BU Must Overcome Poor Environmental Reputation

At the end of last semester, The Daily Free Press printed an editorial that applauded Boston University’s sailing pavilion proposal. The editorial also suggested that numerous neighborhood groups, non-profit organizations and BU’s own Environmental Student Organization oppose BU’s proposed location for the pavilion because of a long-standing and simmering antagonism in the Boston community toward BU’s administration, rather than because of a legitimate concern regarding the placement of the pavilion. In other words, the editorial painted BU as a nice guy that is being unfairly harangued by a misguided community. The editorial made some good points, but arrived at very faulty conclusions.

BU may be starting to act like a “nice guy,” but its actions must be viewed in the appropriate context. BU is currently complying with the state’s Massachusetts Environmental Protection Act (MEPA) unit, which mandates public participation and environmental review, but the editorial writer failed to examine the question of why the administration is now willing to undergo the bothersome process of considering what Boston’s citizens think of its plans, given that it had previously engaged in what one Boston Herald writer called an “end run” around Massachusetts’ public process. BU’s administration twice attempted to push a bill through the Massachusetts Legislature to secure a prime piece of Esplanade land — a section of the large, grassy field across from Bay State Road that houses an outdoor workout area — without taking into consideration the ever-increasing outcry for public participation by the surrounding community. It also paid little attention to the voice of the BU student body on the issue. The Legislature, recognizing both the importance of BU’s preferred location on the Esplanade as one of the Boston’s largest areas of green space and the area’s recreational and aesthetic value to the public, would not lease the land to BU. The only way for the University to lease Esplanade land — public land — for the pavilion was to go through the public process set out in MEPA’s guidelines. The University isn’t going through the MEPA process because it is trying to be the good guy in this situation; BU is going through the process because it has no other choice if it wants a new sailing pavilion.

As to the question of why students, NGOs, and community groups are still making noise about the pavilion now that BU has been forced to bring all of the stakeholders to the table, the answer is that BU still has not significantly changed its proposed location from the same huge piece of green space that it has pushed for since the beginning. People relax, enjoy the scenery and play in that area! Is it any surprise that the majority of the community and

many BU students would prefer BU shifts its proposed location to an equally usable area nearby that will have less impact on users of the Esplanade? Such a place exists just to the right of BU’s proposed location (termed Site 5 in MEPA jargon), only a two-and-a-half minute walk away, yet BU refuses to compromise by switching its proposed location to this site, which is functionally equivalent to its proposed site.

As to the editorial’s assertion that BU’s difficulties siting the pavilion result from its checkered environmental past and tense relations with the surrounding community, to a limited degree the editorial writer may be correct. If so, the administration should learn a most important lesson from the pavilion controversy: Its actions do not occur in a vacuum. The actions that the University takes in regard to issues like building around BU and the sailing pavilion will not be soon forgotten by the Boston community or by BU’s own students. A poor display of goodwill toward the community and/or the student body today may come back to haunt the administration tomorrow. The lesson that should be learned here is that it pays for the University to start acting like an environmental and community “good guy.” As the editorial pointed out, BU is beginning to show very thoughtful and reasonable behavior in its most recent actions on the issue of University recycling, but it will take both time and an even-handed approach to all of the University’s problem issues to heal its festering grievances with the community and its poor environmental reputation.