The week kicked off with a milestone at Boston City Hall, where the mayor marked the first official day of the city’s first planning department in 70 years.
The new department was created by a mayoral ordinance that was approved by the City Council in late March, but the changes — moving staff and functions along with some land and money from the Boston Planning and Development Agency — did not take effect until Monday, the start of fiscal year 2025.
Mayor Michelle Wu has touted the establishment of the new department, which restores planning as a core function of city government for the first time in seven decades, as a “major” step in her plans to reshape development in Boston.
“Our goal to make Boston a green and growing city depends on planning together for our brightest future,” Wu said in a statement. “With our new planning department, we will be able to unlock a future for our city that truly centers Bostonians’ needs and brings communities together in making Boston a home for generations to come.”
Most of the BPDA’s staff have transitioned into jobs with the City of Boston and are considered to be employees of the new Planning Department, which will be overseen by Chief of Planning Arthur Jemison.
Moving planning under the purview of City Hall makes the new department subject to the same budgetary review accountability as other city departments, one of the changes that the mayor says drove her proposal.
The Planning Department is budgeted at roughly $32 million in the city’s FY25 operating budget, contributing significantly to this year’s 8% spending increase.
Its four divisions of planning and zoning, development review, urban design and real estate will be tasked with reshaping planning and development in the city. That includes fixing the city’s antiquated zoning code and ensuring development is responsive to the community’s needs, the mayor’s office said.
The independent BPDA board will remain the city’s planning board, reviewing development projects, planning and zoning initiatives, and land acquisitions and dispositions.
Keeping the planning board independent was seized upon by critics, who bashed the mayor’s ordinance for veering “far from” the roadmap she established for abolishing the BPDA when she was a city councilor in 2019.
The mayor and her supporters have pointed to the ordinance’s creation of the new planning department as a key component of her plans to legally restructure the BPDA, which is what she has proposed to do through a home rule petition she got through the City Council in spring 2023.
The pending legislation on Beacon Hill would end urban renewal, Wu’s office said, but like the ordinance it has faced significant pushback.
