Anonymous Economic Analyst

Pier 5 is a unique in all aspects, important to the nation including, its history and the protection of its ship of state (from the environment and beyond), and a priceless natural resource, habitat and location that must continue to belong to us all,

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The City of Boston, The Public.  The material, adverse, and irreversible effects of ANY privatization of the Pier 5 Gateway (Pier 5 and surrounds both water, landfill, land) will be suffered in perpetuity by the Public, long after the developers leave.  The maximum allotted privatization of the Pier 5 Gateway has already occurred e.g., Buildings 197, 42, 103, Pier 7.    

The history and context of the late 1980’s decoupling of Pier 5 from Bldg 197 still applies and further, entirely negates all BPDA/Developer indications (past, present, future) that the Municipal Harbor Plan (such as it is, was and has and will be renewed or modified) trumps MGLChapter 91 including, and its mandatory strict standards (per the EOEA, as advised by DEP’s predecessor, DEQE and other authorities).

Density issues at the time of the original MHP (1991) were resolved via the New England Aquarium’s involvement, among other SPDF’s & public programming, that did not come to be, it was not understood that this proposed privatization or type of development (housing, commercial) was the intent.

All circumstances since, have only deepened the legitimate concerns and expanded the list e.g., density, climate change, flooding, traffic, noise, wildlife habitat, wind, shadow, shipping lanes, proximity to the national park and the ship of state, subsequent development and uses of the yard.   

There is no “as of right” for private use of The Commonwealth’s tidelands (watersheet or fill) and no private tenancy should be created.  Pier 5’s “blight” was self-inflicted – by the BPDA’s decades of negligence (at best), despite earning tens of millions of dollars from Navy Yard leases, sales, development and not re-investing in the yard, maintenance or otherwise.

The Navy Yard waterfront has been ignored by the analysis/planning environmental (flooding, use, density, environmental, wildlife, traffic, public health, crime) and otherwise in connection with “Downtown”, not to mention the debacle of Seaport over-development.

We must not forget history and make the same mistakes and we must not let Boston and/or the BPDA, a quasi-government body give away this unique historical and natural asset of the people for paltry chump change (e.g., casino neighbor payment). 

That goes triple for carpetbagging, disingenuous, misleading, inadequate, disrespectful of history, architecture, materials/facades, national military, economic, industrial significance, street/pier/tree canopy layouts, ruinous of sightlines of designated public viewing decks and public harborwalks proposals, consultant and profit-driven proposals.”