BOSTON CHINATOWN DEMANDS, "RESPECT THE MASTERPLAN!"

By Kye Leung
1/23/02

Over a hundred people came to a hearing sponsored by the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Chinatown Neighborhood Council on the proposed 30-story Liberty Place development. Waving signs and banners that said, "Respect Chinatown and the Masterplan", the audience overwhelmingly said "NO!" to the project.

Chinatown already has the highest population density in all of Boston. While the population of Chinese and Asian Americans in Massachusetts has grown over the years, Chinatown has lost more than HALF its land to highways and medical institutions. Now mega developments threaten to gentrify the neighborhood and displace the people of the community who are mostly immigrants and working-class families.

The developers for the Liberty Place, Charles E. Smith is a publicly traded $9 billion company in partnership with W. Kevin Fitzgerald plans to build 400 market-rate housing units in Chinatown with 500 parking garage and then have the nerve to tell the residents that it's good for them. Just after the last elections when the Community Preservation Act was defeated in which it would have generated $50 million dollars to build more affordable housing, open space and historic preservation -- an act which Chinatown supported 2-1 in the polls -- the Boston Redevelopment Authority is supporting the developers to build 1000 luxury units along Chinatown and Lower Washington Street.

But the irony is that activists discovered that one of the major opponents of the Community Preservation Act, Fidelity Investments had spent a $2 million dollar campaign to defeat the question, but is now one of the top ten shareholders of Charles E. Smith, the developers for Liberty Place.

WHAT IS THE CHINATOWN MASTERPLAN?

The Masterplan is a document produced by the Chinatown community and the City of Boston in 1990 that set guidelines on what developments is appropriate for Chinatown. In the Masterplan, it clearly states that low-income and affordable housing is a priority and that developments should not be built more than 8-10 stories. Liberty Place exceeds the zoning limit by three times.

The six times that the developers met with the community, the residents have stated that the building is too high. Instead of lowering the height, the Liberty project has gone up from 26-story to 28-story and now 30-story. Where is the standard for allowable height? How do we know that next month they won't come back with a 35-story proposal? That's why the Chinatown Masterplan was created; it sets boundaries on how much developers can build.

Andrew Leong of the Campaign to Protect Chinatown said to W. Kevin Fitzgerald, the multi-millionaire who owns the parking franchise Fitz-Inn and who is the owner of the land on where Liberty Place will be built, "You have to earn the trust of the community. You can't come and give a scholarship for an Asian American law student and expect that we'll forget everything. Where were you in the '70s when the Combat Zone was here!? When you want to build Liberty Place and now its convenient for you to say you're removing the Combat Zone." What is being referred here is the infamous Naked I strip club that Fitzgerald leased to when he owned the land but now because he wants to build a 30-story project, Fitzgerald is claiming he's doing Chinatown a favor by removing the Combat Zone with a 30-story development.

An elderly resident came up and spoke for the people in her senior housing development, "We've endured the construction of Millennium for years now. When they were constructing they took away the sidewalk and now cars are racing down to the Ritz-Carlton on our street. There have been a number of people in our building that passed away the past couple of years due to the pollution and noise coming from the construction of the Millennium Towers. Another 30-story building is bad for this neighborhood."

Respect 2 (Organizing Residents for Political Power)

Related Links:
Residents, Activists and Students protest Liberty Place project:
QUICKTIME MOVIE 10MB. Quicktime Player required. Download the free player at apple.com

Chinese Progressive Association
Learn more about how the Liberty Place project impacts Boston Chinatown visit this website.