Every retired planner I talked to in the last month was convinced that the development company Beedie Living would take the city to court after the surprise decision from the development-permit board in early November to reject the proposal.
The board has never completely rejected a proposal before.
Many of us wrote that it had been 12 years since there had been a rejection, but former city-hall staffer Phil Mondor did some research and found out that, actually, that project ended up going through, using even the same application number. So, really, there has been no rejection since the DP board was formed in 1974. Some people may see that as evidence of a bad system. But people familiar with the DP board say the whole point is to wave off/discourage/get rid of bad applications long before they get to the DP board, so that by the time a project gets there, it is approvable.
Anyway, the DP board decision was a subject of much chatter by city-watchers afterwards, because the heads of planning and engineering made the case that, although the building complied technically with the basic requirements of Chinatown zoning, it didn’t meet the requirement to be sensitive to the context. Both talked about it having too much bulk — a criticism that meant that, if Beedie were going to come back with a revised project, it would almost surely have to lose some valuable square feet, likely off the expensive upper floors.
Anyway, I got a tip this week that the company was going to appeal to the Board of Variance instead. That will mean another big public showdown, for sure. The board was considering setting a date in February, but pushed it to March, anticipating that at least a couple hundred people will show up.105-Keefer-Street-Appeal-Info-PDF
I wrote a Globe story about the appeal here. The actual appeal letter from the company is here. 105-Keefer-Street-Appeal-Info-PDF