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Statement on Behalf of the Chinese Progressive Association
10/1 /02
The Chinese Progressive Association, an abutter to the proposed Liberty Place
project, has joined Mr. Simon So as a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the
City of Boston and its Board of Appeal for the following reasons.
The City of Boston has violated the principles of the Chinatown Community Plan
which serve as the comprehensive plan for the district. The overarching
goal of the Chinatown Community Plan is to "preserve the working class,
family community." Instead, the City has actively promoted the gentrification
of Chinatown by supporting projects such as Millenium Place, Liberty Place,
and the upcoming Kensington Place. The result will be some one thousand
units of upscale housing, in a tiny working class community of 1,500 housing
units. The few affordable units will be mostly unaffordable to Asian residents
of Chinatown, whose household median income, according to the 2000 census,
is $14,670. Chinatown residents are being priced out of the area, including
many of the CPA's members. Our own rent increased by 48% in the past year,
as Millenium Place went up and Liberty Place was proposed.
The City of Boston has failed to take decisive action to remove the Combat
Zone(the exclusive adult entertainment district placed next to Chinatown
-ed.) through rezoning, preferring to use the spectre of the Combat Zone
as both the carrot and the stick to force projects such as Liberty Place down
Chinatown's throat. Instead of rezoning, City Hall's strategy on the
Combat Zone is to fast-track development of upscale housing along lower Washington
Street. CPA and Chinatown residents fear it is their families, not the strip
clubs, who are getting pushed out. At the same time, the City tells us that
high-rise development is driven by high land values associated with the short
supply of adult entertainment-zoned land.
The City of Boston has ignored the will of Chinatown residents, who expressed
their overwhelming opposition to the Liberty Place project in a community referendum
monitored by the American Friends Service Committee and the League of Women
Voters this August. Three days after the referendum, without debate,
the board voted unanimously to grant a variance to build a project three times
the zoned height and some 50% the zoned mass for the neighborhood.
The Chinatown community has reached the end of our rope. Half of the community's
former land base was lost to urban renewal and highway construction, with both
the Central Artery and the Massachusetts Turnpike cutting through what was
once a vibrant neighborhood. In 1974, the City zoned the neighborhood's west
side for adult entertainment. Medical institutions occupy nearly a third
of Chinatown's land. Some 26% of the remaining land is used for parking.
Today, residents and businesses face further displacement as gentrification
is given the green light by City Hall. Yet Chinatown is the only neighborhood
in the city where residents have no official role in development review. This
minority, working class community is fighting for survival and demands the
same consideration and the same quality of life that is afforded to other neighborhoods
and communities in the City of Boston.
contact Chinese Progressive Association
Related Links:
Chinatown Says "Respect the Masterplan" - 1/22/02
