Sign Your Name: It’s Time to Abolish the BPDA

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Sign Your Name: It’s Time to Abolish the BPDA

Boston City Council and Mayor

The BPDA (Boston Planning and Development Agency) is an outdated, unaccountable entity that prevents us from building a more just and climate-ready city. It’s time to abolish the BPDA, transfer its land to City control, and create a real Planning Department that answers to the people of Boston.

Learn more about this by reading our op-ed in the Bay State Banner: Boston’s next mayor must follow through and abolish the BPDA.

Sponsored by

Alternatives for Community and Environment

Boston, MA

To: Boston City Council and Mayor
From: [Your Name]

It's time to abolish the backward and antidemocratic Boston Planning and Development Agency. The BPDA's approach to planning has done huge harm to Black, Brown, immigrant, and low-income communities in Boston.

None of Boston’s peer cities (and indeed, no other city in Massachusetts) uses a semiprivate, unaccountable agency like the BPDA to manage planning and development.

We can solve this by abolishing the BPDA as we know it, breaking up its authority to new and existing departments and agencies, and establishing a Planning Department that answers to the people of Boston.

Let's learn from other cities: they have overarching master plans, updated regularly with public input, implemented by a Planning Department empowered with both permitting and inspection. These plans make it easier to collaboratively envision a more equitable future, and to address the racist impacts of displacement.