Challenge
Cathartes Investments, a Boston-based real estate development company, sought the authorization by the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals and a successful Article 80 development review by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in order to begin their housing project at 131 Green Street in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Stalling this process were abutters opposed to the development, uninformed members of the community, and a tarnished relationship between Cathartes Investments and the City of Boston, specifically the Mayor’s Office, City Councilors, and the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Cathartes Investments engaged O’Neill and Associates to develop and implement a community relations strategy in order to overcome these obstacles and successfully gain the appropriate approval.

Solution
In order to inform and educate the abutters and community about the proposed project at 131 Green Street, O’Neill and Associates worked diligently with Cathartes Investments to identify community concerns that could prevent a ZBA approval or become an expensive legal action against the development. O’Neill and Associates drafted, edited, prepared, and distributed informative collateral materials highlighting the benefits of the proposal in an effort to gain support not only from the neighborhood, but also from housing and redevelopment advocates and elected officials with an interest in the site.

In addition, O’Neill and Associates used grassroots campaign tactics to educate the community through direct and indirect contact. During this campaign, O’Neill and Associates:

• Held repeated meetings at the homes of the direct abutters
• Hosted several town-hall style meetings with concerned community members
• Canvassed neighborhood multiple times to directly meet with and measure support/opposition to project;
• Distributed literature to at each home in neighborhood for every iteration of the project; and
• Contacted by phone all listed supporters of the project, abutters, active neighbors, and community opinion leaders with updates, to gauge support/opposition and for all meetings.

Throughout the process, O’Neill and Associates met with the Mayor’s Office and elected officials to communicate Cathartes Investments’ attentive work with the abutters and greater community to help develop a compromise. Each version of the project and the end result was positioned as a “win-win” for the community and developer thereby resulting in support for the final proposal from the Mayor’s Office, the district city councilor, the at-large city councilor resident of Jamaica Plain and the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Results
Through the implementation of a solid grassroots strategy and direct community outreach, O’Neill and Associates was successful in winning the approval of Boston’s Zoning Board of Appeals for Cathartes Investments’ housing project at 131 Green Street in Jamaica Plain, Mass. The City of Boston’s key offices and officials and the affected community now comfortably support the project as well.

As a direct result of continuous discussions with the neighborhood, Cathartes Investments is assured of the continued support of the community and an open dialogue with the direct abutters throughout the construction and development process.

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