Developer, church sue city over the way the BPDA keeps rejecting their proposed hillside apartment complex on the Hyde Park/Roslindale line

A Texas developer that wants to build a suburban-style low-rise apartment complex on 14 acres of hillside that a Mattapan church owns off American Legion Highway this week sued both Boston and the BPDA, which has now twice rejected the development proposal as inappropriate for the city.

The developer, Willow Bridge Property Co. (formerly Lincoln Property Co.) of Dallas, wants to build 270 apartments in nine three-story buildings and 331 parking spaces on the land now owned by the Jubilee Christian Church, in a project that would mean chopping down most of the trees now on the site and blasting and carving away parts of the hillside on the site, on the Hyde Park/Roslindale line next to the Stop & Shop/Walgreens strip mall.

In their suit, filed in state Land Court, the developer and church accuse an "oppressive" BPDA of violating state zoning code by holding up the project, which they claim fully meets city zoning for the land and charged that if they bowed down to the BPDA and made the changes in the plans the BPDA wants, they would have to go before the Zoning Board of Appeal for variances, and that's just not right.

Except, they continued, they are now in an "administrative limbo" because they tried to appeal to the zoning board, but were turned down there as well because ISD won't issue a "denial letter" stating what parts of the zoning code the project would violate - required for zoning hearings - without a formal "adequacy determination" from the BPDA, which is refusing to grant one.

In February, 2023 and again in May, 2023, the BPDA refused to grant an "adequacy determination" because, it said, the project was very much inadequate for a hill in a Boston neighborhood - it only had one main entrance/exit to public ways, the project had too many parking spaces and it would involve too much leveling of a wooded hillside, requiring retaining walls that could reach as high as 40 feet.

Also, the BPDA continued, the plans were not detailed enough for adequate review by city transportation and public-works engineers and that even its one concession to nearby residents - to create a publicly accessible "lookout bluff" at the top of the hillside - was not enforceable because it would be on land that the church would still own after the project was built, but the church would not actually be part of the development beyond selling the land to Willow Bridge.

The BPDA laid out these issues in its first denial and asked Willow Bridge to come back with plans that more closely matched BPDA guidelines for large development, in particular as it relates to the steep hillside on which it would go. The authority issued its second denial after the developer filed additional documentation that the BPDA said the additional documentation failed to show any significant changes.

In their complaint, though, Willow Bridge and the church said they've had enough of the BPDA's onerous demands. Willow Bridge said that since first filing its proposal in 2021, it has:

Submitted 1,902 pages of documents, answered 248 quesitons during public meetings, answered 434 questions in filings with the BPDA, conducted four site walks with various departments, had twenty-four calls with city officials, made seventy-one reports and design submissions to the BPDA, and submitted 148 plan sheets to the BPDA. Despite the extensive, multi-year effort of [Willow Bridge] to obtain approval for the Proposed Project, the BPDA continued to block the Proposed Project by refusing to issue the Preliminary Adequacy Determination and by imposing oppressive conditions that would turn [Willow Bridge's] as-of-right project into one that requires zoning relief and substatal redesign.

In their complaint, the developer and church asked a judge to free them from the BPDA's "unjustified, unnecessary delay" and let them "use, enjoy, improve, alter or develop" the land. Specifically, they seek a ruling that the BPDA has exceeded its authority by continuing to block the project, that its demands for project changes are "unreasonable and invalid" because they would require major changes in a project they say already meets the site's zoning and that it should be ordered to "only impose reasonable conditions" on the project.

Complete complaint (14.4M PDF).
BPDA filings.