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Group says its planned climate-resilient waterfront park in East Boston wouldn't be, so cancels the plans

The Globe reports that after raising $30 million and hiring a design team to build a third Piers Park on the site of an old Massport pier in East Boston, one that would more fully connect people to the water, the Trustees of Reservations canceled the plans because of concerns over possible climate-related flooding in the future.

Eric Bender mourns the loss, describes the proposed park and says he doesn't really buy the reasoning and wonders if something else is at play:

Planners always knew that the site would be highly vulnerable to flooding and that this vulnerability would rise substantially along with the sea level here. Moreover, why would you ever place key coastal defenses on a pier? In this case, the Eastie neighborhood must be guarded by berms or other resilience measures in the other Piers Parks that sit directly inland of PP3.

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Comments

Noblesse Oblige looking for a problem, except looking for problems with blinders on.

I have been a member for a long time even though I use their locations perhaps four times a year. I just renewed my membership last week.

However, There appears to be a lot of continued dysfunction going at TTOR.

John Judge, a super great person who ran a lot of non-profits very well, including the AMC, was brought in and tried to steer the ship straight and was tossed from the organization fast.

The organization then brought in Katie Theoharides who comes off like she stepped out of an Eileen Fisher catalog if they merged with LL Bean and seems willing to keep the TTOR near their core mission of preserving land in rich people places for rich people. After all, If you place the land in trust, you won't have people from the city moving in next to you.

The climate change excuse to drop this project appears to be absolute BS. Flood maps for years have shown this area has potential for flooding. I hope no public money was wasted on this.

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Their only "contribution" to Boston was their land grab in 2014 when they engineered the takeover of community gardens from the Boston Natural Areas Network and kicked staff and volunteers to the curb. TTOR is no better than the tax-scamming conservation easement crowd who reap far more than they sow. Charles Elliot would not associate with most of them.

https://thetrustees.org/content/boston-community-gardens-history/

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The destruction of one third of the Berkeley Community Garden plots (many of which provided food and recreation for low income Asian families) two years ago under the pretext of replacing a fence, is a prime example of their shady classist and some have said racist agenda.

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The better way to spend 30 M on climate resilience might be to build more housing, further uphill and away from the coast. 30 million would not go far, but it would be more effective than this bad plan was.

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A bad one. One fuck up after another.
Considering how many natural areas they have control over, it’s scary to think what next these dilettantes may ruin.

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This saddens me. I had the pleasure of assisting high school students who participated in a summer program in East Boston. I hope that program continues even if it’s in another location.

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