OWNERSHIP
CONDITIONS
HISTORY
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
DESIGN ISSUES
SOCIAL ISSUES
PLANNING PROCESSES
TESTIMONIES

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OWNERSHIP:
-- The bulk of the land is owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
-- The Massachusetts Audubon Society owns the 67-acre Boston Nature Center and Sanctuary, much of which runs along American Legion Highway between Walk Hill Steet and Morton Street. The Massachusetts Audubon Society permits the City of Boston to operate its composting facility within the boundaries of the nature sanctuary. 
-- The contaminated Canterbury Brook and banks are currently owned by the State. If, at some point, the State performs environmental remediation on the brook and passes, the State may pass ownership of the brook tothe Massachusetts Audubon Society in good condition. Until that time, the brook is a liability to its owner.

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CONDITIONS:
The 124-acre west campus is the larger of the two Boston State Hospital campuses. Although most of the state hospital buildings were demolished in the 1990s, two large buildings remain standing but severely dilapidated. One is in the vicinity of Harvard Street and the other is located at the turnoff for the Boston Nature Center's Environmental Conservation Center.

Boston Nature Center: Sixty-four acres of the property comprise the Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary. The Boston Nature Center land contains mulch-lined trails through vegetated wetlands, three small office buildings, the Clark-Cooper Community Garden, and the City's compost facility. The George Robert White Environmental Conservation Center -- part of the Boston Nature Center -- will be completed by September 2002. According to a 1995 vegetation survey, there are 180 species of native plants on the site. About 250 gardeners have plots at the Clark-Cooper Community Gardens (New Ecology, 2000).

State Biologics Laboratory: In the spring of 2003, construction of a new State Biologics Laboratory was well underway in the west campus of the Boston State Hospital site. The new facility will be located in the quadrant of the western campus closest to Walk Hill Street and Harvard Street.

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HISTORY:
From the time it opened in the late 1700s, the Boston State Hospital was self-sufficient in terms of food production. Current urban agriculture is part of this long tradition.

A history of the Boston State Hospital reads: "In May 1895, Boston's Industrial Aid Society devised a plan whereby the poor would raise vegetables on vacant City land...Families in the Mattapan and Dorchester community began growing their produce on the old planting fields of the Hospital along American Legion Highway in 1968. At that time, the use of abandoned public land or vacant lots for community gardens was quite novel, but in actuality, it was simply repeating history...The growing recession in the 1970s made community gardening at Boston State Hospital not only a social and recreational activity, but an economic one, helping people supplement family food budgets" (Heath, R, "The Great Meadows of Canterbury: Boston State Hospital Urban Wilds," 1993, p11).  

In 1996, with the unanimous approval of the Community Advisory Committee for the Boston State Hospital planning process, the Massachusetts Audubon Society bought the Boston State Hospital land from the City at a price of $10 per acre. Mass Audubon then established a community adversary board of 30 people, more than half of whom came from surrounding communities (The Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, 1996).

Mass Audubon held a brainstorming session with local groups on May 29, 1997. People created a "wish list" for the Boston Nature Center. Many of these ideas are being implemented in 2002 as the construction of the George Robert White Environmental Conservation Center moves toward completion (see below).

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ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES:
The Canterbury Brook runs through this section of the Boston State Hospital site along the edge of the Boston Nature Center property. The Brook is the responsibility of the State.

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DESIGN ISSUES:
The western campus still contains at least one dilapidated building that the State has not yet demolished. The building is fenced, but nevertheless contributes to the sense that the site is abandoned and uncared for.

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SOCIAL ISSUES:
Illegal dumping:
The western campus is frequently dumped upon. Trash, tires, and other materials litter the edges of American Legion Highway, and illegal dumping is particularly rampant where there are large gaps in the wrought iron fence. Large-scale dumping occurs at times within the Boston Nature Center. The shores of the Canterbury Brook contain shoddily-built paddocks, chairs, and other types of litter.

The Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) has hired a security guard to prevent illegal dumping on the western campus.

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PLANNING PROCESSES:
Legislation was passed in 2000 to grant permission for the University of Massachusetts Medical School to develop 15 acres of the site for a laboratory that will produce antibodies (not the vaccines themselves) and where vials will be filled with vaccine. According to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), which is running the planning process for the site, the development will cost an estimated $77 million and the building will be an estimated 87,000 square feet.

Since that time, the site has been expanded to 20 acres and is to be developed by Franklin Place Associates, which acquired the land from the State for minimal cost and which plans to transfer the land to the nonprofit medical school. Franklin Place Associates, a 60% minority owned company, had the original contract to build the facility, lost it, and regained it in 2002. The University of Massachusetts is obligated to hire a certain number of local residents to work at the new facility.

Under June 2002 plans, West Main Street, which runs through the western campus, is to be kept open for pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The new lab will blend into the natural surroundings. It will be leased to Franklin Place for construction, then subleased to Massachusetts Biologic, which will operate it (Thomas C. Palmer Jr, "Lab facility planned in Mattapan Umass medical project OK'd at site of former Boston State Hospital," The Boston Globe, June 21, 2002).

Finally, Mayor Thomas Menino has expressed interest in building a new Mattapan high school where the former Boston Pre-Release Center currently lies.

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TESTIMONIES:
"A Mattapan High School would be popular in the community. Right now Mattapan students scatter around the city for high school" (Steven Busby, Mattapan Community Development Corporation).

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