SAVE CHINATOWN
Fight Liberty Place!

This is adapted from the Campaign to Protect Chinatown's (CPC) article
8/7/01

Several organizations have begun moblizing against a development that threatens the Boston Chinatown neighborhood. Liberty Place is a proposed development that plans to build a high priced apartment tower in central Chinatown.

* Liberty Place will have 410 "unaffordable" apartments renting at a rate of $1,800-$3,000 per month.
* Liberty Place will include 468 parking spaces and ground floor retail space.
* Liberty Place will be 26 stories or 310 feet tall.



Activists from the CPC, the Chinese Progressive Association, and Chinatown Residents Association are concerned about a number of issues. They want to preserve Chinatown as working class family neighborhood, maximizing affordable housing, helping immigrant families remain in the area, reducing traffic and improve pedestrian safety, and creating open space. They also oppose the project because it violates the Chinatown Master Plan.

They cite increased traffic
The city estimates that a major thoroughfare's traffic will increase 36% even without the impact of Liberty Place, and a high rate of asthma exists in the neighborhood's elementary school. Liberty Place is part of a development boom that has brought projects, which will add over 1,000 luxury apartments to the surrounding Chinatown area, a "4 Star" Hotel and office and retail complexes.

Taking the fight to Liberty Place
CPC and many young Asian Americans have formed Fight Liberty Plaza (FLP). They're mobilzing around the issue and will take up letter writing to door to door as well as citywide organizing.

FLP will leaflet at the August Moon Festival Aug. 19. to build more grassroots support. They have also begun investigating legal recourse.