Public Land for Public Good

We believe community members should have control and say over public land. Public land should be used for public good, especially land that was made “public” by taking our away ownership of housing of residents who historically lived there as we saw happen in Roxbury with the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The way that we practice this belief is by showing up, and building our community of educated and energized participants to lead discussions. 

We are Roxbury’s watch dogs!

Plan Nubian Square: We have watched “Plan:Nubian Sq” unfold since its inception in 2015 as Plan: Dudley Square under the Walsh administration. See our history section and our blog for more background on Plan:Nubian square and how we advocated to win strong community informed standards in 2018 for public land development, like a requirement for housing to be 66% affordable and have diverse development teams. We are proud of the community informed standards for development we helped create and have been focused from 2021 until today on ensuring that developers follow their commitments and provide a public good on public land as they build out their projects. Our community created standards for development have been used as the building blocks for other public land development in Roxbury and neighborhoods across the city.

Boston Water and Sewer Public Lots have been targeted through a citywide land audit Mayor Wu’s administration commissioned due to calls from housing advocates for the review. The public land audit identified sites that can be used for public good, like affordable housing. Over the Spring/Summer of 2023 we pushed for strong requirements in the RFP during the RFP creation process, similar to those in the Plan:Nubian Sq process described ,above like a requirement for 2/3rds or 66% of housing proposed be affordable and diverse development teams. The RFP’s were released in the Summer of 2023 with a short deadline to ensure developers take advantage of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan funding for affordable housing, which doesn’t last forever. Two developers have submitted proposals in response to community RFP’s and we would love your input, as our Executive Director is on the Project Review Committee which selects the developers.

Want to learn more and get involved?

• Help us select a developer using this form, linked here deadline March 22nd

• Learn more about BWSC lots on the BPDA website

• Check out this tracker to see details of coming developments in and around Nubian Square: Learn more about projects

• Join us at RSMPOC meetings where our neighborhood representatives on the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan Committee and the BPDA share updates about public land development in Nubian Square land

Want to learn more about local development and our work? Send us an email: reclaimroxbury@gmail.com

DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT DISPLACEMENT

We support strategies that allow for development of housing, without displacement. Here are a few campaigns and efforts we are apart of to ensure development without displacement.

Increasing the Inclusionary Development Policy (IDP): We are apart of the coalition for a truly affordable Boston to increase the amount of truly affordable housing created through the inclusionary development policy. The policy currently requires housing developments with over 10 units or 30k square feet to have 13% of units be affordable at 70% AMI. Update! In the end of 2023 The Wu administration filed updates to the policy increasing it to 20% among many other changes. While we had hoped for more, we are proud of the increase in affordable housing, closing of loopholes, and lowering of the threshold to trigger IDP and look forward to a thorough review of the program for future updates in the future.

• Learn more: https://www.affordableboston.org/

Rent control: We see rent control as a way for development to continue, without residents being at risk of displacement from massive rent hikes. We are apart of a coalition “Homes for All Mass” advocating for rent control, and have members on the mayors rental control advisory committee. March 3rd 2023 Boston City Council passed rent control!! It is now on to the State house. Make sure your state rep/senator supports our rent control bills in the State house!

• Link to HFA

AFFH: We support efforts to affirmatively further fair housing in Boston, building on the work of the civil rights movement and the Obama administration. Read more about our work for AFFH on the blog post below.

• Link to info

CRSC: We are apart of a coalition advocating for the funding of city rental subsidies, led by the Mass Association of Hud Tenants. City funded vouchers allow renters to live in Roxbury and around the city at an affordable rate. The 2023 IDP policy update requires developers to have 3% of units for rental subsidy holders, positioning our work to help create more available units

• https://www.maht.org/city_rent_subsidy_program

VOTER REGISTRATION

A major part of our work is making sure residents in Roxbury get out to vote, because we know our vote is how elected officials measure how much they should be listening to our demands! We also knock on doors to learn about what issues are important to Roxbury residents. Join us!

We helped passed Question 1 for a Better Budget in Summer 2021!

We knocked over 7000 doors, spoke to 700 people and won Question 1 for a Fair Share and Question 4 for safer roads in Summer 2022!

Want to join our outreach efforts? Apply to join our paid civic team or email us at reclaimroxbury@gmail.com to volunteer!