewer Commission parking lots on Harrison Avenue in South End, which span 4.3 acres;
- The Boston Public Schools’ 5-acre Campbell Resource Center at 1216 Dorchester Ave.;
- The Boston Public Schools’ nearly 2-acre central kitchen property at 370 Columbia Road in Dorchester;
- The Boston Transportation Department’s Sullivan Square parking lots, which cover more than an acre near the Orange Line station.
- And the Sargent’s Wharf parking lot on Commercial Street in the North End, which is owned by the BPDA.
Under former Mayor Marty Walsh, the Office of Housing Innovation sought proposals from developers in 2018 for 83 city-owned parcels across the city, with a goal of spurring housing creation.
Developers submitted 24 conceptual plans for several notable projects, including a 700-foot skyscraper above the City Hall Annex and a 465-unit residential tower at the Columbus Avenue fire station. But the city never moved ahead with a disposition process.
More recently, a study by Ann Beha Architects determined that a combined 142 housing units could be built at the West End and Egleston Square branches of the Boston Public Library.
