OWNERSHIP
CONDITIONS
CONTEXT
HISTORY
PLANNING PROCESSES
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
DESIGN ISSUES

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OWNERSHIP:
-- The Commonwealth of Massachusetts owns the land.
-- The Department of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) has authority over most of the land, with eight acres administered by the Department of Youth Services for the Metropolitan Youth Center. 
-- In 2002, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) is running the planning process for the site.

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CONDITIONS:
The east campus of the State Hospital site is 792,000 square feet of land. Pre-construction for a housing complex on the land began in the fall of 2001. The general contractor is Charter Environmental Inc., a company that specializes in providing waste management and environmental contracting services to the construction and environmental industry.

Wetlands:
The Canterbury Brook, which some incorrectly refer to as Stony Brook, runs parallel to Morton Street just within the east campus of the Hospital site. The stream is associated with several environmental issues that are outlined below.

Topography:
The site slopes upward from Canterbury Brook to a highpoint of 110 feet at the intersection of Austin Street and American Legion Highway. The grade is generally low to moderate, and the developers of the site worked to reduce this grade.

Edges:
The wrought iron fence along Morton Street is in better condition than the fence around the western campus of the State Hospital site, where there are large gaps. As a result, illegal dumping is less common on the site. There is virtually no sidewalk along the Harvard Street edge of East Campus.

Metropolitan Youth Center:
The Metropolitan Youth Center is a detention center for young offenders. The facility is accessed from Harvard Street and is comprised of several buildings with bars across the windows, an outdoor basketball court with very high fences, and two major parking lots.

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CONTEXT:
-- The east campus is by far the smaller of the two sections of the former Boston State Hospital. 

-- According to the 2000 Census, the Dorchester community adjacent to the east campus of the Boston State Hospital Site has a population of 2,839 people, 98.5% of whom are minority residents, with 83.4% African American residents and 11% Hispanic residents.

-- The Department of Youth Services Metropolitan Youth Center (a juvenile detention center) is on an eight-acre site on the East Campus. The Center will not be relocated even after the housing construction has been completed. There is some concern about the proximity of the Youth Center to homes among people with a stake in the success of the development. 

-- Lena Park Community Development Corporation (CDC), the Franklin Park Maintenance Yard, and the residential area along Harvard Street are immediately adjacent to the east campus of the State Hospital Site. Because the Franklin Park maintenance yard is not accessible to visitors, and because there is not an accessible entrance to the Park along the southern half of American Legion Highway, Franklin Park will not be as accessible to future residents at it would appear from looking at a map. To reach a viable entrance to the park, residents will need to walk several blocks north along American Legion Highway. 

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HISTORY:
A pond originally on the site was filled in in approximately 1900. The former pond area has low structural density and has been used in recent years as a playing field for the Department of Youth Services facility.

The Morton Street entrance to the East Campus of the Boston State Hospital site was formerly the main entrance to the east campus when the parcel was in use as a hospital. After 1930, the east campus was the site of the State Hospital department for women. Most of the buildings on this section of the former hospital site were vacant by the late 1970s, although the hospital did not officially close until 1981. The community and government planning process for the redevelopment of the site has stretched out over two decades.

See entry for Boston State Hospital (as a whole) for more detailed history.

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PLANNING PROCESSES:
The planning process for the redevelopment of the hospital site began in 1983. As early as 1985, the Community Advisory Committee recommended that the entire east campus of the site be used for a housing development (with the exception of the Department of Youth Services land). According to a 1993 Master Plan for the site, 59 homes were to be built on the site and 3.5 acres were to be left as open space.

In 2002, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) is running the planning process for the residential redevelopment of both sections of the Boston State Hospital site, despite the fact that the land is owned by the Commonwealth.

The primary new development in the east campus of the Boston State Hospital site is to be called Harvard Commons or the Harvard Co-Op. The State's Department of Housing and Community Development awarded Cruz Development Corporation more than $575,000 in tax credits annually until 2012 from the low-income housing tax credit to develop new homes for low- and moderate-income families on the property. As of June 2002, the anticipated square footage of the residential development is 182,500, and the proposed cost is $15 million. There will be a total of 100 units ranging from studios to four-bedrooms, with ten units reserved for Department of Mental Health clients and a number of units available to those who earn less than 60% of the area's median income. The market-rate units will be on lots that are twice as large as the below-market-rate lots (Thomas Grillo, "State grant will help rebuild old state hospital site," The Boston Globe, Feb. 23, 2002).

Phases II and III of the proposed redevelopment will provide 50 additional units, 30% of which will be priced as affordable to low- and middle-income people.

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ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES:
Canterbury Brook (sometimes called Stony Brook):
The Canterbury Brook, which runs through the property, is contaminated with high lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) levels. In several sections, the brook is very trashy. For example at the place where the brook dips under Morton Street there is a buildup of cans, plastic bottles, and other trash that covers the width of the brook. Along the Canterbury Brook there is a designated wetland area that restricts development within a 100-foot buffer zone parallel to Morton Street. Thus, development will be set back from Morton Street.

At the onset of redevelopment, there was also contaminated soil on the property. The state secured legislative funding to clean up the contaminated soil.

Erosion:
Beginning in the fall of 2001, the east campus of the Boston State Hospital site has been cleared and the slope of the land made more moderate. One year later in the fall of 2002, no decision had been made as to how the site would be redeveloped. In the meanwhile, the soil and debris on the 792,000 square foot parcel are languishing with little protective vegetation. The site is adjacent to the Canterbury Brook to the southeast. Eroded soil from the site could have a deleterious impact on the brook.

Lead contamination:
In 1995, an environmental site assessment identified 7.5 acres of land just east of the Canterbury Brook and Morton Street that were contaminated with lead.

Water table:
Before the site was re-graded, the groundwater table ran about five feet below the grade for much of the site.

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DESIGN ISSUES:
Some of those who are involved in the planning process for Harvard Commons are concerned about the arrangement of the residential units. For example, some are concerned that if all the affordable housing or all the Department of Mental Health units are clustered together, groups will become stigmatized and ostracized from one another. Others feel that a plan with scattered units would hinder the delivery of special services for residents at Mental Health units, while still others worry that the marketability of the homes might decrease if the Mental Health units are scattered.

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