The Fenway Community Development Corporation has a vision for the Fenway neighborhood.
Their Urban Village Plan calls for the renovation and revitalization of the Fenway area of Boston, with a particular focus on Boylston Street. The Fenway CDC wants to change the current surface parking, gas stations and fast-food restaurants into a pedestrian friendly neighborhood with mixed-income housing over ground-floor retail, a new school and a community center.
‘This is a vision that residents came up with themselves. It’s all about working with homeowners and involving other property owners to make the outcome profitable for them,’ said Maureen White, one of the Fenway CDC project organizers and a recent Boston University graduate.
Not only would the Urban Village Plan address housing, education and community-building, but it would be committed to public transportation and the environment as well, the CDC said.
The plan calls for upgrading the Riverside Green Line with full handicap accessibility and extended hours of operation. All development in the Fenway project would use renewable energy sources and protect natural resources.
According to White, the plan was drawn up by residents 10 years ago in 1992, and the Fenway CDC still aims to develop a common vision for all members of the neighborhood.
‘This kind of thing doesn’t happen overnight,’ said White. ‘We’re looking at years and years of hard work. The stuff we advocate for is hard to argue against; a lot of it is common sense and good planning.’
But the Fenway CDC has faced, and continues to face, some obstacles in the development of the project. One significant challenge has come from the Boston Red Sox, whose owners proposed building a new 44,000 seat stadium on Boylston Street.
The CDC considers the current historic Fenway Park a mixed blessing: although it attracts tourists and brings vibrancy to the neighborhood, with those benefits come increased traffic and pollution problems. The UVP does not welcome the building of an even larger stadium.
Mayor Thomas Menino, who actively supports the Urban Village Campaign, addressed this issue in his 1999 State of the City speech, saying, ‘Stadiums do not revive cities. People do.’
‘The Red Sox architects did not involve the public at all in their design,’ White said. ‘With a new stadium, they will swindle the taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars and they will basically double the size of Fenway Park instead of leaving space for a newspaper headquarters or a drugstore.’
City Councilor Mike Ross (Back Bay, Fenway), who has been involved in the project from the beginning, acknowledged the Red Sox owners have dismissed the plan for a new stadium and have instead opted for renovations on the current stadium.
The Urban Village Project will ‘change the face of Fenway,’ Ross said. Ross has also been involved in promoting university-community relations in the area, which is populated by a large number of college students.
University housing has proved to be a challenge to the CDC’s plan to revive the Fenway area. Because many groups of students live off campus in Allston and Brighton, paying for one apartment along with help from their parents, landlords are encouraged to increase the rent. Many families needing housing in those areas cannot afford the elevated prices.
‘It’s not the students’ fault for wanting to live off-campus, it’s the universities’ fault for not keeping them on campus. Kids want to live without things like strict guest policies and the universities should listen to their needs. The way it is now, landlords jack up prices and they get away with it,’ White said.
